Tags
faith, God, Jesus, religion, Word of God
Psalms 138:2 says I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
magnified, in the original hebrew, is gadal – to grow, become great or important, promote, make powerful, praise, magnify, do great things
that’s a very strong statement to make about God and His name, which name is above every name that can be named, both in the heavens, and in the earth. why in the world would God do that? what does He think about His word, that He would promote it above His own name?
scripture says that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. it says all things are held together by the word of His power. it says like the snow and rain that come down and water the earth, and make seed to grow for bread and more sowing, so shall His word be that goes from His mouth, and not return void without prospering in the thing where unto He sent it.
scripture says that the word became flesh, and dwelled among us. it says if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father, that He is the express image and likeness of God. the very self expression of God.
Jesus said about Himself that it was for the cross that He was born into the world. His main reason for coming was to walk as a man and fulfill the requirements of the covenant with God, and then pay the awful price for our sin with His own blood shed on the cross. that meant being cut off from the Father for 3 days. that meant going to hell in our place. God was separated from His own word, which is the very expression of Himself completely, and the revelation of Himself to us on our level, so He could pay the price that we would never be able to pay ourselves without being lost forever.
that’s not religion. that’s the most self sacrificing love that ever existed. that’s why He has magnified His word above all His name.
what does that mean for us? what difference could this make?
this makes all the difference. by doing this, by taking the repercussions of our fall, He took the entire blow of the fall. we, then, have access to His standing with God, which is unbreakable. it also reverses the corruption that turned the blessing God originally gave to man into a curse. everything God said to man in that blessing put him in a place of power and authority over creation, and empowered him to prosper in everything he put his hand to. when he turned away from God, and chose first to doubt what God’s motives were, and then to act on those doubts, trying to gain on his own what God had already given him, that blessing turned to brass along with everything else. God, by sending His word as the Son of man, fixed all that forever.
this is what romans 8 1-4 says it like this:
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
can you see now why God has magnified His word above all His name?