WHICH JESUS

 

The black community, the Born Again Christians in KZN always emphasize “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” whenever they pray.

One day  a certain sister told me why we ought to say Jesus Christ of Nazareth instead of Jesus Christ or simple saying Jesus. She told me a story that there was a women who was a UCKG (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) member whom they told to stop her fellowship with the UCKG because it has ungodly practices.

The woman became bitter and agitated, not knowing where to direct her feelings. She did not believe them. The UCKG was her church for 15 years. Then the sister told the woman how she should pray. Whenever she prays she should emphasize ‘in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’.

One day during the service at the UCKG the woman prayed. She called the name  Jesus Christ of Nazareth  and when she did so the ushers took her and ushered her to the office.  (In the UCKG there are people who come to you while you pray and wave hands above your head, praying for you, I guess that’s how they heard her praying)

At the office they asked why she was saying Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  They advised her never to pray to that Jesus again. Their Jesus is just Jesus, their Jesus is a stone. She should never again call that name which is Jesus Christ of Nazareth or else…

She was frightened. She came to the sister who had told her to pray in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and told her everything.

I don’t know about the authenticity of the story, but between the Born Again Christians and the UCKG the relationship is next to cold but no one fight anyone here in KZN, maybe not physically but there are always rumours of spiritual warfare. We as the Church in KZN  blog wonder if any of these stories are real and for now we would like to distance our self to claims of knowing anything.

The question

Which one should we use when we pray, Jesus or , Jesus Christ or else the Jesus Christ of Nazareth? What if the UCKG prays to a stone? What if the story is just a fabrication? What are the dangers of using just the name Jesus when we pray?

[credits:youtube]

The name Jesus

The name Jesus had come under serious scrutiny in the history of men.   The causality of the intensive study pertaining the name of our Saviour is the fact that it is a Hebrew name but has changed to Jesus due to few factors.

The name Jesus is English form of a Hebrew name ‘Saviour’  while Christ being an English form for Greek ‘the Anointed One’

The name Jesus and the name Jehovah are not correctly pronounced.

The name Jehovah is written in tetragram  which has no vowels but only consonant, which makes it hard for the nowadays Semitic population (Hebrews and Muslims etc, children of Shem ) to pronounce.

The original name of Jehovah is YHWH, a Hebrew tetragrammaton (4 letters)  which humanity seem to have no idea how to pronounce. Is it not fascinating to know we don’t know how to pronounce the only name of our God, the entire humanity cannot properly say his name!

Bear in mind that this tetragram YHWH is Latin letters while in English letters is written as YHVH. The only way to follow this language is to know if all of these letters are present in Hebrew.

In Hebrew there seem to be a soft “V” therefore the Latin name for our Father YHWH is acceptable over the English name YHVH, yet whether the name is in Latin or English the real factor is on how one pronounces the name.

Jehovah has come under serious scrutiny since Hebrew seems to have soft V or no V at all (we are not knowledgeable of the Hebrew language) but the phonetics on the name Jehovah seem to be saying something else.  

Some Hebrew researchers have used intensive study of the Bible and the Hebrew language thus came to a conclusion that Jehovah is not a correct form but Yahua or Yahuwah is a correct form. Jesus has a similar story but to cut to the chase they say Jesus cannot be Yahwe, but could only sound similar to Joshua than Jesus or even Yahwe.

The name Jesus means a saving God, where God is refered to as Yah (Rastafarians say Jah), so Jesus can be Yahushuwah….Yeshua meaning salvation, Yahushuwa meaning God of our Salvation/who saves us.

Note: When you say HalleluYah you mean Praise the Lord.

So, from what we have discussed, should we fight about whether one is correct when saying Jesus, or the correct way is to say Jesus Christ of Nazareth?

So, how are we to call the name of our Father?

The Bible states that: God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" [Exodus 3:14]NIV

So, he knows who he is…we are the only ones who do not know. Let’s call him who we choose to call him as long as the attitude of our heart is in reverence.

So, how are we gonna call our Savior?

The angel said: She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." [Mathew 1:21] NIV

REV 19:16 [When he comes back], so his names are derived from any duty he is sent to perform.

That’s it! Jesus is our saviour.

Whether I pray saying Jesus Christ of Nazareth or I simple say Jesus or I say Jesus Christ…he knows himself. All of us seem to be in error anyway, so why the quarrel!!

To curb any contradiction, the BIBLE has to be retranslated. What we read is what we will say, until then…. Yahushuwah will have to tolerate how we call his call name and  YHWH will have to tolerate our ignorance, he always does anyway.