What’s in a name? Proverbs 22:1a answers: “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.” Every person has three names: The name you inherit from your ancestors. The name you are given by your parents. The name you earn for yourself. Names are important. This was especially true in the Bible, where names were more than a label, title of address, or means of identification. A person’s name represents his or her nature, character, reputation, personality, influence, authority, and lifestyle. What a person was called reflected who that person was. 

We still think that way. Take something as simple as a telephone call. You dial a number. Someone answers. You say hello and ask for the person you want to speak to. The person on the other end asks, “Who’s calling?” What do you say? How do you respond? Do you give your address, height, weight, date of birth, racial background, social security number, and mother’s maiden name? Do you begin to tell your life story? Do you start describing your likes and dislikes? Of course not. You respond by simply telling them your name. You state your name as a summary of the details of your life. Your name represents you. 

In 1961, a convict escaped from prison and eluded capture for 28 years by living under an assumed identity. In April 1989, he voluntarily turned himself in. When asked why he returned, Sylvan Carter said, “I wanted to see my own name on my tombstone.” That is how important our names are to us. 

If we take our names so seriously, how much more would God guard his name? God’s name represents who God is and what God has done. So it should be no surprise that God commands us to be careful with his name. People get their names, images, companies, inventions, and products copyrighted to protect them from being used, misused, or abused. In Exodus 20:7, God does that with his holy name.

This third word of the Decalogue is a divine copyright that told Israel and tells us that all rights to God’s name are reserved: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” The word vain refers to that which is false, empty, or worthless. It is that which is inconsequential. Ecclesiastes 1:14 says, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” To take God’s name in vain is to treat it as if it is nothing. Exodus 20:7 uses this term to warn us that those who misuse God’s name will face divine, severe, and unavoidable repercussions. 

Ray Pritchard wrote: “Every commandment has its problems. Some are difficult to understand, others, are difficult to interpret, and some are difficult to apply. The Third Commandment presents us with a unique problem: we understand it too well.” This third commandment summarizes everything you need to know about how to treat God’s name: Do not dishonor the name of God. And God will punish you if you do. 

A prohibition Against Misusing God’s Name

The Third Commandment is commonly read as a prohibition against blasphemy, profanity, and perjury. But the heart of this commandment is about something far greater than these sins of speech. This commandment is about God’s name, not our words. This prohibition against taking God’s name in vain is an implicit command to honor the name of God in everything we say and do. 

• The first commandment teaches us to worship God exclusively.
• The second commandment teaches us to worship God correctly.
• This third commandment teaches us to worship God reverently.

 The ancient Jews understood this commandment that way. Because of this commandment, the Israelites treated God’s name almost superstitiously. They so feared misusing God’s name that they would not speak his personal name, Yahweh. They called it the ineffable name. It was only heard on the Day of Atonement when the high priest announced it. They did not want to risk dishonoring God’s name by mispronouncing it. They also did not want to dishonor God’s name when they wrote it. So they would use various circumlocutions.

When the scribes, who handwrote copies of the scriptures, came to a place where they had to write the name of God, they would set down their pens, go bathe, and put on a clean set of clothes. They would get a brand new pen, and make sure there was enough ink on it so that they would not have to stop writing midway through it. Then they would carefully write the name of God. You may view this as extreme, fanatical, and unnecessary. But the Jews acted this way because they understood that you must be careful with God’s name. Let me give you three important ways this prohibition against misusing God’s name applies to us. 

It condemns irreverence. The agonistic, Anthony Collins, author of Discourse on Freethinking, met an English workingman who was walking to church. Collins asked, “Where are you going?” “To church, sir,” answered the man. “I am going to worship God.” Collins asked, “Is your God a great God or a little God?” The man replied, “My God is so great, sir, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and so little that He can dwell within my lowly heart.” 

That simply, uneducated man taught that great philosopher two essential realities that we must remember if we are to live and worship with the proper sense of reverence that God’s name deserves. First, God is transcendent. God is infinitely above and beyond us. God is high and lifted up. Isaiah 55:8-9 says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” 

Likewise, God is imminent. God is present with us. He is near. He is close. He is reachable. He is available. Romans 8:15 says to those who have been justified by faith in Christ: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!”

Due reverence requires that we balance divine transcendence and imminence as we approach God in worship. In past centuries, Christians have leaned too hard on the side of transcendence and needed to embrace the immanence of God. We live in a period when the church has grossly overemphasized the imminence of God to the degree that we have lost our sense of awe, fear, and reverence for God. We do not see God as Isaiah saw him, sitting on the throne, high and lifted up, with his train filling the temple. We see God as… 

• The man upstairs. 
• Our divine copilot. 
• A celestial Santa Clause. 
• A heavenly repair man. 
• A kindly grandfather. 

G. Campbell Morgan said it well: “The profanity of the church is far worse than the profanity of the streets. The blasphemy of the sanctuary is far worse than the blasphemy of the slums.” We need the prohibition of this third commandment to remind us of the most basic theological truth of them all: God is God!

It condemns false teaching. The Bible is God’s self-revelation. It is God’s word to man, not man’s word about God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” To say that scripture is God-breathed is to say that God is its source. The Bible is the word of God. It is his self-revelation. When you misinterpret scripture, you misrepresent God. Because the Bible is God’s self-revelation, we must handle it carefully, interpret it accurately, and proclaim it faithfully. 2 Timothy 2:15 says: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” God’s supernaturally inspired word must be handled the right way. When we do not handle God’s word correctly, we break this third commandment. 

Psalm 138:2 says, “You have exalted above all things your name and your word.” The NKJV says, “You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” We are not sure which rendering is more accurate. Both affirm the intricate connection between the name of God and the word of God. You cannot separate the two from one another. You take God’s name in vain when you do not handle his word right. This commandment is a condemnation of heresy, which rejects the clear and essential biblical doctrines of the historic Christian faith. In other words, we ought to denounce those who deny the Trinity, who do not believe in the atoning death and physical resurrection of Jesus, or who teach people can go to heaven without repentance and faith in Christ. 

 But we must also reject the false teachings of those who would affirm the fundamentals of our faith. In other words, we must reject those who teach that physical healing and material wealth are the believer’s automatic birthright in Christ. We must not embrace those who make so-called prophecies that cannot be backed up by the word of God. J.I. Packer is right: “When half the truth becomes the whole truth, the result is no truth.” For God’s name’s sake, strive to be like the Bereans. Acts 17:11 says: “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”

It condemns the presumption of direct revelation. The process of making good choices is in some ways more difficult for those of us who are devoted to God. It may be easy for us to distinguish between good and evil. But we often struggle with personal choices because we must also distinguish between what is good, better, and best. Some believers navigate their way through the process of personal decision-making by claiming direct revelation from God. It is common to hear Christians say, “The Lord told me” or “The Lord spoke to me.” Some even claim that God speaks to them about other people’s lives. So you have those who run around telling people, “The Lord gave me a word for you.” But the claim of direct revelation is a foolish and sinful presumption that dishonors the name of God. 

I am not suggesting that God does not guide his children. Proverbs 3:5-6 rightly teaches: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” God guides. But divine guidance most often comes through providential means, not supernatural ones. God guides through the wisdom of his word, through the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, through godly counsel, by the orchestration of circumstances, and by giving or withholding peace. But we take God’s name in vain when we presume to have direct revelation from God for every decision we make. We make God seem foolish, confused, and even schizophrenic when we use his name to cosign every decision we make. 

In the animated movie, The Prince of Egypt, the voices of Moses and God sound a lot alike, because Val Kilmer performed both voices. Kilmer did both voices because the producers believed that for most people the voice of God they hear sounds a lot like their own voices. That is insightful. Because we are weak, sinful, and proud, we have the tendency to try to manipulate God to support our agenda. But true spiritual guidance does not come that way. 

Psalm 119:104 says: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” When you have a decision to make, collect all the wisdom that God makes available, and make the best decision you know to make. Then walk by faith and not by sight. When your faith honors God, God will honor your faith. He does not have to give you a detailed plan to work out your situation. Even when he does not say a word, God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him. 

The Penalty for Misusing God’s Name 

This third commandment comes with a warning of divine consequences: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” The reason given for the prohibition against misusing God’s name reinforces it. It makes it clear that God will punish those who take his name in vain. The sinner may perhaps hold himself guiltless, and think there is no harm done, and that God will never call him into account for his actions. But he or she is wrong. God will avenge those who take his name in vain. They will find it an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. R. Kent Hughes has written: “The abuse of His name snaps open an umbrella that deflects the showers of grace God desires to give us.”

A man, whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian, got into a fight. In the heat of the battle, the multi-ethnic blasphemed God’s name and cursed. The onlookers took that man to Moses – not for fighting, but for cursing and blaspheming. He was convicted and sentenced to death. God instructed Moses to have all who heard what the man said to take him outside of the camp and stone him to death.

In Leviticus 20:15-16 God tells Moses to say to Israel, “Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.” As disciples of Jesus Christ, we should view this commandment to be the negatively stated parallel of the first petition of the Model Prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name.” That is, may your name be treated as holy. Let me give you three ways to honor the name of God. 

Confess Jesus Christ to be the Savior and Lord of your life. The only way we can know God is for him to reveal his name to us. This is another way of saying that we cannot control God. The children of Israel had seen the Egyptians name their various gods. But the Lord said to them, “You don’t name me. I name you.” We can only know God if he reveals his name to us. The fact that God reveals his name to us means that God wants us to know him and wants us to have a personal relationship with him. Throughout the Old Testament we see that when God’s people had an experience with God that helped them to understand a new aspect of God, it would be commemorated with the revelation of a new name. So Israel knew… 

• When you’re in need, God is Jehovah-Jireh (God my provider). 
• When you’re in battle, God is Jevoha-Nissi (God my banner) 
• When you’re sick, God is Jehovah-Raphe (God my healer) 
• When you’re lost, God is Jehovah-Roi (God my shepherd) 
• When you’re confused, God is Jehovah-Shalom (God my peace) 
• When you’re alone, God is Jehovah-Shammah (The God who is there) 
• When you fall into sin, God is Jehovah-Tsidkenu (God my righteousness)

If you cannot remember all of the Old Testament names for God, don’t worry. The New Testament teaches us that God has given us a final name that reveals all that he is to us and all that he has done for us. In Matthew 6:9, Jesus teaches us to address God as “Our Father in heaven.” You are not honoring him if you cannot truly call him your Father. The only way you can rightly call God your Father is if you confess the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Savior and Lord of your life. To honor the name of God you must trust in the name of Jesus. In Matthew 1:21, the angel told Joseph: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” In Acts 4:12, Peter says, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Romans 10:13 says, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 

Live in a manner that is consistent with your profession of faith. The astronomer and architect, Sir Christopher Wren, was given charge of designing the interior of the town hall in Windsor, west of central London. His places called for large columns to support a high ceiling. When construction was complete, the city fathers toured the building and wanted more columns. Wren’s solution was as devilish and it was inspired. He did as he was told and installed four new pillars. But they supported no weight. They do not even reach the ceiling. They are fakes. Wren installed the pillars to serve only one purpose: to look good.

The same kinds of pillars have been erected in the lives of many professing believers. They look good. But they do not support the weight of their profession of faith. We would not outright… 

• Doubt the existence of God 
• Challenge the character of God 
• Deny the authority of God 
• Question the integrity of God
• Overlook the greatness of God
• Denounce the word of God 
• Reject the sovereignty of God

But our lifestyles often do. There’s a Latin phrase: “Simulata sanctitas duplex iniquitas.” It means, “Pretended holiness is double wickedness.” So if you are to honor God’s name, you must live in a manner that is consistent with our profession of faith. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people who are called by my name…”God calls them “my people.” And he says they are “called by my name.”  God’s people are called by his name. And as people called by God’s name, God’s reputation is at stake in how we live our lives. We must live in a manner that is consistent with our profession of faith. We must not only talk the talk, we must walk the walk. Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  

Speak well of God’s name in every situation. Job was caught in the crossfire of a cosmic wager between God and Satan. He was ambushed by the unexpected. He experienced a soul-crushing test of faith. Job 1:21 records Job’s confession in response to his suffering: “And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’” Job 1:22 is a footnote that proves the sincerity of Job’s confession. It says, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” Satan predicted that Job would curse the name of God if his material possessions were taken away. Satan was wrong.

In spite of and in the midst of his suffering, Job blessed the name of God. Satan refused to concede the point. He went back to God and laid down a double-or-nothing wager. Satan predicted that if Job’s body was afflicted with sickness and pain, he would certainly curse the name of God. Again, Satan was wrong. Job 2:9-10 reports: “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall not receive evil?”

We dishonor God’s name when we speak or act in a way that suggests that God is not good when things do not go our way. We honor God’s name when we praise God no matter what. Psalm 34:1 says: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Psalm 113:3 says: “From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.” Habakkuk 3:17-18 says: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the product of the olive may fail and the fields yield no food, the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” Philippians 4:4 says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”Hebrews 13:15 says: “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”