I think there are four related ideas that help us see what the NAME is telling us about God.
1. THE NAME: WHO HE IS — FOREVER BEING
At the burning bush, God identifies Himself through the language of being:
“I AM WHO I AM.”
Then He gives Moses His covenant NAME, YHVH, and says:
“This is My NAME forever.”
So I understand YHVH in the sphere of God’s continuous, unrestricted Being: the One who was, who is, and who will be—the One whose Being is not borrowed from anybody else.
He simply IS.
That is why I like the expression:
FOREVER BEING.
Or:
SELF-BEING.
Everything created receives life.
God does not.
He is Life’s Source.
And Exodus 3 itself places the NAME alongside ehyeh and the Hebrew language of being/becoming.
I personally also see significance in the fact that Exodus 3:15 calls this His Name “forever” — le’olam. That contributes to why I find the vocalization YeHoVaH compelling: the e-o-a sounds of le’olam fit naturally between the consonants Y-H-V-H.
I would present that last point as my reading of the textual pattern rather than claiming Hebrew grammar by itself proves the pronunciation. The more important point is the one Scripture unquestionably emphasizes:
The NAME belongs to the God of continuing Being.
But then Christianity makes an astonishing claim.
Jesus says:
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
So if we want to know what God’s eternal Being is like, we look at Jesus.
And where is God’s character most completely revealed?
At the Cross.
2. THE LETTERS: HOW HE IS — THE CRUCIFIED LIFE
The ancient Hebrew letters also give me a powerful pictographic meditation on the NAME:
Y — Yod: hand / arm / action
H — He: behold / look / revelation, ranging from awe to alarm
V — Vav: peg / nail / hook; something that joins
H — He: behold again
So I can look upon Y-H-V-H pictographically as something like:
HAND — BEHOLD!
NAIL — BEHOLD!
Or more naturally:
BEHOLD THE HAND.
BEHOLD THE NAIL.
I do not need to claim that this is the historical dictionary definition of YHVH. It is a Christological reading of the ancient letter-images. The meanings are simply there. Look up a chart and see it for yourself. It is hardly coincidence.
Thus, once Jesus has appeared, the picture becomes extraordinarily suggestive.
John 3 says the Son of Man must be lifted up.
John 12 says that when He is lifted up, He will draw all people to Himself.
Thomas encounters the risen Jesus and is directed toward the wounds made by the nails.
And Thomas answers:
“My Lord and my God!”
John records that statement in Greek as ho Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou. Kyrios is also the ordinary Greek Bible word used for the divine NAME in the Septuagint, so John’s presentation carries enormous divine-identity weight even though we cannot establish exactly what language Thomas spoke aloud at that moment.
And Revelation finally gives us what I regard as the defining image of Reality:
the Lamb standing as having been slain.
Revelation 5:6.
- Slain.
- Yet standing.
Death and indestructible Life joined in one Person.
This is why I say:
Reality is Crucified Life.
Not because suffering itself is ultimate.
Not because God loves death.
But because God’s eternal Life is self-giving Life.
Greater Love does not grasp.
It gives itself away and multiplies Life.
The Cross reveals eternally what Kind God is.
3. THE VAV: HOW WE ARE JOINED — UNION WITH CHRIST
This makes the Vav especially important to me.
Its ancient image is the peg, hook, or nail—something that joins one thing to another.
And when the Hebrew Bible actually uses vav as an ordinary noun, its occurrences concern the hooks or connecting pieces associated with the Tabernacle—God’s House (13 occurrences of H2053 “vav” in Exodus 26:32, 37, 27:9–10, 17, 36:36, 38, and 38:10–12, 17, 19, and 28).
That creates an extraordinary TJP resonance.
The nail does not merely wound.
It joins.
At the Cross Christ draws humanity into Himself.
Paul therefore does not merely say:
“Jesus was crucified.”
He says:
“I have been crucified with Christ.”
That is Galatians 2:20.
And Jesus does not merely show Thomas His wounds as historical evidence.
He invites Thomas to encounter the very place where the joining occurred.
The wounds testify:
This is where God joined Himself to our death so that we could be joined to His Life.
That is why the Cross destroys barriers.
In Christ:
Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female are no longer competing sources of identity.
We become one in Christ.
Peter takes the image in another direction:
Jesus is the Living Stone, and we become living stones being built together into God’s House.
So the Vav idea expands beautifully:
the Nail → joining → Christ → living stones → God’s House.
We are not independently made alive.
We are joined to the Living One.
That is salvation.
4. THE BREATH: WHAT HIS LIFE DOES — GIVES ITSELF AND MULTIPLIES
Then Genesis 2 takes us deeper than letters.
The LORD God forms the man from the ground and breathes into him the breath of life.
Adam becomes a living soul.
That is almost another form of:
“God said…”
except now God’s life-giving expression is breathed directly into the man.
God gives from Himself.
The man receives.
That is the proper direction of creaturely existence.
God gives → man receives → Life exists.
And then the Eve account develops that Life into something resembling a seed-cycle.
Adam goes into the death-like sleep.
His side is opened.
Something is taken from him.
God works upon what comes from Adam.
The woman appears.
Then the two become one.
Life has increased.
That pattern finds its ultimate Reality in Jesus.
The Last Adam enters death.
His side is opened.
From Him comes the stuff of laying down one’s life for others which creates “the Bride from His side.”
And His Life becomes Life in many.
So I would describe the Divine Life Signature this way:
Self-giving Life enters death without ceasing to be Life, gives itself into another, and emerges as increased Life.
That is the Seed.
That is John 12:24.
That is the Cross.
That is Galatians 2:20.
That is Revelation 5:6.
And that is why Luke 9:24 is not merely an ethical principle:
“Whoever loses his life… will save it.”
Jesus is describing the Way Reality itself works.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
So the four ideas become one:
THE NAME — FOREVER BEING
God is the unborrowed Source of Life.
THE LETTERS — BEHOLD THE CRUCIFIED ONE
The Hand and Nail give us a powerful Christological picture of the self-giving Life revealed at the Cross.
THE VAV — UNION
The Nail joins. Christ enters our death so that we can enter His Life (Gal 2:20).
THE BREATH — LIFE GIVEN AND MULTIPLIED
God breathes Life into humanity; the Last Adam gives His own Life into a new humanity.
And now the sentence I think summarizes the whole thing is:
God’s Forever Being is self-giving Life; the Cross reveals what that Life has always been like, union with Christ joins us to it, and the Spirit breathes that same Life into us so that it can increase through us into others.
Or even shorter:
The NAME tells us that God eternally IS.
The Cross shows us HOW He eternally is.
Union joins us to WHO He is.
The Spirit makes WHAT He is become Life in us.
That is why “Jesus saves” is much bigger than rescue from a future penalty.
Jesus saves by bringing us back into Reality.
He ends the self-sourcing Adam-life.
He joins us to Himself.
He becomes our Life.
And His crucified Life begins moving through us toward others.
Forever Being → Crucified Giving → Union → Life Increase.
That is the Divine Life Signature.
