Hallowed be Thy Name…

Hallowed be Your Name…

I had a discussion the other day about the “unforgivable sin.” One person said it really wasn’t scriptural; God forgives everything. Another person told how their church said certain sexual sins were unforgivable; premarital sex, homosexuality, bestiality, and the like. But most said they weren’t sure what it was or if there even was one.

Is there really an “unforgivable sin”? If so, what is it? Is it possible I could commit it and find myself standing before the throne of God one day and find I had inadvertently crossed the line somewhere at some time?

That discussion and those questions were fresh in my mind when I started thinking about the phrase “Hallowed be your name.”

What does it mean to “hallow” someone or something? And why does Jesus tell us to hallow “your name” and not hallow God himself? Why not use an actual name like Jehovah or…whatever God’s actual name really is?

Hallow simply means to make holy, to sanctify, to purify. By hallowing something, or someone, we are declaring that it is holy, pure, and separate from everything that is base, profane, or sinful. Another way to understand hallow is to look at its opposite, which in this case, I think might be blaspheme. To blaspheme is to revile a thing, to speak reproachfully of it, or speak evil of it. We can either hallow a thing or blaspheme it. We can speak of a thing as holy or we speak of it as evil.

One of the primary passages in the Bible about the unforgivable sin is Mark 3:29-30 where Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” So it’s not just blasphemy, but Blaspheming the Holy Spirit which is unforgivable, but what is that? I mean, I’ve never heard anyone using the term “Holy Spirit” as a curse word.

Jesus had been, in the verses immediately prior to his words about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, casting out evil spirits. But the people said he was doing that by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. This seems to indicate, then, that by attributing the work and power of the Holy Spirit to someone or something else you are blaspheming him.

To me, this sounds very much like Exodus 20:7 where Moses records the third of the Ten Commandments; “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.” Taking the Lord’s name in vain is something for which God holds us guilty; ostensibly, not forgiving us of it. But does this apply to merely swearing and uttering the terms “God,” “Jesus Christ,” or “Jehovah” under your breath when angry? As much as I don’t like it when people do that, I’m not so sure that is what God had in mind when gave the third commandment.

To take something in vain means to make of it something empty or worthless; it is to speak falsely about it or to lie about it. In short, taking the Lord’s name in vain is much like speaking blasphemy of the Holy Spirit; it is falsely attributing the glory, majesty, and power of the Lord and the Holy Spirit to someone or something else.

Hallowed be Your Name…

To hallow God’s name means that we should speak of Our Father in Heaven truthfully, ascribing to him all that is due to him and nothing that is not. But then but why does Jesus tell us to hallow his name? Why not just say God’s name? Why not just say, “Jehovah” or “Jesus” or some other moniker for God? Why your name?

I find it interesting that we are never really told God’s name. Now, I know many say that YHWH, Yahweh, or Jehovah is the name of God, and we are to treat those words with reverence and respect, always speaking in hushed tones. And maybe that is all this is about, but I think there is something else going on in the third commandment.

Maybe the term “name,” simply means what the word name means. Maybe it means a personal pronoun like YHWH, Yahweh, or Jehovah; but maybe “name” refers to reputation, glory, and fame (as the Hebrew word for name indicates). Maybe there is no substantive difference between what Jesus said in Mark 3 about blaspheming the Holy Spirit and what Moses wrote in Exodus 20 about not taking the Lord’s name in vain. Maybe it is simply vain and blasphemous to speak falsely about God; always giving God’s glory to another.

Hallowed be Your Name…

Sometimes we give God’s power and glory to coincidence; sometimes we give it to nature; sometimes we give it to ourselves. But any of those attributions of glory and power would be wrong. It is God who created the universe; it is God who sustains the universe; it is God who created life; it is God who sustains life by the food of his own creation. It is God who offers us his steadfast love, provides redemption, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and offers resurrection to those who follow him. And that’s just to name a few of his works.

Certainly, we may say that God created the universe, but we then hedge and argue that Hawking’s m-force of gravity brought the universe into being and Darwin’s theory of evolution brought us all forms of life. Certainly, we may say that God loves us and redeems us and sustains us, but then we live each and every day under the power of our own strength and endurance. In these ways, we blaspheme and take the Lord’s name in vain, for we do not really acknowledge God’s ever-present hand and complete role in every aspect of the universe and our lives.

It should be no surprise that following Jesus telling us to call God our Father, that he tells us to recognize the great and majestic works of God—the works throughout all of nature and those within each of our lives, including, but not limited to, his work on the cross to redeem us from the grasp of sin.

Hallowed be Your Name…

These are not words we ought emptily mutter as we think about a football game or what we might do later in the day. These are words we should meditate on as we consider his fame, glory, and reputation before praising God, our Father, for all that he has done. Psalm 136 and Psalm 145 are two great examples of how to hallow the name of God—they declare specific acts of God’s hand, acts for which we should praise his name. After reading those psalms, you should be able to form your own list of God’s works for which you should praise God; those things which you need to attribute to God’s mighty hand and his infinite wisdom. You may just find that these four simple and often quickly said and overlooked words lead to pages and pages of your own confessions of God’s fame, glory, and great reputation. What a great way to start a prayer!

Hallowed be Your Name…

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