A Biblical Theology of Name (Part 1)

I don’t know how my wife and I ever decided on a name for our daughter. We couldn’t agree on any. Needless to say, it was a shock to me that the name I wanted won out, especially since she was doing all the hard work. So, we named our daughter after a beautiful little city in Africa where I did some missionary work and first felt the call to full-time ministry. Her name has real meaning and significance to me. Such is the way names used to work. Children were named after other family members to carry on legacies, or they were named after great heroes of the past. The name carried with it an element of identity and intentionality. It was particularly this way in the Bible, and particularly so with God. God was the first namer and His naming had significant weight in shaping identity. In a perfect world God named a thing and it became what it was supposed to be.

Naming in the ancient world was significantly different from the way we think about naming today. Leonard Wallmark explains:

In contemporary Western culture a name rarely possesses significance beyond that of a highly sentimental, perhaps aesthetically conditioned response on the part of proud, doting parents to the intoxicating joy of a new arrival. Not so in the Bible. There a human name typically reflects character and mission anticipated in life, which may turn out for either good or ill. It may embody the spiritual vision of parents for their child’s future. In other instances, it is prophetic of future outcomes or events. On the negative side, it may typify a life come to ruin. (Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology)

Throughout the Bible, then, as we encounter names and the process of naming we are looking at a cultural event that carries far more spiritual intention. God’s naming of things in particular reveals His will for the thing named. God naming is both creative and authoritative in the Old Testament.

We see this reality taking place at the start of the creation narratives. God called things into existence, and gave them names. The created things functioned exactly as God called them to function. So the testimony of the Scriptures reads:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:3-5)

We see the pattern continues:

⁶ And God said, “Let there be an expansein the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”⁷ And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. ⁸ And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day (Genesis 1:6-8)

God called many things into existence, and named them in His creation of the world. He called the dry land “Earth,” and the waters gathered together “seas” (Genesis 1:10). God named His created world and it became perfectly whatever He named it. There were no defects, no surprises, no protests from creation. It was all “very good” (1:31). Without sin naming was part of the creative process. The perfect world became precisely what God called it to become.

In a perfect world such naming was also a sign of authority. The one doing the naming has authority of the thing that is named, and such a relationship was perfectly realized. There was no contest of wills, no battle, no diversion from intended design. God named a thing “And it was so” (1:29). Such naming was more than just creating it was defining. God even bestows a version of this authority upon man. Adam is tasked to name all the creatures that God brings before him. The author of Genesis writes, “And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (2:19b). Adam even named his wife, “woman” (Genesis 2:23). As God’s ambassadors man and woman were given a parcel of this authority. In the perfect world they used it to reflect Him. The world and all in it worked just as God wanted it to because His naming carried the authority to define the way things ought to be and how they ought to function.

The Fall of course disrupts all of this, but it does not change the reality that God is the creator, definer, and authority over all. Each encounter with naming throughout the rest of the Old and New Testament carries some of this weight, either in an attempt to depart from it or to submit to it. A biblical theology of name, then, carries with it an important spiritual truth: only one person has the authority to define and rule over your life.