Violating the third commandment, includes, but is not confined to, using “God” or “Jesus Christ” in our speech to utter exclamatory anger or excitement. No, to take the Lord’s name in vain is to not live in light of who God is and what He does and to invite and encourage others to do the same. But among those who truly know and call upon his name, they are enabled to revere and rely upon Yahweh, and thereby glorify his name, for He IS.
Names. We all have one, or two or three, maybe even four or five! Names identify us, don’t they? At least to some degree. Yet, we recognize that we are more than merely our name(s). My parents could have decided to name me by any other name besides David, and yet I would still be me. Our human names have a certain kind of arbitrary character to them. This truth tends to cause us to miss some of the truth about God’s third commandment which deals directly with God’s name. Unlike our names, God’s names (he actually has several) have nothing arbitrary about them.
When we recognize that God’s names reveal his character and conduct, or who he is and what he does, we are better able to understand what it means to take his name in vain, and, hopefully, avoid doing it.
In the third commandment, the Hebrew term that is generally translated take is most often in the Old Testament translated as lift, carry or bear. Another legitimate way to translate the first part of Exodus 20:7 would be: “You shall not lift the name of Yahweh, your God, to vanity or worthlessness.” Of course, one may still be left wondering: What precisely does this mean? It all revolves around the importance of the name Yahweh.
God first revealed his name Yahweh to Moses (Exod. 3:14), when he embarked on freeing His covenant people, Israel, from the Egyptians, because of His faithfulness to his covenant promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exod. 2:23). Of course, Yahweh had called Abraham as fulfillment of His covenant blessing that he bestowed upon Noah, which was Yahweh’s continuance of his covenant relationship first established with Adam (Gen. 1:26-28; 6:18; 9:1-17; 12:1-3). In other words, Yahweh is the covenant making creator and redeemer. Indeed, he is the latter precisely because he is the former.
