The Identity of God

Orthodox Jewish rabbis possess authoritative knowledge on the identity of the Creator. They have for centuries been the custodians of the truth about the bearer of the Sacred Name, HaShem. They know that the name of the Creator is extremely sacred, and so they have taught the observant Jewish people not to use the Name in any way, shape or form. Instead, observant Jewish people use the term HaShem which means The Name, by way of oblique reference to the Creator and in lieu of the real name, which is usually spelled YHWH in English when referring to its Hebrew origins. The vowels are omitted because of the way the Hebrew alphabet is organized, but the rabbis know how to pronounce the Name, and they have traditionally reserved such pronounciation only for the most sacred of occasions, which would be the religious ceremonies associated with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for sins.

Knowing the identity of the Creator is absolutely key when it comes to understanding God's commandments and living by them. That is why true Christians - whose beliefs are far closer to those of Orthodox Judaism than meets the eye! - know of the sanctity and importance of the Name, because when we say "God" it could mean more than one concept to more than one person, but the identity of Hashem is unique and is completely sacred to all who are aware of this.

Some have adopted a popularized version of the Name, and they refer to God as Jehovah in order to make very clear that they are aware of the importance of the Name. Unlike the Orthodox rabbis who have guarded the sanctity of the Name closely, these believers have distributed the popular translations of the Name as widely as possible. They have deliberately taught people to use the name Jehovah, in order to promote understanding that God is not just any god, but a very specific person, for as they say, "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah."

Now, what is the identity of Jesus Christ in relation to Jehovah? It is said in the Bible that he is his son, and moreover that he is his firstborn.

Every right-thinking parent knows that there can be no-one more important in one's world than one's child. The identity of Jesus Christ as God's firstborn son dates back long before the foundations of the natural world.

When you define Jehovah as a "spirit person" - a helpful way of drawing a distinction between a person who exists in spirit form and a person who exists in a physical form in the natural world - then it stands to reason that his son Jesus (known in the Hebrew tradition as Yeshua) would likewise have been, at the time of his creation, a non-physical entity, a spirit person. It is said in the Bible that Yeshua was the first ever created by Hashem. The proper Hebrew name of Jesus the Nazarene, Yeshua, actually translates as "Salvation." Surprise!

God is like an eternal, self-sustaining fire which burns through all the ages. The Name literally means "He Causes Becoming" or "Self-Sustaining." Christ can be defined as "the first spark that was generated by the self-sustaining fire." Thus it is possible to view the birth of Christ as the moment, lost in the mists of time, when the first spark was generated out of the metaphorical creative fire that is God. The birth of the spiritual identity of the Son of God, the first in(ter)dependent identity generated by the creative force of Hashem, precedes the physical birth of Yeshua, who is widely viewed as the incarnation of that firstborn spirit child of God, by many millions of years.

The first spark of God's creative fire bears all the characteristics of the original fire, and it is a bright morning star, perpetually burning with the passionate devotion of the Love Force that created it. For God is also defined simply as "Love" - the governing principle of this Universe. To fear God is to fear Love, and yet it is said in the Bible that "perfect love drives out all fear" (1 John 4:18) so obviously one who fears God, fears nothing at all except the absence of God, for the absence of God would constitute the loss of all love, and that would be unthinkable.