Hallowed Be Thy Name: His Name is Elohim
Have you ever heard of a comedian named Brian Regan? He is the comedian who has a whole bit about how he is trying to get through life without “looking stupid”. Many of us have that same goal of not looking stupid. Why? It is self-preservation. We will go to great lengths trying not to look stupid. And as we look at God’s first given name in the scripture, Elohim (Creator God), sometimes we are tempted not to claim it as mightily as we should for fear of looking stupid.
I have a BS in biology and many times in college, I found myself “trying not to look stupid” in front of my professors & peers. The theories of creation and evolution were hit upon hard and heavy from the beginning, but it wasn’t until my sophomore year, when I was taking a “Lower Plant Morphology” class (sounds fun, huh?) that I met direct opposition to my belief in creation. Our professor gave us a list of topics from which to choose to write our first paper and I chose Darwinism. I gleefully laid out my belief in God as the Creator. I remember having to meet with my professor, Dr. Deason, face to face to discuss the paper and he just point-blank told me there was no such thing as creation – I felt STUPID!
I felt stupid because, at that point, I didn’t know how to defend Elohim. One of the first things we need to have confidence in about Elohim as Creator is that we know that we have a beginning! The Big-Bang theory is the most widely accepted theory of how the universe came into existence. Look at this quote from All About Science: “Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something – a singularity. Where did it come from? We don’t know. Why did it appear? We don’t know.” ASK ME – I KNOW!
Elohim is used over 2600 times in the Bible. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning ELOHIM created…” The word created is from the word bara. Bara means to create something out of nothing. That makes so much sense to me because one of the basic laws of science is that we cannot create or destroy matter! All we can do is re-arrange the stuff God gave us to begin with. Here is something awesome about the name Elohim – it is really plural but, at times, it is used grammatically as a singular proper noun in the Bible (called a majestic plural). This usage denotes great majesty attached to the name. But it also sounds a lot like the trinity to me!
Elohim is used over 2600 times in the Bible. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning ELOHIM created…” The word created is from the word bara. Bara means to create something out of nothing. That makes so much sense to me because one of the basic laws of science is that we cannot create or destroy matter! All we can do is re-arrange the stuff God gave us to begin with. Here is something awesome about the name Elohim – it is really plural but, at times, it is used grammatically as a singular proper noun in the Bible (called a majestic plural). This usage denotes great majesty attached to the name. But it also sounds a lot like the trinity to me!
Today, there are a lot of Christian scientists who are going head to head with other scientists and are pointing out the weaknesses of the theories of evolution and the big bang. But no matter how scientific we get it, there will always be an element of faith. Hebrews 11:3 says “
So back to not looking stupid – we get so intimidated by the “educated” that we have cowered down from them and just talk about Elohim within our own safe, religious circles, making Him something we “feel” rather than someone we KNOW. Don’t let the world intimidate you – at least you know this – we have a BEGINNING! The more I study and teach science, the more I see Elohim’s orderly hand in the universe. When I look around at the diversity of people and the beauty of nature – I see Elohim’s handiwork stamped everywhere. That quote from All About Science mentioned that the universe began as a “singularity”. There is definitely something singular about that plural name – His name is Elohim!
This is a picture I snapped while in Yellowstone a couple of years ago. Just a few minutes in a place like that will confirm there is a Creator God!
This is a picture I snapped while in Yellowstone a couple of years ago. Just a few minutes in a place like that will confirm there is a Creator God!
