CONCLUSION

ALL WE WERE MEANT TO BE

John’s vision in Revelation makes visible and explicit what until then was spiritual and implicit. “Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1). His vision also speaks of those who worship the beast and receive the mark of his name on their foreheads. We must choose where our allegiance lies. For those who persevere, John said, “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4).

One afternoon several years ago, when we lived in North Carolina, I was grocery shopping with the kids. We made it back out to the car, and I was trying to get everything loaded up. I had asked the kids to get in their seats and get buckled, but they were moving as slow as molasses and bickering with each other. I went to put the shopping cart away and when I came back they still weren’t in their seats. I completely lost it. “What is wrong with you? Did you not hear me? Get in your seats this instant! This is ridiculous!” I slammed the van door and turned around just in time to see the secretary from the kids’ public school walking past.

A big reason we enrolled our kids in public school was so that our family could share Christ with unbelievers. I volunteered every week, my husband ate regularly with the kids in the lunchroom, and we were present at as many activities as possible. Then in one moment of anger all we had worked for was tarnished by my temper. I thought I was in an anonymous place where I could “let it all out” with no consequences. I learned that we don’t get to pick and choose when we bear his name.

The Bible tells us the story of a God who is determined to keep his promise to bless his people, even when they forfeit their right to receive it. That’s good news for all of us. By the grace of God in Christ, those “parking lot moments” don’t erase our name from his roster. Instead, they prompt us to repent and receive his forgiveness. Because of the perfect faithfulness of Jesus, the blessings of protection, grace, and peace can still be ours.

We talk about the idea of “bearing God’s name” a lot at our house. We talk about it because I spent five years writing a three-hundred-page dissertation on the command not to bear Yahweh’s name in vain and another year and a half getting it published. One day, pretty early on in my studies, the clock struck 5:30 and it was time to start dinnertime chores. I sent the kids off to do theirs while I got dinner ready. After a few minutes, I noticed that the girls seemed especially cheerful and attentive. I can assure you—this was not normal. I glanced over to see what they were doing and was tickled to see that both of them had slapped a masking tape label on their foreheads that read “Yahweh.” I grinned as they explained. “We’re bearing the name of Yahweh by doing our chores cheerfully today!”

They got it! As believers we’ve been branded with his name, and that reality should change the way we do everything. As Paul said to the Colossians, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17). Or as the New Living Translation puts it, “Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus.”

Sinai is a big surprise. The surprise is the grace of God to a bedraggled company of former slaves of Egypt who have done nothing to deserve his attention. The surprise is an invitation to a long-term committed relationship. The surprise is that they are counted as his and he is determined to bless them, in spite of their ingratitude. The biggest surprise is God’s inconceivable plan to link his own reputation with theirs—to put his name on them and charge them with the task of international public relations.

I told you there were surprises in store at Sinai!

The New Testament does not detach itself from this story. Jesus shows up to model for us how to bear Yahweh’s name by obeying perfectly the law given at Sinai—loving God and loving others. After his death and resurrection, the invitation goes out to everybody else—to the Gentiles!—to join the family. We get the invisible tattoo along with all the Jews who follow Jesus. Together we get to join the mission of God.

You become your truest self as part of this extraordinary community of men and women who are being transformed from the inside out—who are becoming and living as his people.

As we pay attention to Sinai and its ripple effects through the rest of the biblical story, we discover that faith is not just private and salvation is not just personal. The benefits of our salvation are not only interior; they are conspicuous and corporate. Yahweh does not transform individuals at Sinai and send them their separate ways. He creates a nation. He does it with us, too. As Peter says, “You are . . . a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). We belong to God and to each other. We’ll never fully experience all the blessings God has in store for us if we try to go solo.

You are who you are because of who he is and who he says you are. You become your truest self as part of this extraordinary community of men and women who are being transformed from the inside out—who are becoming and living as his people.

Far from irrelevant or obsolete, the Old Testament story tells us who we are. It tells us whose we are. And that changes everything.