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The names of God, part 2, Jehovah-Jireh

Yahweh (or Jehovah) is the self-existent One. The name should be seen as a contrast to the gods (idols) that men create in their own image. Men have a concept of God which they translate into some form of artwork or sculpture to express their limited understanding of God’s nature. But the existence of the true God does not depend upon men. He is self-existent.

Scripture sets forth the revelation of His nature in terms of a multiplicity of names, each of which is part of what it means to be Jehovah. In essence, His name expresses the idea of Life, not mortal life as we know it, but immortal life. Yet His nature needs to be broken down into component parts in order for this Life to become the light of men (John 1:4).

So God has given us ten or twelve portions of revelation that essentially define His Life.

The Eyes of God

Nothing escapes His attention. Because He is Life itself, He is intimately involved in everything and everyone that He has created. It is NOT the case that life and death dwell separately and that God cannot “see” and know some things in the realm of death. Proverbs 15:3 says,

³ The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good.

Again, we read in Zechariah 3:9,

⁹ For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes…

Later, we read in Zechariah 4:10,

¹⁰ … But these seven will be glad when they see the plumb line [of truth] in the hand of Zerubbabel—these are the eyes of the Lord which range to and fro throughout the earth.

One stone has seven eyes which see all things in the earth and provides the solution as well. By my own revelation in 2001, The Eyes of God is the name of an angel that is given to seers to provide the plumb line that measures truth (true vertical between heaven and earth). Perhaps there are, in turn, seven subdivisions of the eyes of God, which may require further revelation at a later time.

It was a serious matter when Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 29:10,

¹⁰ For the Lord has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, the prophets; and He has covered your heads, the seers.

When God puts a sack over the heads of the seers, they cannot see. The context shows that they were to be blinded as to the destruction of Jerusalem in the earlier verses (Isaiah 29:1-8). That lack of “seeing” is still with us to this day. When this angel appeared to me in 2001, I did not know the significance of this, but I now understand that this angel had caused me to see and to understand the coming destruction of the earthly Jerusalem (Jeremiah 19:10, 11).

Provision for the World

In fact, when Paul brought His teachings on the sovereignty of God to its crescendo, he wrote in Romans 11:36,

³⁶ For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

To assert that “from Him… are all things” means that all things were created out of Him, that is, out of His substance. He did not create all things out of nothing (ex-nihilo), nor out of some pre-existent material (ex materia) but out of Himself—God (ex Deo). In other words, He “fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23). Creation itself is not God, as pantheists would claim, but yet the creation was made from God particles. Hence, all the pain in the world, caused by sin, is painful to Him and must be resolved in the end. This is possible only if He is able to restore all things. If not, He will lose body parts, so to speak, and will remain incomplete forever.

That is not possible. Our faith is in His promises, vows, and oaths, by which He has bound Himself to fulfill, not only for our benefit, but for His as well.

Jehovah sees all things, and the implication is that He is also the Provider to remedy the shortfalls that He sees. The great illustration of this is seen in the story of Abraham that provides the backdrop for the revelation of Jehovah-Jireh. God told Abraham to offer up his son as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:2). But sacrifices of imperfect men do not align with the nature of God. There is only one true Sacrifice that is acceptable to God.

So God “saw” this need and provided Abraham with a ram which was a type of Christ. God provided His own Son to meet that need, not only for Abraham but for the sin of the world. Genesis 22:14 says,

¹⁴ Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord Will Provide” [Jehovah-Jireh], as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord, it will be provided.”

So we read in 1 John 2:2,

² And He Himself is the propitiation [hilasmos, “expiation”] for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

To propitiate is to appease. The Greeks used the word hilasmos to describe the works of men who were trying to appease their gods. To expiate is to make atonement—something that Jesus provided by His own will and work. So First John 4:10 says that “God sent His Son to be the hilasmos for our sins.”

Grace is something God extends by His own sovereign will, and this is what we see in the story of Abraham. So I prefer the word expiation and believe that Jesus was the “ram” who expiated the sin of the world.

Man sinned, God saw the problem clearly and fully, and because no man was without spot or blemish, God sent His only Son—the perfect Lamb—to provide the solution to the world’s condition and pay its sin-debt.

Our Provider

We who believe this may “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace… in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Whatever is our need, He sees, acknowledges, and comprehends fully. He is therefore our Jehovah-Jireh, our Provider. If we have the revelation of this part of God’s nature, we may call upon the name of Jehovah-Jireh in any time of need.