#51.

God Magnifies His Word According to All His Name

Psalm 138:2 I will bow down toward Your holy temple And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name. David here draws our attention specifically to something that we have noted in passing before: the Word of God is of great value and is very pleasing in His sight. God, says David, has magnified His word (or promise) according to (or together with) all His name. The variants we have noted do not change the underlying truth of this phrase. His word is synonymous in many ways with His promise - we could not have the latter without the former. And whether His word is magnified according to His name or together with it, it is still magnified very greatly and it is God Who causes that to be the case. But why? We know that the Word of God is His special revelation to mankind. It contains His plan of salvation and reveals aspects of the character of God that we could know in no other way (for example, His grace and His mercy). We also know that in the Bible, "the Name" of God is used as shorthand for all His being, all His characteristics and attributes - all that makes Him such a glorious God. The names of many people in Scripture were supposed to tell us something about them but this is a principle that is greatly elevated in the case of God. So if the Bible reveals the character of God to us and if the character of God is summarized by "the Name", it follows that God's Name and the Bible are very closely linked. Finally, we know that God is rightly jealous for His Name - that it should be revered and esteemed, honored and used only in sincerity and truth. Clearly, then, since His Name is in His Word, He must be concerned to see His Word magnified according to (or together with) His Name. Here is another Scripture that underlines this truth for us: Isaiah 42:21 The LORD was pleased for His righteousness sake To make the law great and glorious. Hopefully you can see here that God's Law is found in His Word, and that God was pleased to make the law great and glorious because it reflects on an aspect of His character - His righteousness. Think about how we might regard God Himself if His Law was weak and full of loopholes. His Law reflects His character and the same must be true of His Word, which contains that Law among other things. How shall we apply this to ourselves in the context of this series of meditations? That should be fairly clear to us by now. If God magnifies His Word, His Promise, His Law, because they are a revelation of His perfect being, of His "Name", and if we are His children, shouldn't we be concerned for the honor of the family Name? If God magnifies His Word, should we do less? Note, also, that we cannot magnify the Word by putting it in an elaborate presentation case and admiring the physical object (scroll, book, Kindle) that contains the Word. We magnify it as it is declared to us and we admire the Name of our God in its pages - joyfully receiving the promises and submitting in holy fear to the Laws. To magnify His word for us has to mean that we are hungry to read it ourselves and to take every single opportunity He supplies for us to be present when it is preached! So this week, let's get our own thinking about the Word of God more closely in line with that of God Himself!

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