A name lets you call upon someone. God’s name also tells you who has addressed you, claimed you, and promised to hear you. At the baptismal font, the church speaks the name Jesus gave his disciples: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Word
ὄνομα (onoma) means name. Depending on context, a name can identify a person, express authority, or stand for the person whose name it is.
It is not a sacred sound that works independently of its bearer. To call on God’s name is to call on God. To act in Jesus’ name is not to attach religious language to an undertaking he has never authorized.
Range of Meaning
Acts 4:12 speaks of salvation in the name of Jesus. Peter has just identified the crucified and risen Jesus as the one through whom a man was healed. The name directs the hearers to this Savior.
Philippians 2:9–11 connects the name given to Jesus with every knee bowing and every tongue confessing him as Lord. In John 17:6, Jesus speaks of revealing the Father’s name to those given to him. These passages concern God’s identity and saving self-disclosure, not merely pronunciation.
Where You’ll Meet It
Jesus commands his disciples to make disciples of all nations:
“baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, NET)
The Greek expression is eis to onoma, literally into the name. The NET’s in the name is the wording of the quotation above; the literal gloss helps us notice the Greek construction.
Name is singular, followed by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This grammar belongs within the church’s confession of the one God in three persons. It contributes to that confession without functioning as a complete proof of the Trinity by itself.
Baptism takes place under Christ’s authority and with his promise of abiding presence. It is far more than the person being baptized announcing a religious preference.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
The Second Commandment and the First Petition teach Christians how to live with the name given to them. The Small Catechism forbids using it for falsehood and evil and directs us to call upon God in need, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.
In the First Petition, we ask that God’s name be kept holy among us through the pure teaching of his Word and lives that accord with it. Our conduct does not make God holy. It can, however, dishonor the name we bear and misrepresent him to our neighbors.
The gift and the responsibility belong together. God does not wait until we have honored him adequately before giving us his name in Baptism. Having received it, we are called to speak truthfully about him and to live as his children.
So What
You have a name to call upon when you need help. You do not have to invent an address for an unknown power or earn permission to pray.
Use that name with the confidence Christ gives and the reverence his commandment teaches. The God who has named himself at your Baptism is the Father to whom your Lord teaches you to pray.