Sid Roth Interview Session with his guest Dr. John Garr

1. Sid Roth Interview Session with his guest Dr. John Garr launchora.com/story/sid-roth-interview-session-with-his-guest-dr-john Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Dr. John Garr speaking to him about his book “Restoring Our Lost Legacy.” John you have a very interesting chapter here I think that every Christian in America would want to read this the title is “This is My Name forever.” Chapter 18 of your book and it talks about Yahweh or the name of God explain that. John: Well unfortunately most Christians don’t even know that God has a name. If they have any idea that there is a name applied to Him there is the term Jehovah but Jehovah is basically a hybrid form of the original language of Hebrew as it stated His name is in the Hebrew text of scripture. It’s essentially a four letter Hebrew word it’s call the tetragrammaton because it’s four letters. But it’s the Yod Hey Vav Heh which is probably best pronounced somewhere close to Yahweh. It actually is a statement of the very essence and being of God Himself. It’s the statement that He is the one who is; it’s the statement of His eternity I Am that I Am. It’s also a statement of God’s nature as being the only being that exists who is the source of His own being. In other words all of us are because God made us or because we had parents, but God is simply because God is I Am that I Am. But the name is very powerful and of course we know in Jewish tradition in Bible times people were names, names according to characteristic of the people of those that bore those names. For instance Abram, or Abraham, was called Abraham because of the sir name because he was to the father of many nations. And so God’s name tells us something about who He is and what He is to us. This name is something that Christians need to be aware of and understand because they really know more about the very nature of God that’s manifest in His name. And when we realize that our God is the God who is not the God who was or the God who will be He’s just simply who is. So a million years into the future God already is there and that’s another interpretation of the word Yahweh it could mean “I will be there.” Or I will be what I will be. Sid: Now in the King James Bible and many translations where the Hebrew word Yahweh is they translate it Lord why is that? John: Now this is on the basis of a basically a rich Jewish tradition it goes back and predates the time of Jesus in which there was fear that one would abuse or profane the name that God had given to describe Himself and therefore violate the 3rd commandment in the 10 Commandments. The 3rd Commandment says “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” So in an effort to avoid abusing or profaning the name of God or taking it in vain at the time of Jesus there had emerged among the Jewish people of simply no using or pronouncing that name they would celebrate, or substitute I should say, the Hebrew word “Adonai” which means Lord. And so that’s how we have seen to see the substitute in our English translation of the word instead of this name. And so virtually every place that you see in any Christian scriptures the word Lord it is replacing the Yod Hey Vav Heh in Hebrew which would be rendered more accurately Yahweh. 1/2

2. Sid: Well let me ask you a question I get letters every once in a while and they say “Sid Roth how come you call God by the name of God and you don’t legalistically and that’s the where it’s coming from say Yahweh you’re in trouble with God if you don’t say Yahweh verses Lord or God? John: Well the thing about that is that some people misunderstand and think that you have to refer to God by His personal name on continuing basis and never referring to Him by anything but His personal name. God doesn’t mind our referring Him by titles and in deed in some cases a title is simply a means of expressing adoration or reverence for someone. For instance, if you go into the court of law you know Bill sitting behind the desk he is the judge he is sitting on the bench you know him you could walk up to him and say “Hi Bill.” But you don’t say “Hi Bill” you say “You Honor” you know it’s a term of respect and reference. Well that’s essentially what to say the Lord as a substitute term or to say God as a substitute term it certainly has effectiveness and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I think that where some people get into an area where it becomes a legalism to almost they have to say the sacred name itself every time they refer to deity. They also think that everybody else should do the same thing and then they start judging other people on the basis of that. For instance, I’ll give you an example of the issue of the whether one should refer to our Savior as Yeshua or as Jesus. And some have gone to the extreme of suggesting that to say Jesus is to gives reverence to the king of the great god Zeus. Well first of all when you spell Jesus in Greek nowhere is the letter Zeta present and Zeta is the letter that begins the name of Zeus. So you know it’s a technical absurdity that we can’t refer to Jesus by the Anglicized form of His name because essentially it’s come to us through the language stream from Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English and it’s as close a transliteration through that language stream that we could rely upon. So if we went to refer to Jesus from his original name the name that He was called by His family we call Him Yeshua. Sid: Now you use these names interchangeably you do that on purpose why? This conversation is between Sid Roth and Dr. John Garr from the show It's Supernatural. To read full conversation click here. 2/2