Yahweh - The Lord. A Brief Theology.

As Frame states in his book The Doctrine of God, there is no name, no description of God that is more central to Scripture than this - that God is the Lord.  It is the name by which Moses and the people of Israel were to call Him.  And, when we echo the Apostles in saying Christ is the Lord, we are saying that Jesus is God.  He is the Lord who has been with His people from the beginning.

Dr. Frame does a fantastic job summarizing what it means to be the Lord.

First, Yahweh is the name of a person.  He speaks and acts.  He commits Himself to deliver His people.  He promises blessing and threatens punishment.  Frame continues:

He is not, therefore, an impersonal force to be manipulated by human ingenuity.  He has His own purposes, His own standards, His own delights and hatreds.  He loves on His own initiative, rather than merely responding to events...Each of us relates to Him as one person to another.  Rather taking Him for granted, as we do with impersonal things and forces, we must always take His concerns into account, responding to Him in repentance, love, thanksgiving, and worship.

Second, Yahweh is the Holy One. Though we are to treat Him as a person, we must not treat Him as an ordinary person.  He is extraordinary.  He is radically different from us.  His holiness is "His capacity and right to arouse our reverent awe and wonder.

Think of how you would feel if you were to stand in line at a restaurant behind Lebron James or Denzel Washington.  You would immediately act differently.  You would be impacted by their "greatness."  While it is the shame of our nation to treat humans as more holy than Yahweh, this is a small shadow of what we should feel as we direct our minds and hearts toward God in worship.

Finally, God is the Lord of the covenant.  Lordship is relational in nature - between God and His creatures.  As our Lord, He has delivered us; He has given great benefits, but also expects covenant fidelity and obedience from His people.  He is faithful to meet every act of obedience with blessing, as well as every act of disobedience with its just punishment.  This covenant, He has graciously recorded in His Word and given to His people.

Frame states, "Israel's relationship to God was not to be governed by the people's imaginations, or by religious wisdom, or by scholarship, or by oral tradition, but by a written word, authored by the Lord."

While there are many other ways which Scripture describes the relationship between God and His people, Lordship is central.  In summary, "the name Lord names the head of a covenant.  His essential relationship to us is that of a great king who has delivered us from death and calls us to serve Him by obeying His written word."