Why we stopped calling Lord God Yahweh?

Before God came down from heaven and was born as a man (John 6:38), God was known by all man as the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah or Elohim. When Jesus was born as a man, He was called “Son of Man” as well as “Son of God”. God can be either plural or singular in number but still ONE God. When ‘Son of God’ was not present, there was no emphasis about God the Father as there was only one God – Yahweh, Jehovah or Elohim and man believed God was a single party.

In the days of the Old Covenant, God expected man to abide by the laws He gave them. However, in the days of the New Covenant, God gave a new Commandment to His believers to love each other (even to love their enemies) and to repent for their own sins. With the Old Covenant, the Promised Land for God’s Selected People was Canaan. But in the New Covenant, God wants His true believers to join Him in His Own Resting Place (in heaven or the New Jerusalem).

Through the birth of Jesus, human beings can become children of God instead of servants of God in the old days (i.e. Abraham was the servant of God). Lets share the following six segments of the Bible:

“In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:45 NLT)

“A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever.” (John 8:35 NLT)

“If a father dies and leaves great wealth for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set.

And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were slaves to the spiritual powers of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father. Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you.” (Galatians 4:1-7 NLT)

“How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:3-5 NLT)

“And have you entirely forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you, his children? He said, ‘My child, don’t ignore it when the Lord disciplines you, and don’t be discouraged when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes those he accepts as his children. As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Whoever heard of a child who was never disciplined? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children after all.” (Hebrews 12:5-8 NLT)

“All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.” (Revelation 21:7 NLT)

Because no one can perfect the law, God gives the New Covenant by coming down from heaven Himself to create the WAY for man to go to heaven. The choice is in man, not God as the WAY had already been created. In the New Covenant, He will write His Words into the hearts of people through the Holy Spirit instead of writing the laws onto the rock (Jeremiah 31:31-34). If you believe there is only ONE God (of course God can act plurally), then, you can understand that Jesus was God before He came down from heaven (see John 3:13), the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (see Exodus 3:14-15, John 8:24, 8:28, 8:56-58; 10:30)

“Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father either. But anyone who confesses the Son has the Father also.” (1 John 2:23 NLT)

“So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life.” (1 John 5:12 NLT)

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15)