Article March 4, 1905 Issue

Thy Name

AUGUSTA R. MC DONALD.

In the seventeenth chapter of St. John's gospel we find the words "Thy name" used three times by Jesus in the prayer in which he recounts his life-work somewhat and expresses his ideal for his disciples. In the sixth verse he says. "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world;" and in the twelfth verse. "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name;" and once again, in the last verse of the chapter, "And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it."

The use of the phrase seems a little peculiar in connection with the verbs with which it is used. What does it mean to manifest a name, to keep in a name, or to declare a name? Surely the words "thy name" must have a different signification from that usually given them. The latter part of the last verse seems to give a satisfactory solution; "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." This is given as a consequence of Jesus' declaring his Father's name, and as the reason for that declaration. The writer of this gospel was the "beloved disciple" who seems to have grasped more of Jesus' spiritual meaning than any of the others. In his epistles he dwells much on the thought of love and tells us plainly in one place that "God is love." Jesus "kept them" in God's name by the attraction of Love, and we can attract and hold by no other power.

Jesus' whole life was the declaration of God as Love, for he came to wipe out the concept of God as a stern, wrathful deity, and to reveal Him as a loving, pitiful Father, who knows and supplies every least need of even the least of His creatures. His life-work was a series of demonstrations of the power of Love over all evil. And when, on the last night of his earthly life, he said that he had declared this Love in order that his disciples might have the love wherewith God had loved him, he explained his ideal for his immediate followers and for us, all those who were to believe on him through their word.

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