That New Name Is Coming

A Reflection on Isaiah 43:1

But now says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Isaiah 43:1-7

Isaiah says that God says. The verb is in the present tense. The immediacy, the current moment in which God’s word is spoken is emphasized by the word now— “Now says the Lord.” Don’t tell yourself this is an historical present. Don’t tell yourself the word was only spoken in the present tense for ancient Jacob, “way back then.” The word is in your mouth and in your heart now. Believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, who wields the Scriptures as a sword in this very moment to cut through the past and into the future in this very moment. Hear him speak.

What the Lord says in this distended moment is that he we are his because he made us. God made us, makes us, and will remake us. Isaiah says, “he created you, O Jacob; he formed you, O Israel.” Created and formed are parallel, and speak to a double reality.

To say that he created us is to say that God gathered the dirt in his hands. He formed us out of the ground like he did our father, Adam. Each clump was gently smushed together into the wonderful and fearful being that we are.

To say that he formed us is to say that he brought us through the Spirit-hovered waters. He created us from the to dirt, but to form is a spiritual act. It’s to fashion a life characterized by the Spirit, unlike the old Adam. As many of us as have been baptized are now in Christ. And if anyone is in Christ—behold, new creation.

God created Jacob out of the dirt. He took Jacob from the grave of Egypt, the bowels of the earth. He reached down from on high and he took the enslaved, un-enlivened clumps of clay, and set them free by putting breath in their lungs.

God formed Israel in the Red Sea. They passed through the waters; God was with them. He sealed their victory, putting his seal upon them. Like their (and our) father Jacob who was renamed at the water of the river Jabbok, so God’s people were no longer “Jacob” on the other side of the sea. They were formed into Israel with the Spirit-pillar hovering above and before them.

God speaks this word now by his Spirit. We were once named Jacob; now we are Israel. But we are not what we shall be. There is yet a new name coming. A third movement which will not be a creating or a forming, but a resurrecting. On that day, we will receive a final name written on a white stone. What will that name be? We do not yet know, though we see through a glass darkly. We can discern that whatever name it will be, it will be a Christian one, because we will be in Christ (as we are even now by the promise). On that day the Lord will say, “I created you, I formed you, I resurrected you, O [Christian Name]. That is, “I created you from the dirt; I formed you in the water; I resurrected you from the grave.”

God says in this very moment—even as you read this!— that because of his past action, and because of the promise of glory, we are his. He says to you, beloved of God, “I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Hear him call you by name. Your surname is the name of your dirt, the depths of your family history, your “Jacob.” Your first name is your uniqueness, the new thing God has done in making you and not another, and in making you completely unlike any other. Your first name is your “Israel.” But God has yet another name for you.

What it will be no one knows. But you will, O Christian, have a resurrection name. Ask God what it is. Rest assured he will answer you even if it’s a 1000-year-day from now.

Finally, hear the Spirit say to you—right now—Fear not! We need not fear because fear is always of what might be. Fear is always anxiety of the future. But the future is set, guaranteed, promised.

He says, “I have redeemed you.” Redeemed is not in the present tense, but in the past. So sure is the promise of God that he will redeem us from the grave, that the future is as the past. He persists in the past tense, “I have called you by name.” Called is past: he’s called us Jacob, he’s called us Israel, and he’s called us our future name. We just haven’t heard it yet.

So, with a resounding “therefore,” he says,

“You. Are. Mine.”