INTRODUCTION
Words carry thought. Words mean things. To understand what a particular word means we must see how the word is used. In the kingdom of God we must understand how God uses words to convey His will and message. We cannot use modern day dictionaries to learn what God means when He uses certain words. Instead we must learn how He uses them and gain our understanding that way. God uses words to describe salvation that He spent over 1500 years developing through the nation Israel. Some of these words include “sacrifice,” “atonement,” “propitiation,” “faith,” and others. So instead of substituting these words for others that we understand from our lives spent in the world, we must learn how God uses these words so that we may understand the message He is revealing to us. When we don’t understand certain words in the Bible and then do not attempt to understand them, it should not be surprising to us when we really do not understand God, Jesus or salvation. Furthermore, we have trouble explaining these things because we refuse to use the words God has given us.
There are many attempts today to convey God’s word with slang and every day language. There are even translations of the Bible geared toward this end. In doing this we miss the power of the message and cause confusion among the people of God. Those familiar with the things of God cannot have intelligent conversations about God’s workings because there is a sort of language barrier. We see this in the promoting of sayings and creeds rather than Scripture. When someone uses the phrase “limited atonement” to describe a particular theological doctrine, those of the household of faith may not know what he is speaking of because this wording is never used in Scripture. It may shock you to see how many phrases we vigorously teach that are not even found in the Word of God. For example:
“plan of salvation”
“evangelism”
“new testament christianity”
“pope”
“sinner’s prayer”
“mourner’s bench”
“ask Jesus into your heart”
“praying through”
“the great commission”
“missionary”
“denomination”
“slain in the spirit”
“discipleship”
“purgatory”
“beliefs”
“worship service”
You will not find these phrases used in any of the major translations of the Bible. To be sure some of these concepts are taught in the Bible but the wording is not used. If you were to speak in this language to Paul or Peter they may have no clue what you mean. When we use these terms today (and a whole lot more) it can foster confusion in the people of God and is not familiar to the household of faith.
I must be clear that I am not advocating a particular translation of the Bible or even that a Christian must learn Hebrew and Koine Greek, although that would be very beneficial. I am simply saying that the people of God must use the words of God to present the message of God with power and clarity.
Consider our theme verse for this study, “12Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combing spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:12-13). The Apostles we given the words to speak directly from the Spirit of God who would come to lead them into all truth (John 16:13) and bring to their remembrance all things (John 14:26) and what they spoke is the same as what Jesus spoke as it all came directly from God (John 16:14-15). But these words were not to end with them as Paul told Timothy to “retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13).
It is a common practice today to avoid words in the Bible that are unfamiliar to the people. Let me just say that the reason they are unfamiliar is because we spend more time using the world’s words than God’s words. God’s people are always more acquainted with Him and His language rather than anyone else’s. My exhortation is to not avoid these words but teach these words. This is the purpose of this booklet. See how clear this “great salvation” will become in your mind and heart when you begin to understand the Word and WORDS of God. When the heart of man begins to comprehend the things of God it is enlivened and strengthened as the man begins to behold the glory of God. The gospel has transforming power (2 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:18). To the extent that we “water down” the message, we have “watered down” the transforming power of God.
For our study we will first look at the Hebrew and Greek words and maybe some modern day definitions to get our bearings. We will then see how God used the word prior to the “day of salvation” and then following.
It had been a desire of mine to do this ever since I began teaching and preaching the word of God. I quickly realized that a lot of my time was spent simply defining words. But it wasn’t until I went through a study by Given O. Blakely entitled “Divine Nomenclature” in which he did the very thing we are doing through this study, that I truly saw the benefit. It proved to be faith building for me and my prayer is that through these studies we will get a clearer picture of Jesus and the great salvation we have in Him.
I hope you are encouraged and strengthened.
Pat Woods