Bible Studies: The Names of God – Part 2

Jehovah Rophe – God is Our Healer

Is there anyone among us who has not suffered sickness in some form? It was on an occasion when His people were sick that God chose to reveal another of His names – Jehovah Rophe – “I am the God who heals.”

During all the time God afflicted the Egyptians for refusing to let the Israelites go, He kept His chosen people free from disease. Now just a few days after they had escaped through the marvelous parting of the Red Sea, the Israelites were faced with another crisis.

The Scripture: Exodus 15:22-24

“Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter….So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?’ “

1. When they came to the Desert of Shur, what was wrong with the water?

2. What did the people do?

The Scripture: Exodus 15:25, 26

“Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. Then the Lord…tested them. He said, ‘If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.’ “

3. What was God’s promise?

4. What name did He reveal to them?

The Scripture: Deuteronomy 7:15

“The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt.”

This same promise is given in the New Testament.

The Scripture: 1 Peter 2:24

“He (Jesus) Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.”

5. What is that promise?

The psalms speak frequently of God’s healing.

The Scripture: Psalm 103:2-5

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfied your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like eagle’s.”

6. What are some of the healings promised in this psalm?

Truly, we serve a healing God!

Jehovah Nissi – God is Our Banner

One of the heathen tribes who continually afflicted the Israelites were the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother. As the Israelites were making their way to the Promised Land, the Amalekites attacked them. However, God gave Moses a strategy.

The Scripture: Exodus 17: 9, 11

“Moses said to Joshua. ‘Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands’….As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.”

7. What were Moses’ instructions to Joshua?

8. What happened?

The Scripture: Exodus 17:12, 13

“When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up-one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekites army with the sword.”

9. Summarize the action.

The Scripture: Exodus 17:15

“Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, ‘For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord.”

10. What did Moses do?

A banner is not necessarily a flag. It can be a staff or a pole. Under God’s lifted banner, we have victory.

The Scripture: Leviticus 26:7, 8

“You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.”

11. What does this scripture promise us?

The Scripture: Song of Songs 2:4

“He has taken me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.”

12. What is the Lord’s banner over us?

God’s banner over us is not a symbol of war; rather, it is His love.

As we move further along in the history of God’s relationship with man, we learn that from the beginning God had a purpose for us.

God’s purpose for us is to be a people set apart for Himself. He does this by a process called sanctification or consecration. As one old teacher explains it: “God sanctifies us to make us clean enough to be used by Him.”

Sanctification is at times translated, “to be made holy, dedicated, pure.”

Jehovah Kadesh – The Lord Who Makes Us Holy

The Scripture: Leviticus: 20:7

“Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord who makes you holy.”

13. Why does the Lord tell the Israelites to consecrate themselves?

14. What is His new name?

The Lord who makes you holy – Jehovah Kadesh

The Scripture: Leviticus: 20:22-26

“Keep all My decrees and laws and follow them….[and] you will possess their land; I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from nations….You are to be holy to Me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be My own.”

15. What will be the Israelites’ reward if they follow the Lord’s laws?

16. What is the Lord’s purpose for them?

The Lord amplifies His instructions in the New Testament.

The Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6: 14-18

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common….What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols. For we are the temple of the living God.”

17. What does the Lord tell His people not to do?

18. What does He call us?

The Scripture: 1 Peter 2:9

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

19. What does the apostle Peter call us?

Our sanctification is a complex process and is accomplished through many different means.

The Scripture: John 15:3

“You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”

20. What is the means of cleansing according to this verse?

The Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6:11

“You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

21. How does Paul say we are sanctified?

The work of the Holy Spirit is also spotlighted in Romans.

The Scripture: Romans 15, 16

“[God] gave me the grace to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”

22. How are the Gentiles made an acceptable offering to God?

Of course we play a crucial part in our own sanctification.

The Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:13

“From the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”

23. What must we do to be sanctified?

The Scripture: Hebrews 10:10 and 13:12

“We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all….And Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood.”

24. What two means of our sanctification are named in these verses?

What a powerful picture of Himself God has given us through His many names. In Part 3, we will continue our study of these names and what they reveal about God.