"Declaring God's Name"
Just before His arrest, mock trial, and crucifixion, Jesus told His Father, “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it” (John 17:26). What was that name, and when did He declare it?
Moses asked His name when God called Moses to liberate the Hebrews from their Egyptian bondage: “They shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?” (Ex 3:13). God told him, “I AM hath sent me unto you” (Ex 3:14). I AM in Hebrew is hayah and means to be, to become. The Septuagint translates God’s name into Greek, rendering it as Ἐγώ εἰμι. Knowing that fact helps us understand how Jesus declared His Father’s name.
Jesus often declared the name “I Am,” and John records them in his gospel. The seven famous “I am” statements are: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12), “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7), “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11), “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). These statements reveal different aspects of Jesus' identity in relationship to His people. More to the point, in Greek, the language in which John wrote his gospel, each “I am” is “Ἐγώ εἰμι,” the name of God as revealed in the Septuagint. But these seven are not all. Consider one more.
When the 5000 men who saw how Jesus fed them and their families with only five loaves and two fish, they wanted to “come and take him by force, to make him a king,” because they realized “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world . . . he departed again into a mountain himself alone” (John 6:14-15). That night, while His disciples were sailing on the Sea of Galilee during a storm, Jesus came to them, walking on the water. They were afraid, but Jesus said, “It is I; be not afraid” (John 16:20). The Greek for “It is I” is “Ἐγώ εἰμι,” the same as “I am.” Jesus was revealing to His disciples that He is God and king of Israel, who would be revealed in due time.
We live in chaotic times. A storm is raging about us. That storm began on our church as Jesus forewarned: “Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth—a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation—and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth” (D&C 105:9b). It began about 1890 with a dispute among the leadership and eventually embroiled the members. We never quit our arguing. The purpose of the whirlwind is to call us to repentance and prompt us to change our behavior. Nephi forewarned, “The kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance” (2N 12:23).
From our perspective, that storm has swamped our church and threatened its continuation. Worse, it has spilled over into our nation. Citizens throughout Western Civilization are defying their governments, dividing the culture, and creating an existential crisis. Will America remain the land of liberty and the home of the brave, or will it follow the misleading and deceptive trail that Communist propaganda is selling? Will Christianity succumb to Islamism or atheism as it appears to be doing among our European counterparts?
While we struggle against the raging storm surrounding us, as the disciples did on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is walking toward us. We do not see him quite yet, but we will soon, very soon. He is whispering what He will say more clearly when He appears, “It is I. Be not afraid.” He is telling us, “I am the same who liberated the Hebrews from their Egyptian captivity, who parted the Red Sea, and led them through it on dry ground, who brought them into the Promised Land. I will not leave you in this storm. I will deliver you from your enemies, for they are mine, too. Then, you can assist in building up the holy city, for I am king of Zion and will reign over my kingdom on earth.” John’s record of what happened that night foreshadows another event: the coming of the King of Zion during the storm of confusion and unbelief of the last days to save His kingdom and rescue His citizens.
Malachi posed a critical question: “Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” (Mal 3:2). The prophet added why he asked: “For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness” (Mal 3:2-3). Goldsmiths have historically refined gold ore in a three-step process. First, they heat the ore mixed with a little lead in a cupel, a small, shallow cup made of bone ash, cement, or magnesite, to over 1000°. The porous cupel will absorb the oxides, leaving a gold-silver bead called a doré bead. The second step removes the silver from the gold. In ancient times, the goldsmith layered the bead with a salt-based powder and heated it. The salt formed chlorine gas, which reacted with silver to form silver chloride, leaving pure gold behind.
The last step, the finishing step, completely purifies the gold and provides a profound insight into God’s goal behind our present storm. The goldsmith would place the gold in a crucible and heat it well above its melting point, around 1064°C (1947°F). As the gold melts, impurities such as base metals, oxides, and silicates will rise to the surface, forming a layer called dross. The goldsmith would skim off the dross using a long-handled iron tool or a clay skimmer, repeatedly removing the floating scum. He would then add a flux, such as borax, soda ash, or nitre, to help bind remaining impurities and draw them to the surface, where they could be skimmed again. The goldsmith would repeat this process, heating, skimming, and fluxing, until the goldsmith could see his own face reflected clearly in the molten gold. The perfectly smooth, mirror-like surface of the pure metal was the final indicator that no more impurities remained.
The storms we are enduring and the difficulties that we are confronting are God’s way of waking us up to how our sins have kept us from building His kingdom on earth, and more importantly, from Him. He is refining us from the worldliness that pollutes us. As we get closer to the minimal spiritual condition for living in His kingdom, He is further refining us, raising all remaining dross and skimming it off. As Brother Henry Shaffer used to say, “Everything that can be shaken, will be shaken.” He will keep refining us until Jesus can see His face reflected in us.
During the finishing process, the refiner cannot leave the fire. He must intently sit and watch. If the gold is overheated, even one moment too long, it is ruined. Overheating enlarges the grains, slightly separating them, making the finished product brittle and easily broken. He must control the heat, repeatedly skimming off the dross, until he sees his face perfectly reflected, and then immediately turn off the heat.
The same is true for us. Jesus is refining us, repeatedly heating and removing the dross, until He can see His face in us. I know how hard it is to let go of the impurities that we treasure, but letting them go will allow Jesus to see His face in us.
Before Jesus told His Father that He would declare His name, He prayed “for them also which shall believe on me through their [the disciples’] word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us” (John 17:20). The Father and Son are one because they share the same mind. That mind is the Holy Ghost. Since the declared name of God is the way (“the way, the truth, and the life”), every person has access through Him to the mind of God. He can live in us! When the Holy Ghost abides in us, the mind of the Father and the Son lives in us. By living in us, the Holy Ghost transforms us, providing the power and motivation to fully submit our will to the Father, as the Son did in Gethsemane. That is when the Father can see His Son’s face in us: when we fully submit as He did.