Eloah

Names of God – part 54

The true God

40 Blogs of Lent: 34

This name for God is God, that’s it, just God in the singular and is the singular of the plural form Elohim. It is used for the gods of the surrounding nations when it includes the definite article, such as the God of the Philistines and has a form in Aramaic, Ehah which has become the Arabic word Allah.

In the Old Testament the main usage is poetic and it refers to the one God or true God. I have already dealt with this in part 2 of this series, Elha.

Eloah ‘Asah

God my maker

Eloah does come in multiple forms. Eloah ‘Asah is God my maker, Asah being the word used to mean make or create in Genesis chapter 1.

What I want to look at here is the book of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?

We are told to make for ourselves a new heart.

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

God makes the new heart.

Is Ezekiel contradicting himself here, or did he change his mind between chapter 18 and chapter 36? I’d say no. What we do not have is contradiction, but rather cooperation. God is the one who gives a new heart, God is the one that puts his Spirit in us, God is the one who makes us new, but he does it in cooperation with us.

Our challenge, as we are about to enter Holy Week is to ask ourselves if we are cooperating with God in renewing ourselves or are we getting in the way of God renewing us?