I have a pet peeve.
Here at Messianic Musings, we use Jesus’ Hebrew name, Yeshua (sometimes rendered “y’shua”). This is, I believe, more than enough controversy on the topic of Messiah’s name. It’s enough to make many Christians name-call and worse in response to anything else I say.
And it’s not like I reject the English version of his name, Jesus. It is the name I called on when God saved me! So I know He knows who I mean when that name is used. However, since becoming Messianic about 10 years ago, I have fully embraced the name of Yeshua; because it’s better.
For me, the name of Yeshua has been powerful in drawing me closer to who Messiah was and is and is to come; it’s why I embraced the Messianic movement, because I wanted to know Him more, as He actually was. That includes calling on Him with the name his mother Miryam used when calling him for supper.
The name Yeshua is also important because of how it reveals the presence of Messiah, and YHWH’s plan for Messiah throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Yeshua is a Hebrew word that means, simply, “salvation.” It allows one to read, for example, Lamentations 3:26 “it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the L-RD,” as “it is good to wait quietly for the Yeshua of the L-RD.” It also allows one to read Isaiah 62:1, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch,” as “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her Yeshua like a blazing torch.” What better description for He who is the light of the world?
Yet there are those who wish to sew division in the Messianic movement, who are arguing over the name of Yeshua. Their argument goes like this: John 5:43 reads like this, with Yeshua speaking, saying, “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.”
From this obscure statement, Sacred Name advocates claim that there is a Jewish conspiracy to cover up the true name of Messiah, which they variously claim to be either Yahshua or Yahoshua. Why? Because the personal name of God – yod-hay-vav-hay – begins with a yod and a hay, which they presume is pronounced “Yah.” Therefore, they claim, His name is Yahshua, not Yeshua, and anyone who calls on the name of Yeshua is worshiping a false God, the “someone else” that Yeshua supposedly refers to in this passage.
All of this is highly problematic and simply exposes how little of the Hebrew language that proponents of this Sacred Name movement actually know. Most importantly, by changing Yeshua to Yahshua, you’re actually changing the meaning and Messiah drops out of his presence in the Torah/Tenakh (and “yeshua/salvation” appears 80 times there!) in the process. At best, Yahshua would mean The L-RD saves or ADONAI’s salvation. It takes Yeshua out of his role as the source of YHWH’s salvation!
Next, it’s a huge leap in logic to claim that Yeshua is speaking prophetically here, and that, if he is, that he’s speaking of a future mistranslation of His name. If Yeshua is speaking prophetically at all in this passage from John 5:43, it is far more likely that he is speaking of future false messiahs who truly did come in their own name and authority, having nothing to do with the Father.
That would mean, looking forward from Yeshua, people like Nero, Constantine, Hitler and so on. All of them were embraced by the people of their day, and all their deeds were tainted by selfish vanity and ruthless ambition.
As Dr. Daniel Botkin points out in his essay, “Yeshua or Yahshua,” all Hebrew language experts agree that there is no such name in Hebrew as Yahshua or Yahoshua. I’ll quote Dr. Botkin’s article directly here:
For a name to be pronounced “Yahshua,” it would have to be spelled [wv--hy, and no such name exists anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. You don’t have to just take my word for it, though. Dr. Danny Ben-Gigi says of the Yahshua form that "there is no such name in Hebrew" and that "people invented it to fit their theology."[1] Dr. Ben-Gigi is an Israeli and the former head of Hebrew programs at Arizona State University. He is the author of the book First Steps in Hebrew Prayers, and he designed and produced the “Living Israeli Hebrew” language-learning course. Dr. David Bivin, a Christian, says that the Yahshua form “is rooted in a misunderstanding.”[2] Dr. Bivin is a renowned Hebrew scholar and teacher and author of Fluent Biblical Hebrew. I do not know of a single individual that knows Hebrew well enough to actually read it and understand it and converse in it who uses the Yahshua form.
All that aside… and I trust Dr. Botkin’s scholarship in this area… it comes down to an even more basic misunderstanding of John 5:43: Yeshua is not literally talking about names here. He is speaking about His authority.
So what Yeshua is actually saying is, I have come under my father’s authority, as his direct representative, and still you do not accept me. But if someone else comes under their own authority, you obey them.
Looking at this verse in context clears up all misconceptions about Yeshua’s meaning. At the start of John 5, Yeshua is healing at the pool of Bethesda, near the Sheep Gate. It is Shabbat and he has just healed a man on the day of rest. Certain Jewish authorities begin to question this as a violation of Shabbat and under what authority he has a right to do it.
So Messiah’s authority, not the spoken name of Messiah, is what is at issue throughout the rest of the chapter; the text tells us that by equating Himself with the Father, Yeshua invited the scorn of these Jewish authorities, who began to seek a way to have Him put to death.
So the topic is not “Is his name Yeshua, Yahshua, Yahoshua, Yehoshua or Bob?” The topic at hand is, “Is Yeshua really a representative of YHWH, The L-RD, or not?”
In fact, Yeshua’s response could actually be seen as a bit of a swipe at the rabbis of his day! Why do I say this? Well, because Yeshua is said to have taught “as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law,” in Matthew 7:29. What does that mean?
Well, a quick look at a Talmud can clear that up. Nearly all rabbis teach in the name of the rabbi who taught them, who teach in the name of the rabbi who taught them, and so on. They teach not as those who hear from God directly, but under the authority of those who taught them… the rabbis who they studied under.
That’s why so many Talmudic and other Jewish rabbinical literature reads like this: “Rabbi Akiva taught, in the name of Rabbi Eliazar, that…” They came in their own name and authority, handing it down generationally, and their teachings were embraced in a way that Yeshua’s teaching was not, among some.
In the same way, Christians today can often cite the Letters of Paul, books by James Dobson, or the words of Rick Warren, far more easily, more accurately and more often than they can the words of Yeshua. Point out to any Christian that Sunday is not the Sabbath, and they’ll ignore the Torah and the words of Yeshua, and quickly point to a misinterpreted phrase from one of Paul’s letters, or what Dobson, Warren or the tradition of their local church has to say on the matter, disregarding God’s opinion completely.
Yeshua had something interesting to say about those who will not surrender their human traditions in Mark 7:9: “And he said to them: ‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!’”
Who wants to be guilty of ignoring God’s commands in favor of our own way of doing things? I know I don’t. And yet for the sake of misunderstanding the intent, purpose, context and actual meaning of John 5:43, many in the Sacred Name movement slander those Messianics who call on the name of Yeshua, even though their name of Yahshua or Yahoshua or even Yehoshua is entirely fictional, made up to fit a separatist and divisive theology.
Enough is enough. Now is the time to worship the Father (and His Messiah Yeshua) in spirit and in truth, and not “an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions,” as Paul himself cites in 1 Timothy 6:4.
