Psalm 57:1-2, ‘Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I’ll take refuge until destruction passes by. I’ll cry to God Most High, to God who accomplishes all things for me.’
We’ve been learning about the various different names of God and we’ve intimated that all these different names present us with different aspects of the nature and character of God. These are important for us because our God, unlike all other gods and goddesses from the plethora of religions throughout human history, is a very personal and intimate God. However, He’s so big and complex and detailed and multi-faceted that He’s almost impossible to describe and if that’s the case…how do we get to know Him?
To help us out, God reveals His nature and His attitudes, His power and His complexity, His standards and perfection as well as His mercy and His grace, through the names He goes by as well as His actions.
In this program we’re going to look at another of God’s names, it’s El Elyon. El means God, and Elyon means Most High. So El Elyon is God Most High.
This name is both an adjective, so it describes God but it’s also substantive, meaning this name reveals the substance, the reality of who God is. El Elyon expresses God extreme sovereignty, His majesty and the fact that He is preeminent over and above all things.
We’ll look at these 3: sovereignty, majesty and pre-eminence.
In the Old Covenant the name El Elyon occurs 28 times, 19 of those times are in Psalms.
What does the word sovereign mean in relation to God? It means that all things…no matter what they are…happen according to God’s pre-ordained will. That’s more than a brain-strain and it’s often confusing but it’s the case none-the-less.
Isaiah 46:10, ‘Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, “My purpose will be established, and I’ll accomplish all My good pleasure.”’
Romans 8:28-30, ‘And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, he also glorified.’
Romans 11:36, ‘For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.’
Everything that happens, does so because God determined that it would and should and the end result is the fulfillment of His purposes and good pleasure. What happens will always result in the fulfilling of God’s purposes. If you can understand the sovereignty of God, you’re God! We won’t always understand why God has sovereignly ordained for things to happen the way they do, but God has specific purpose for them. We may not see it, but He does and He’ll always accomplish His purposes.
What does God’s majesty mean?
With regard to God Himself, the Bible talks of God being clothed with majesty. The English meaning of majesty is derived from the Latin word ‘maiestas’ which means greatness and used as a style by many monarchs, primarily kings and emperors. These styles were a means to physically express their rank highness. In the Hebrew, the word for majesty varies and it depends on the context, but the word used in the context of God’s majesty is usually ‘hadar’, which means honour, beauty, comeliness, glorious.
Psalm 93:1, ‘The Lord reigns, He’s clothed with majesty (honour, beauty, comeliness and glory); the Lord has clothed Himself with strength; indeed, the world is firmly established, it won’t be moved.’
This verse is describing the magnificence of God to be sure, but it’s also describing His sovereign purpose, His authority and power over the physical world. He’s above it as well as beyond it.
Psalm 96:5-6, ‘For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendour and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.’
This verse is comparing the nothingness of the false idols of the nations of the world with the might and glory and majesty of God who made the very heavens which are even to this day, beyond our capacity to map and measure.
What does preeminence mean?
Preeminence is the FACT of surpassing all others, it’s absolute superiority.
God is absolutely higher than all others, He surpasses all others and is superior to all others. It is this preeminence that makes Him unpassable, insurmountable and unstoppable and completely unattainable, and when I say unattainable I mean that we’ll never, ever be able to be like Him or match Him, or fully comprehend or know Him.
Isaiah 55:9, ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’
The wonderful thing however about this, is that because God is personal, He wanted to be able to connect with us, but how can such a high and lofty God, so far above us, actually reach out and be knowable by us? He’s not an unknowable, untouchable force or energy, He’s not a cold, unloving, unfeeling carving in word, stone or metal. These are the characteristics of the pagan gods of this world and the spiritual forces that are worshipped by modern spiritualists and the reason they have these attributes is because they don’t actually exist.
He took care of that for us as well, regardless of His sovereignty, His majesty and His preeminence, He came to live among us.
John 14:9, ‘Jesus said to him, (Philip) “have I been so long with you, and yet you haven’t come to know Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”’
El Elyon in all His sovereignty, majesty and preeminence continues to draw close to His human creation without ever compromising these high and lofty attributes.
Shalom
Mandy 🙂
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Blue Letter Bible
