Establishing His Name

As we continue our series of meditations on our new church building, we should reflect for a moment on the name it will have. Our church building will have the name of our church—Christ Church. The name of our church bears or carries the name of our Savior. We never want to take, or bear, or carry, the name of God in vain, so what is involved in that?

In Deuteronomy, the people of God were told to exterminate the Canaanites. This was a God-ordained ethnic cleansing. Particularly they were to go after the idolatrous worship, and note this—and “destroy the names of them out of that place” (Dt. 12:3). But nature abhors a vacuum even here, and this was done so that the name of God might be established in the land (Dt. 12:5). God was going to select a place to put His name.

But great wisdom is required. Centuries later, when Jesus was talking to His disciples about the Temple where God had established His name, He told them bluntly that God was going to level the place (Luke 21:6). And why? Because God cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly together. When the disciples asked about this, about when this would all happen, Jesus warned them about false teachers—many will come in my name, He says (Luke 21:8).

So then, when we build this place, it will have the name of Jesus Christ attached to it, and in some manner His name will be carved in stone. Do not let that stone be an emblem of the condition of our hearts. We want this to be a place where we earnestly confess our sins, where we are cleansed and forgiven, where we make our oaths and promises, and where we are equipped by the grace of God to keep them. In short, we want our church building to avoid being a violation of the Third Commandment, just as we want it to be an expression of our zeal to fulfill the two greatest commands. So let the stones cry out.