There’s a simple and obvious answer to that question: God is revealing himself as both YHWH and Elohim in the New Testament in the person of Jesus. And the Holy Spirit made sure that was understood right off the bat in Acts 2:36 when Peter shouted to the crowd, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
The Greek for “Lord” in that verse comes from kyrios (or kurios) meaning “power” or “might.” Which fits Jesus perfectly, because as Jesus himself said in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And in Philippians 2:10-11, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend….and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” In Jesus, therefore, we see the mighty Elohim power of God, “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion,” Ephesians 1:21. And just as the mighty Elohim pronounced his divine justice and judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus has been appointed to judge the whole world with divine justice too (Acts 17:31). So Jesus very much represents the mighty Elohim side of God that Abraham came to know.
But Jesus is “both Lord and Christ,” the meaning of which is made clear in Acts 3:26, because “When God raised up his servant, he sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” It’s in Christ that “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7). It’s in the life and death of Jesus as the Christ, therefore, that we see the deeply caring and loving YHWH side of God that Abraham also came to know.
And it’s our belief in both these sides of God, as revealed in Jesus, that’s now credited to us as righteousness, Romans 4:24. It’s our belief, first of all, that “he was delivered over to death for our sins” as our Saviour (25), but also that he was “raised as Jesus our Lord from the dead for our justification” (24-25). He’s both our Lord and Saviour, and identified as both from the moment of his birth in Luke 2:11, as the “Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” Which is why we refer to him as “Christ Jesus our Lord” or as “the Lord Jesus Christ,” in recognition that he’s our loving YHWH who saved us from our old life of death, but he’s also the mighty Elohim who’s transforming us into an entirely new creation.
And what God did next in the city of Sodom in Genesis 19 showed Abraham both his YHWH and Elohim sides too, that “God is both power and mercy”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 