“And I will give them a monument and a name in my house and within my walls, better than sons and daughters; I will give him an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” - Isaiah 56:5
I recently watched On Stranger Tides again with my family. Some love it. Some hate it. I enjoy it, but what caught me offguard about the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment, were the viewers who criticized the missionary’s ‘audacity’ to give a nameless mermaid a name without her permission. They called his kindly effort to humanize her before her captors ‘controlling’ and further claimed he fundamentally acted like he owned her. Ridiculous as this silly overreaction may be, though, the matter sparked a question. What makes naming something or someone such a big deal?
Picking names ranks high in agonizing choices. ‘It’s gotta sound catchy.’ ‘It’s gotta be meaningful.’ I myself pillaged more baby-naming sites than most expectant mothers just seeking identities for my characters. Names, you see, are more than identifiers. They incite expectations then earn reputations. Still, though some of On Stranger Tides’s critics twisted the missionary’s compassion for possessivness, they were Biblically accurate about one thing. Naming is an authoritative act. It reveals the destiny one intends for another. Yes, names do suggest much about their owners, but like gifts, they say twice as much about their bequeathers—be they careless, cruel, or thoughtful. God is no exception.
Think back to Eden. God told Adam to name the animals. This affirmed His intention to set mankind over the animals. (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15-20). Then there’s Genesis 17:19. God told Abraham to name his promised son Isaac; he from who’m His promised Messiah would come. Then consider times God changed someone’s name. In Hosea 1:6-9; 2:1, 21-23, God bizarrely ordered the prophet to name his children ‘not pitied’ and ‘not my people’ at first. Then later told him to rename them ‘pitied’ and ‘my people’ to demonstrate His heart for repentant sinners. In each and every case, whenever God beqeathed or changed a name, He defined and redefined destinies with mere words.
Many act funny about authority. They tend to hate it yet want somebody who’ll take care of them. Yes, few things are worse than mishandled authority, but a world without a fully good being in total charge is unlivable. The young missionary cared for the fearsome mermaid, so at her most vulnerable, he risked all. He placed her under his protection and gave her an identity; a chance at life. God too has and will give all His followers brand new names.
One day, everything will unravel. All who reject Christ’s forgiveness and His rightful authority will be repelled from Him in the last days like an opposing magnet. They’ll proudly cling to the names they made for themselves. They won’t be remade. However, to those who’ll seek and receive new names from Him, they’ll experience Him saying, ‘You’re mine! Come have life abundant with me!’ Hence why He sent and named the sustainer and perfector of our salvation Jesus (‘Yahweh Saves’).
A new identity from God means new life. It’s a fresh start; a new direction; an appointed place in God’s coming world. So which would you rather? Carve your own name into a fading world? Or be marked for a new, lasting destiny?
“The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give to him some of the hidden manna, and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, that no one knows except the one who receives it.” - Revelation 2:17
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