Someone said, “The scriptures state ‘for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved’ and that ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.’ You already believe in the Lord Jesus, so why do you believe in Almighty God? Isn’t that betraying the Lord Jesus?”

Three Stages of God's Work

Fallacy (40): Someone said, “The scriptures state ‘for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved’ and that ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.’ You already believe in the Lord Jesus, so why do you believe in Almighty God? Isn’t that betraying the Lord Jesus?”

Response: Just because the Bible states that “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” and that “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,” some people determine that God’s name can only be Jesus and not Almighty God, and that believing in Almighty God is betraying the Lord Jesus. This is completely our own conception and imagining, and shows that we don’t have true knowledge of God. People who have read the Bible should remember that Jehovah once said these words in the Old Testament: “I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no savior” (Isa 43:11), and “this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial to all generations” (Exo 3:15). But Acts 4:12 of New Testament also states: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” So tell us, is Jehovah or Jesus the only name of God? Actually, it is not that God’s name never changes. We’ll understand once we take a look at the prophecy in Revelation. Revelation 3:12 states: “Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write on him my new name.” It is clearly prophesied here that God will have a new name in the last days. How could this name still be “Jesus”? If it is still “Jesus,” then how is it a new name? Therefore, we must never determine that God’s name will never change.

Almighty God says: “Some say that the name of God does not change, so why then did the name of Jehovah become Jesus? It was prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, so why then did a man by the name of Jesus come? Why did the name of God change? Was not such work carried out long ago? Cannot God this day do a new work? The work of yesterday can be altered, and the work of Jesus can follow on from that of Jehovah. Cannot then the work of Jesus be succeeded by another work? If the name of Jehovah can be changed to Jesus, then cannot the name of Jesus also be changed? This is not unusual, and people think so only due to their simple-mindedness. God will always be God. Regardless of the changes to His work and His name, His disposition and wisdom remain forever unchanged. If you believe that God can only be called by the name of Jesus, then you know too little” (“How Can Man Who Has Defined God in His Conceptions Receive the Revelations of God?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “There are those who say that God is immutable. That is correct, but it refers to the immutability of God’s disposition and substance. Changes in His name and work do not prove that His substance has altered; in other words, God will always be God, and this will never change.” “In each age, God does new work and is called by a new name; how could He do the same work in different ages? How could He cling to the old? The name of Jesus was taken for the work of redemption, so would He still be called by the same name when He returns in the last days? Would He still do the work of redemption? Why is it that Jehovah and Jesus are one, yet They are called by different names in different ages? Is it not because the ages of Their work are different? Could a single name represent God in His entirety? In this way, God must be called by a different name in a different age, must use the name to change the age and represent the age, for no one name can fully represent God Himself. And each name can only represent God’s disposition during a certain age and needs only to represent His work. Therefore, God can choose whatever name befits His disposition to represent the entire age.” “Could the name of Jesus, ‘God with us,’ represent God’s disposition in its entirety? Could it fully articulate God? If man says that God can only be called Jesus, and may not have any other name because God cannot change His disposition, then such words are blasphemy! Do you believe that the name Jesus, God with us, can represent God in His entirety? God can be called many names, but among these many names, there is not one which can encapsulate all that God has, there is not one which can fully represent God. And so God has many names, but these many names cannot fully articulate God’s disposition, for God’s disposition is too rich, and extends beyond the knowledge of man. … And so, for man, God has many names, yet He has no one name, and that is because God’s being is too bountiful, and the language of man is too inadequate. One particular word or name is powerless to represent God in His entirety. So can God take one fixed name? God is so great and holy, so why do you not permit Him to change His name in each new age? As such, in each age that God personally does His own work, He uses a name that befits the age to encapsulate the work that He does. He uses this particular name, one that possesses the significance of the age, to represent His disposition in that age. God uses the language of man to express His own disposition. … You should know that God originally had no name. He only took on one, or two, or many names because He had work to do and had to manage mankind. Whatever name He is called by, isn’t it freely chosen by Him? Does He need you, a creature, to decide it? The name by which God is called is according to what man can apprehend and the language of man, but this name cannot be encapsulated by man. You can only say that there is a God in heaven, that He is called God, that He is God Himself with great power, too wise, too exalted, too wondrous, too mysterious, too almighty, and you can say no more; that is all you know. In this way, can the name of Jesus alone represent God Himself? When the last days come, although it is still God who does His work, His name has to change, for it is a different age” (“The Vision of God’s Work (3)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

We understand through the words of Almighty God that God originally did not have a name, and that He only created different names in accordance with the needs of each stage of His work due to His three-stage work of managing and saving mankind. Furthermore, God uses His name to change the age, to represent the work of the present age, and to represent the disposition He expresses in that age. No matter how ages and His work changes, and no matter how God’s name changes, God’s substance is immutable. That is to say, the words “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” refers to God’s inherent essence and not His name.

In accordance with His work principles, God changes His name in each age. The name chosen expresses His disposition of that age and represents His work in that age. It is just as how the name of “Jehovah” was God’s name when He worked in Israel during the Age of Law. At the time, Moses said to God: “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say to them?… And God said moreover to Moses, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever…” (Exo 3:13, 15). Only after this did people know that God’s name was Jehovah. Almighty God says: “‘Jehovah’ is the name that I took during My work in Israel, and it means the God of the Israelites (God’s chosen people) who can take pity on man, curse man, and guide the life of man. It means the God who possesses great power and is full of wisdom. ‘Jesus’ is Emmanuel, and it means the sin offering that is full of love, full of compassion, and redeems man. He did the work of the Age of Grace, and represents the Age of Grace, and can only represent one part of the management plan. That is to say, only Jehovah is the God of the chosen people of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, and the God of all the people of Israel. And so in the current age, all the Israelites apart from the tribe of Judah worship Jehovah. They make sacrifices to Him on the altar, and serve Him wearing priests’ robes in the temple. What they hope for is the reappearance of Jehovah. Only Jesus is the Redeemer of mankind. He is the sin offering that redeemed mankind from sin. Which is to say, the name of Jesus came from the Age of Grace, and existed because of the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. The name of Jesus existed to allow the people of the Age of Grace to be reborn and saved, and is a particular name for the redemption of the whole of mankind. And so the name Jesus represents the work of redemption, and denotes the Age of Grace” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). We’ll give an example. When a person originally teaches at a school, people call him “Teacher,” but then he goes to work at a hospital, so people call him “Doctor.” As his work changes, the name by which people call him changes too. But no matter how his name changes, he has not changed and is still the same person. Even though God’s name changed in the Age of Grace, His substance did not, and He still worked as God Himself. What is regretful, however, is that Israelites at the time did not permit God to change to a new name; they believed that God’s name can only be Jehovah and cannot be Jesus. If His name is Jesus then He is not God. In their hearts, only Jehovah is their God and their Savior. They held on to the scripture verse “I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no savior” (Isa 43:11), so when God came with a new name to change the age and perform new work to save them, they rejected and condemned Jesus, such that they nailed our merciful Savior alive to the cross. They never thought that Jesus could be the reappearance of Jehovah, that God in heaven could become flesh and come to perform His own work among mankind. They did not recognize the way of truth expressed by Jesus and did not recognize His substance, and as a result they committed a monstrous sin and received the retribution they deserved—the pain of losing their kingdom! Many of these people were displaced to all parts of the world.

It is now the last days, and also the time for the age to change. Even though the people of now gained the Lord Jesus’ redemption and their sins were forgiven, their sinful nature still exists and they have become more and more corrupted, to the extent that it has exceeded the corruption of Noah’s era. To thoroughly save mankind, God began a new stage of His work, the work of judging, conquering and perfecting mankind. In accordance with the needs of God’s work, He has expressed a different disposition to that of the Age of Grace, no longer merciful and kind but righteous, majestic and furious, no longer the sacrificial lamb but “the Lion of the tribe of Juda.” With such a disposition, God is going to thoroughly end this old age and judge and chastise all of mankind’s corruption and unrighteousness, so that mankind can recover its original holiness. God shall be glorified in the whole universe and use His great power to end this entire old age, reign over the earth, and become the “King of the kingdom.” This stage of work is the tail end of God’s management plan. The kingdoms of this world shall become “the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ,” which is why the last age is called the Age of Kingdom. As the age changes, God’s name also has to change. He is no longer called Jesus and is called “Almighty God” in accordance with the work He performs and the disposition He expresses. It is with this name that He concludes the work of His entire 6000-year management plan. This fulfills the words of the Book of Revelation, such as 15:3: “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, you King of saints”; 19:6: “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunder, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” And there are also other verses such as Revelation 1:8, 4:8, 11:17, etc. Even though God’s name has changed in the Age of Kingdom, His work is still that of God Himself. He was once called Jehovah and was also once called Jesus, and now He is called Almighty God. But no matter what name God takes, His substance won’t change. Jehovah, Jesus and Almighty God are all one and the same. Almighty God says: “God’s wisdom, God’s wondrousness, God’s righteousness, and God’s majesty shall never change. His essence and what He has and is shall never change. His work, however, is always progressing forward and always going deeper, for He is always new and never old” (“The Vision of God’s Work (3)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “In each age and each stage of work, My name is not baseless, but holds representative significance: Each name represents one age. ‘Jehovah’ represents the Age of Law, and is the honorific for the God worshiped by the people of Israel. ‘Jesus’ represents the Age of Grace, and is the name of the God of all those who were redeemed during the Age of Grace. If man still longs for the arrival of Jesus the Savior during the last days, and still expects Him to arrive in the image He bore in Judea, then the entire six-thousand-year management plan would stop in the Age of Redemption, and would be incapable of progressing any further. The last days, furthermore, would never arrive, and the age would never be brought to an end. That is because Jesus the Savior is only for the redemption and salvation of mankind. I took the name of Jesus for the sake of all the sinners in the Age of Grace, and it is not the name by which I shall bring the whole of mankind to an end. Although Jehovah, Jesus, and the Messiah all represent My Spirit, these names only denote the different ages in My management plan, and do not represent Me in My entirety. The names by which people on earth call Me cannot articulate My entire disposition and all that I am. They are merely different names by which I am called during different ages. And so, when the final age—the age of the last days—arrives, My name shall change again. I shall not be called Jehovah, or Jesus, much less the Messiah, but shall be called the powerful Almighty God Himself, and under this name I shall bring the entire age to an end” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

What then is the attitude of people toward God’s change of name in the last days? From a general observation of the entire religious world, it seems that many people still hold on to “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” and do all they can to resist and condemn the reincarnated Lord Jesus—Almighty God. They say that people who believe in Almighty God believe in another God. Based on this view, didn’t all believers of Jesus in the Age of Grace betray Jehovah by believing in another God? Isn’t it condemning the Lord Jesus? Isn’t it also condemning all those who believed in the Lord Jesus? Isn’t it being exactly the same as the Pharisees of the time who crucified the Lord Jesus? When the Lord Jesus came to work, those Pharisees of Judea used such notions and excuses to resist and condemn the Lord Jesus, and they also incited and deceived the people into rejecting Him. The Pharisees held on to their conceptions and continued waiting for the arrival of the Messiah. Their arrogant, stubborn, truth-rejecting nature made them hold on to regulations and doctrines, delimiting God in their own notions and imaginations, but they did not at all seek The truth or the work of the Holy Spirit at the time. When God’s work did not match their conceptions, they did their utmost to deny, resist, and condemn, exposing their truth-hating and God-opposing satanic nature. In the end, they lost God’s salvation because they resisted the Lord, and fell into God’s punishment. If we believe in God, we should pursue knowledge of God and should not use our notions and imaginations to delimit God. If the name Jehovah God can turn into Lord Jesus, then why can’t the name Lord Jesus turn into Almighty God? If we continue to hold on to superficial words in the Bible and delimit God’s name and work based on our notions and imaginings, then the tragedy of Israel shall be re-enacted on us! Therefore, we must learn from the failure of the Pharisees and not delimit God. Don’t think that following God’s new work and accepting God’s new name of a new age is betraying the Lord Jesus and believing in another God. This is completely man’s erroneous way of understanding. When we seek and study God’s work of the last days through the words expressed by Almighty God, it is believed that if we seek humbly, we will be able to see that Almighty God is the same Jehovah who once led mankind’s lives on earth, and also the same Lord Jesus who once redeemed mankind. Moreover, He is the second-coming of the Lord Jesus that mankind has long anticipated. Almighty God says: “I was once known as Jehovah. I was also called the Messiah, and people once called Me Jesus the Savior because they loved and respected Me. But today I am not the Jehovah or Jesus that people knew in times past—I am the God who has returned in the last days, the God who shall bring the age to an end. I am the God Himself that rises up at the ends of the earth, replete with My entire disposition, and full of authority, honor and glory. People have never engaged with Me, have never known Me, and have always been ignorant of My disposition. From the creation of the world until today, not one person has seen Me. This is the God who appears to man during the last days but is hidden among man. He resides among man, true and real, like the burning sun and the flaming fire, filled with power and brimming with authority. There is not a single person or thing that shall not be judged by My words, and not a single person or thing that shall not be purified through the burning of fire. Eventually, all nations shall be blessed because of My words, and also smashed to pieces because of My words. In this way, all people during the last days shall see that I am the Savior returned, I am the Almighty God that conquers all of mankind, and I was once the sin offering for man, but in the last days I also become the flames of the sun that burn all things, as well as the Sun of righteousness that reveals all things. Such is My work of the last days. I took this name and am possessed of this disposition so that all people may see that I am a righteous God, and am the burning sun, and the flaming fire. It is so that all may worship Me, the only true God, and so that they may see My true face: I am not only the God of the Israelites, and am not just the Redeemer—I am the God of all creatures throughout heavens and earth and seas” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “The day will arrive when God is not called Jehovah, Jesus, or the Messiah—He will simply be called the Creator. At that time, all the names that He took on earth shall come to an end, for His work on earth will have come to an end, after which He shall have no name. When all things come under the dominion of the Creator, why call Him by a highly appropriate yet incomplete name? Do you still seek God’s name now? Do you still dare to say that God is only called Jehovah? Do you still dare to say that God can only be called Jesus? Can you bear the sin of blasphemy against God?” (The Vision of God’s Work (3) in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

Read more: Is Eastern Lightning the Return of the Lord Jesus?

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