The Bible mentions several incidents where God changed someone’s name or assigned their name before their birth.
There were
- Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac (Gen. 17:5, 15, 19); Abram was renamed Abraham; Sarai was renamed Sarah; Isaac’s name was chosen by God;
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Jacob was renamed Israel (Genesis 32:28)
- The angel of the Lord named Hagar’s son Ishmael (Gen. 16:11);
- Solomon, peaceful, the name that God told David to call his son by Bathsheba (1 Chron. 22:9) and the same son’s nickname Jedidiah beloved of Jehovah, the name which the Lord gave to Solomon through the prophet Nathan as a token of divine favor (2 Sam. 12:25);
- Cyrus was a name selected by the Lord well before Cyrus was born! (Isa. 44:28; 45:4);
- John the Baptist’s name was chosen by God and communicated to his father Zacharias by an angel (Luke 1:13);
- the name of Jesus was communicated to Mary and later to Joseph by an angel (Luke 1:31; Matt. 1:21);
- Simon whom Jesus surnamed Peter and the two brothers James and John whom Jesus nicknamed “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:16-17).
God promises to give us each a new and unique name in the Kingdom, either in place of or in addition to our current one
Revelation 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
as well as sharing the Father’s Name and Jesus’ new name
Revelation 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
If we are born again, God is our Father. In human families, it is the father who names the child, and we can ask our Heavenly Father what name He would like to give us, believing that He will surely reveal it to us.
That would be the name we can ask God’s help to live up to, as the name we will be known by in the courts of heaven and in the Kingdom of God on earth in the Millennium.
Bibloscope 