What Are the Names of God? — Spurgeon’s Treasury Walk
⏱ 14 min read
You have seen the lists. Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai, El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shalom. You have seen them printed on bookmarks and pinned to Bible-study walls and arranged in tidy infographics on the church Pinterest board. You have read them — and you have, probably, not been able to carry them. The Hebrew was unfamiliar. The translations were similar enough to blur into one another. The list became wallpaper. The names slid back into the texture of things-I-should-know-better and the question quietly stopped being asked.
This is the slow walk. Not the bookmark. Not the infographic. The actual answer Charles Spurgeon gave — the Victorian preacher who spent twenty years writing the seven-volume Treasury of David, a commentary on every verse of every psalm, and who could not write a paragraph about God without naming Him at least three ways — read at the speed Spurgeon wrote, with three passages held next to each other, because the names of God in scripture were never a vocabulary list for Spurgeon. They were the slow accumulation of what Israel had learned by living next to the God who answered to each of them. The Everspring Bible Study Workbook for Women carries this kind of slow reading into a daily companion, if you would like a place to take the practice. For now — read slowly. The question what are the names of God will not be answered by a chart. It will be answered, the way Spurgeon answered it, by sitting with a few of the names until you can feel why each was given.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was nineteen years old when he was called to pastor the New Park Street Chapel in London, and twenty-two when the congregation had outgrown two buildings and built the Metropolitan Tabernacle for him. He preached there for thirty-eight years, sometimes to ten thousand people at a time, in an era before microphones. He was also, between the sermons and the hospital visits and the orphanage administration, a slow careful reader. Treasury of David, his seven-volume commentary on the Psalms, took him twenty years. He gathered into it the names Israel had learned for God across a thousand years of psalm-singing, and he treated each name as a small lived doctrine, given by God to the worshipping people so they would have something to call on in the particular sorrow each name was given for. The names were not arbitrary. They were rescues taught in the form of words.
The first passage: the Father, the source
“Thou, O Father, art the source of all grace, all love and mercy towards us. Thou, O Son, art the channel of Thy Father’s mercy, and without Thee Thy Father’s love could never flow to us. And Thou, O Spirit, art He who enables us to receive that divine virtue which flows from the fountain-head, the Father, through Christ the channel, and which, by Thy means, enters into our heart, and there abides, and brings forth its glorious fruit.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Gleanings among the Sheaves
Read it once. Then read it again, slowly.
Spurgeon is doing something quietly remarkable in this passage. He is naming the three Persons of the Trinity by the function each one performs in the love that reaches the believing soul. The Father is the source. The Son is the channel. The Spirit is the one who enables us to receive. The threefold naming is not abstract theology. It is a small lived diagram of how the love of God actually arrives in a human life, and Spurgeon writes it in a single sentence because he can hold the threefoldness in a breath. The names — Father, Son, Spirit — are not, for Spurgeon, three different Gods doing three jobs. They are the church’s slow vocabulary for the one God whose interior life has always been Father-loving-Son-in-Spirit, and whose love toward the creature follows the same trinitarian shape.
Notice the image. Fountain-head, channel, abiding. The love of God is described as water — and water needs a source, a channel, and a place to be received. The source is the Father. He is the One from whom all grace flows. The channel is the Son. Without Him the love would have no way to reach you. Without Thee Thy Father’s love could never flow to us. That is a strong sentence. Spurgeon is saying that the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection — the whole work of Christ — is the means by which the Father’s love is brought into reachable contact with the creature. And the Spirit is the one who enables us to receive. He opens the heart that would otherwise be too dry, too distracted, too defended to take the water in.
The names of God — Father, Son, Spirit — when read this way, stop being a denominational shibboleth and become a description of how prayer actually works. You pray to the Father — because He is the source. You pray through the Son — because He is the channel. You pray in the Spirit — because He is the one who enables your praying at all. The threefoldness is not a complication. It is the architecture of the love that has been reaching you, in this exact shape, every time you have whispered anything toward heaven.
(If you are at the very beginning of all this — if the names themselves are still strange in your mouth — the SOAP Bible study method explained (with real examples) walks one psalm slowly using a method that helps the names lodge. And if you would like to learn to map a single verse the way Spurgeon mapped them — verse mapping for beginners (with a full step-by-step example) carries the same patience this article uses.)
The second passage: the night-meditation
“Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. O that he would walk with me; I am ready to give up my whole heart and mind to him, and every other thought is hushed. I am only asking what he delights to give. I am sure that he will condescend to have fellowship with me, for he has given me his Holy Spirit to abide with me forever. Sweet is the cool twilight, when every star seems like the eye of heaven, and the cool wind is as the breath of celestial love.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening
Read it twice. The second time, read it as a prayer.
This passage names God by four different titles in a single short paragraph — Lord, He, the Holy Spirit, celestial love — and the naming is doing real work. Lord — Spurgeon’s English translation of the divine name Yahweh, the name given to Moses at the burning bush, the name by which Israel called the God of the covenant. He who would walk with me — the personal God, the One who relates rather than the abstract deity who broods. Holy Spirit — the name for the indwelling presence, the Paraclete of John 14, the One given to the disciples after the ascension so that the absence of the visible Jesus would not become the absence of God. And celestial love — Spurgeon’s poetic naming of the God whose own essence is love.
Notice the movement. Spurgeon does not pick one name and stick with it. He moves between names, naturally, the way a daughter might move between Mum, Mother, you, she, depending on the moment. Each name calls something forward. Lord calls forward the authority and the covenant. Walk with me calls forward the companionship. Holy Spirit calls forward the indwelling. Celestial love calls forward the essence. The naming is not redundant. The naming is the way Spurgeon enters the fullness of God by drawing close to one aspect after another. The names are doors. Each door opens onto the same house, but each door opens it from a different side.
This is what the names of God are for, in scripture and in the slow Christian tradition. They are doors for prayer. Jehovah Jireh — the Lord will provide — is the door for the prayer of the woman whose finances are too thin. Jehovah Rapha — the Lord who heals — is the door for the prayer of the woman whose body is failing. Jehovah Shalom — the Lord is peace — is the door for the prayer of the woman whose nervous system has not settled in years. El Shaddai — God Almighty — is the door for the prayer of the woman who needs to be reminded that He is the One who is sufficient. The names are not interchangeable. They were each given by a particular God to a particular people in a particular sorrow, and they have been kept in scripture so that you would have the right door for the prayer that needs to be prayed.
For the modern Christian woman, this is the part that reframes the chart. You do not need to memorise all the names of God. You need to learn the ones that match the particular sorrows of your particular life, and to use them when the sorrows arrive. The names are not for theological completeness. They are for pastoral access. Spurgeon used them this way every time he prayed. So can you.
A pause — for the body
The names of God lodge in the body before they lodge in the mind, when they lodge at all. The body recognises a true name before the intellect can identify why.
Sit somewhere quiet. Set the page down. Notice your jaw — where it is sitting, whether it is touching the upper teeth or held slightly open. The modern Christian woman who has been carrying the quiet conviction that she does not know God well enough often carries the conviction in her jaw, the way other women carry it in the shoulders. The jaw is the place that holds the I-should-be-able-to-recite-the-names tension. Take one slow inhale. On the exhale, let the jaw soften — not drop open, soften. The teeth part slightly. The tongue settles on the floor of the mouth. Take a second breath, and on the exhale, notice the chest — let the upper chest release as well. Two breaths. Jaw soft. Chest soft.
That small loosening is the body’s way of admitting it has been carrying the question what are the names of God as a piece of unfinished homework. The body knows when the homework has been set down. The body knows when the soul has stopped reaching for the chart and started reaching for the One the chart was pointing at. The names will not lodge in a body that is gripped. They lodge in a body that has released. The somatic release is small. The lodging it makes possible is not.
The Everspring Bible Study Workbook for Women is built around this kind of slow daily lodging. One psalm or one passage per session, room to write the name of God that the passage gives, no demand to produce a comprehensive list by the end of the week. The workbook is not where you learn to recite the names. It is where you slowly let the names become the language of the prayer you are actually praying.
(If your time with the Bible has been hurried — if mornings have felt like rushing through a verse on the way to the day — 10 Bible verses for morning: read one before the phone holds ten passages where the names of God surface in their most quotable form. And if you would like one verse for the kind of day you are actually having — a Bible scripture for the day (10 verses that hold different kinds of days) walks ten scriptures keyed to ten kinds of day.)
The third passage: the swift arrow of love
“He is so prolific of grace, that like the sun which shines as it rolls onward in its orbit, his path is radiant with lovingkindness. He is a swift arrow of love, which not only reaches its ordained target, but perfumes the air through which it flies. Virtue is evermore going out of Jesus, as sweet odours exhale from flowers; and it always will be emanating from him, as water from a sparkling fountain.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening
Read it once at speed, then read it again, slowly.
This is the passage where Spurgeon names God by image rather than by title — and the imagery is doing the same work as the titles, because for Spurgeon the names of God include the figures of God scattered through scripture. He calls Jesus the sun, the swift arrow, the flower, the sparkling fountain. Four images in two sentences. The cumulative effect is not theological ornament. It is theological saturation — the recognition that no single name or image is large enough to hold what Jesus is, and that scripture has therefore given us many, so that the worshipping mind can move between them and find a different aspect of His glory at each turning.
Hold the image swift arrow of love. It is an unusual phrase. An arrow is precise. An arrow is intentional. An arrow does not wander; it is loosed at a target by a hand that meant to loose it there. Spurgeon is saying that the love of God toward you is not a vague benevolence that radiates outward at random. It is aimed. Ordained target. You were the target before the arrow was loosed. The love did not stumble onto you. It was sent toward you, particularly, by a God who knew the target and meant the loosing. The names of God include this aspect: the One who aims His love. There is no abstract Hebrew word for this in the lists, but the truth is one of the things the lists are reaching for.
And then the second half of the image: not only reaches its ordained target, but perfumes the air through which it flies. The love that has been sent toward you has been changing the world it passes through on its way. The years of your life, even the years you did not know you were being loved, have been the years the arrow was crossing — and the air of those years has been quietly perfumed by the love that was on its way. The hard year. The wandering year. The year of the hospital. The year of the loss. The arrow was crossing. The air was being changed. You did not know it. The arrow knew.
For the modern Christian woman whose life has had long stretches she could not interpret as loved, this is the line to keep near the page. The names of God include the One who aims His love at a particular target, and who perfumes the air through which the love flies. The years you wandered were not unwitnessed years. They were the years the love was crossing toward you. The arrow has landed by now, if you are reading this. The fragrance is what is left of the journey.
(The sibling articles in this Father-Analysis cluster sit at what is the Trinity — Augustine’s slow answer and what are the attributes of God — Tozer’s plain theology. Each takes a single classical question and walks it slowly through one father.)
What the slow walk actually leaves you with
So — what are the names of God. The list answer is true: Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai, El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shalom. Hold the list. Spurgeon would. But hold the list inside the lived answer, which is the one Treasury of David and Morning and Evening are both reaching for: the names of God are the doors the worshipping people have learned to open in particular sorrows, given by the God who knew what each sorrow would need, kept in scripture so that the woman who reads them slowly would have something specific to call on when the night is the kind of night a vague faith cannot meet.
The names, read this way, stop being a chart you are failing to memorise. They become the language of the prayer that finally fits the moment you are in. Jehovah Shalom when the chest will not stop being tight. Jehovah Jireh when the bank statement will not balance. Jehovah Rapha when the body will not heal. El Shaddai when the strength runs out. Yahweh when the covenant is what you most need to remember. Father when the love is what you need to feel. Each name is a door. The doors all open onto the same house. But the right door, on the right night, is what makes the difference between the prayer that lands and the prayer that drifts.
What slowly walking the names does, over a year, is move them from your notebook to your knees. You stop reaching for the chart. You start praying, with Spurgeon, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth — and you find, on the evening you say it slowly, that the names have rearranged themselves from a vocabulary into a vocabulary you actually use. The God who answered to each of them in scripture is the God you are praying to now, and the names are the doors you have been given.
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A daily home for the practice
The slow practice we just walked has its 140-day form in Bible Study Workbook for Women. Each session, a short psalm or passage and room for the honest sentence — the small daily anchor that holds the names of God in proximity to a soul that has stopped trying to memorise them and started using them as the doors they were always meant to be.
The Everspring Bible Study Workbook for Women carries Spurgeon’s slow vocabulary — the source, the channel, the swift arrow of love, the sparkling fountain — into a daily companion built for the woman whose questions about the names of God are, at last, ready to become the prayers those names were given for.
