The Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for their many practices and beliefs that differ from mainstream Christianity. Examples include their rejection of the Trinity, their door-to-door preaching work, and their strict congregational discipline and shunning rules. But if you asked them, they might tell you that the most obvious marker that sets them apart as the “true” religion is their use of the name “Jehovah” for God.
A little background is in order on this name, which most people have probably heard before but don’t know much about. It’s a fact that in over 6,000 places in the Old Testament, the divine name—also known as the tetragrammaton (meaning “four letters”), which is most closely rendered as YHWH—was replaced with Adonai, or “Lord” in Hebrew. No one knows how that name was pronounced because, out of reverence, it was uttered only by the High Priest once a year, on the Day of Atonement, and that practice ceased with the destruction of the Second Temple. Indeed, by Our Lord’s time, ordinary Jews would’ve never dared to pronounce it themselves, and there are no instances of it within the Greek New Testament (though Jehovah’s Witnesses have taken the liberty of inserting it there when the Old Testament is quoted in their translation).
The Witnesses, meanwhile, noticed that the tetragrammaton had in fact been translated and left present in a few places in the King James version (e.g., at Ps. 83:18). “Jehovah” is how it was rendered, a version of the name that can be traced to the Middle Ages but that scholars have pretty definitively ruled out.
Nevertheless, Witnesses insist on using this name, and they maintain that it’s a distinguishing mark of the truth of their beliefs, seeing how they’re the only major denomination that does this. They reason, “If you’re trying to get to know someone, what is the first thing you do? You learn the person’s name, and you repeat it frequently when conversing with the person to build familiarity. Quite suspicious then, isn’t it, that all the churches of the world [which they term ‘Christendom’ and ‘Babylon the Great’] neglect and even obscure this name! Seems like the work of Satan, whom these churches must therefore be in league with, knowingly or not. Besides, Christ himself told us to ‘hallow,’ or sanctify, the Father’s name, didn’t he? What organization besides the Witnesses does that?”
This one can be a stumper for Catholics. We hallow the name of Jesus quite conspicuously, so why don’t we hallow the tetragrammaton, even if we might quibble with the specific translation “Jehovah”?
Some historical reasoning is necessary here. Historians think the common usage of the tetragrammaton had ended by the third century B.C. This can be seen from the fact that it appears so few times in the book of Daniel (which, though originating with the prophet Daniel no doubt many centuries prior, was probably written down in its final form in the second century B.C.). In Our Lord’s day, it most assuredly wasn’t used.
Why, then, did Christ not address this glaring oversight on the part of God’s people, if a mistake indeed it was? He prays that the Father’s name be hallowed, but any Jew would’ve agreed with that sentiment. The question of its common usage, however, never once comes up in his ministry, which, it goes without saying, was a ministry full of uncomfortable wake-up calls for his listeners. If the common and literal usage of the name “Jehovah” (or some variant) had been the litmus test of true religion, Christ certainly would’ve left his first followers with that instruction.
As Catholics, we have the benefit of trusting God’s providence in guiding the Church through history, and so we don’t have to question the practices of our faith as they’ve come down to us. But because we know that these traditions are also in line with what Christ taught, and what the first Christians taught with the Holy Spirit’s protecting guidance, I’ll offer an interpretation of the alleged difficulty.
The name of God was hallowed, in part, precisely by not uttering it, save for certain ritual occasions. It’s not unnatural to veil the holy, and God before the Incarnation was, in a real sense, veiled from human eyes, “dwelling in unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16). Although the inconceivable majesty of God was certainly not diminished by the Incarnation, the taking of flesh by this God created an unprecedented intimacy between Creator and created. God was seen and touched (1 John 1:1), and this tender relation would be extended to all mankind in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
It was understood, then, by the New Testament writers, that this divine Son had “inherited” the ineffable name of God. Parallel to our newfound physical access to God via Christ’s body, we gained a corresponding familiarity with God’s name via the name of Jesus. “There is no other name,” St. Peter proclaimed, “by which men may be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The name of God—the tetragrammaton meaning “I Am Who Am”—is upon the Son, and in his flesh and in his name, we find the union and friendship with God we were created for. The name of Jesus is our access to the name of God, just as his Eucharist is our access to God’s presence. “Calling on the name of the Lord,” therefore (a common practice in the earliest biblical days; see Joel 2:32), became calling on the name of Jesus for the early Christians (Rom. 10:13). There is no difference.
So if you’re asked by one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses why you don’t use God’s name, tell him that you do in fact call upon the name of the Lord. Along with St. Peter (whose successor we acknowledge), you believe in that name alone as the sole source of salvation.