It was three o’clock in the afternoon, the ninth hour by the Jewish reckoning, and the temple courts in Jerusalem were filling for the evening sacrifice and the prayers that went with it. Pilgrims, priests, traders and ordinary worshippers pressed up the steps toward the gates. At one of them, the gate called Beautiful, a man lay on the stone as he had lain almost every day of his adult life.
He was more than forty years old (Acts 4:22), and he had never walked. He had been lame from his mother’s womb. Every morning someone carried him to the gate and laid him down where the crowds would see him, and every evening someone carried him home again. He knew the rhythm of the place better than many priests. He knew which hours brought the largest crowds and which worshippers might drop a coin. He did not expect to be healed. He expected, on a good day, to be fed.
That afternoon, two men came up the steps together. They were Galileans, plainly dressed, the kind of men who might have mended nets for a living. The lame man did what he always did:
Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour . And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
“Look on us.” Peter’s words must have surprised him. Beggars are used to people avoiding their eyes. And the man looked up, expecting money. He had his hand out already.
Then Peter said the sentence that has echoed through the church ever since: “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). He took the man by the right hand and lifted him. Strength surged into feet and ankles that had never carried a body. The man leapt up, stood, walked, and went into the temple with them, “walking, and leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8).
What had Peter given him? Not money. Not medicine. Not a technique. He had given him the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And everything that follows in the next two chapters of Acts turns on that name: what it is, where its power comes from, and why it can never be reduced to a magic word.
A name in Scripture is a person
In our culture a name is often little more than a label. Parents may choose it because it sounds pleasant. In Scripture, and in much of African culture too, a name carries far more weight. It speaks of identity, character, history and authority. When a Yoruba child is named Oluwaseun or an Igbo child Chukwuemeka, the name is a confession about God and a declaration over the child’s life.
The Bible goes further still. When God revealed Himself to Moses on Sinai, “the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD” (Exodus 34:5). And what did that proclamation consist of? A description of His character: “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). God’s name is God Himself, made known.
That is why Scripture can say:
The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.
A name cannot be a tower unless the name is the person. The righteous do not run into a word. They run into the LORD, who has made Himself known by that name.
So when the New Testament speaks of the name of Jesus, it is speaking of Jesus Himself: His person, His character, His work and His authority. And the authority of that name was secured by His finished work. Paul tells us that Christ “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:8-10).
Notice the word wherefore. The exaltation of the name follows the obedience of the cross. The name of Jesus carries supreme authority because the One who bears it went to Calvary, finished the work of redemption, and was raised and enthroned by the Father. Hebrews says He “hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name” than the angels (Hebrews 1:4). The authority of His name is the authority of the crucified and risen Lord. Every use of the name rests on that work.
“In my name” in the upper room
On the night before He died, Jesus gave His disciples a series of promises about praying in His name. They are among the boldest words He ever spoke:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
“He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” The disciples must have struggled to believe it. Greater works than raising Lazarus? Greater works than feeding five thousand? But Jesus gives the reason: “because I go unto my Father.” His going would lead to the coming of the Spirit, and through the Spirit-filled church, the works of Jesus would spread far beyond the borders of Galilee and Judea, to every nation. The greater works are greater in reach, as the gospel goes to the ends of the earth, and they include the signs and wonders that accompanied it. We see them begin in Acts 3.
Then comes the promise about prayer: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”
Look carefully at who acts. “That will I do.” “I will do it.” The disciple asks, but Jesus does the work. Praying in His name does not transfer His power into our control. It brings our request to Him, and He acts. Peter at the Beautiful gate spoke the name, but it was the risen Christ who healed.
Look also at the purpose: “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Prayer in the name of Jesus is aimed at the glory of the Father through the Son. It is not a way of getting what we want for our own glory with a religious seal attached.
Later that same night Jesus added, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23-24). Until then, the disciples had asked Jesus directly while He was with them. After His resurrection and ascension, they would come to the Father on the basis of who Jesus is and what He has done. That is what in my name means at its heart. We come to the Father through the Son, on His merit, as His representatives, under His authority, and for His purposes.
That gives us extraordinary boldness. You do not come to God on the strength of your record this week. You come in the name of the One the Father loves, whose sacrifice has been accepted and whose place at the right hand is secure. The name of Jesus opens the door of the throne room to you. But it also shapes what you ask. To pray in His name is to pray as He would pray, for what He desires, in the spirit of His character. You cannot honestly pray in the name of Jesus for something Jesus would never want.
Faith in His name
When the crowd gathered at Solomon’s porch to see the healed man, Peter seized the moment to preach. His first words were a refusal to accept any credit:
And when Peter saw it , he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
“Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” Peter would not let the people think that he and John possessed some special power or had reached a level of holiness that allowed them to perform miracles. The healing did not come from them.
Instead, Peter pointed to Jesus. He named Him with titles of great dignity: God’s Son (or Servant) Jesus, whom the God of Abraham has glorified; the Holy One and the Just; the Prince of life. And he did not soften the facts of the cross. “Ye... killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead.” The name that healed the lame man belongs to the One they crucified and God raised.
Then comes the explanation: “And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong.” Notice the two elements. There is his name, the person and authority of the risen Jesus. And there is faith in his name, trust directed toward Him. The name was not effective by being pronounced correctly. It was effective because it brought the living Christ into the situation, and faith received what He gave.
Peter even adds, “the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness.” The faith itself came by him. Peter and John did not generate it by mental effort. It was faith that Jesus gave and Jesus honoured. From beginning to end, the miracle was Christ’s.
This is the heart of the matter. The name of Jesus is powerful because Jesus is alive, reigning, and present with His people. When we speak His name in faith, we are calling on a Person, not activating a mechanism.
PunchlineThe name of Jesus carries all the authority of the crucified and risen Lord. It works because He is alive and present, never because the speaker has found the right formula.
By what name have ye done this?
The healing at the Beautiful gate had immediate consequences. The temple authorities arrested Peter and John and brought them before the council the next morning. The question they put to them is revealing: “By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?” (Acts 4:7).
The rulers understood that power and name go together. They wanted to know whose authority lay behind the miracle. Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, answered without hesitation: “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole” (Acts 4:10). By the name and by him are used as equivalents. The name is the Person.
Then Peter made the claim that has defined Christian preaching ever since: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The name that heals the body is the only name that saves the soul.
The council’s response is just as instructive. They could not deny the miracle, because the man was standing in front of them. So they “commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts 4:18). They recognised that the name itself was the threat. And when the apostles refused to obey, they were eventually beaten. Luke tells us that “they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41).
This is a part of the story that is easily left out. The name of Jesus brought healing to the lame man, and it brought arrest, threats and beating to the apostles. Speaking the name did not guarantee them comfort or protect them from opposition. It identified them with a crucified Lord. When Jesus called Saul of Tarsus, He said He would show him “how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:16).
Those who use the name of Jesus are not merely using a source of power. They are bearing a name, carrying His reputation into the world, and sharing in His sufferings as well as His authority.
A name that cannot be borrowed
The book of Acts gives us one famous case of people who tried to use the name of Jesus as a technique. In Ephesus, a group of travelling Jewish exorcists had watched Paul’s ministry and decided to copy it. They “took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth” (Acts 19:13). Seven sons of a man named Sceva tried this on one man, and the spirit answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” (Acts 19:15). The man overpowered them, and they fled naked and wounded.
An earlier article, on declaring truth without turning it into a formula, looked closely at this incident. Here I simply want to draw attention to the way it ends. “And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified” (Acts 19:17). The failed attempt to borrow the name made the name greater in the eyes of the city. People realised that this was not a spell to be acquired. It was the name of a living Lord, and it could not be manipulated by people who did not belong to Him.
Yet the Gospels also guard us against the opposite error, which is to think that the name belongs only to our group:
And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.
John was troubled because a man he did not know was casting out devils in the name of Jesus, and “he followeth not us.” Jesus said, “Forbid him not.” The difference between this man and the sons of Sceva was not membership in the right circle of disciples. It was his relationship to Jesus. He was acting in faith toward Christ, and Jesus recognised that. The sons of Sceva were using the name second-hand, “by Jesus whom Paul preacheth,” with no relationship of their own.
This matters for us. The name of Jesus does not belong to one denomination, one ministry or one famous preacher. It belongs to Jesus, and He shares its authority with all who belong to Him by faith. At the same time, nobody can borrow it from someone else’s ministry. You cannot use “the Jesus my pastor preaches” as a password. You must know Him yourself.
Jesus also warned that on the last day some will say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils?” and He will reply, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22-23). Using the name is never a substitute for being known by the One who bears it.
Misusing the name
If the name of Jesus is His person and authority, then it can be misused, and Scripture takes that misuse seriously. The third commandment says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain” (Exodus 20:7). The phrase in vain means emptily, falsely, for nothing. It includes careless swearing, but it goes further: it forbids attaching God’s name to something He has not authorised.
Jeremiah faced prophets who did exactly that:
Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
“The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not.” These men announced peace and prosperity in the name of the Lord, and God said He had never spoken to them. Their visions came from “the deceit of their heart.” Using God’s name gave their words an appearance of authority, but the name did not make them true.
There are several ways we can fall into similar misuse today.
We can use the name as a closing formula. Many believers end every prayer with “in Jesus’ name, Amen,” and that is a good and right practice. But it can become a habit that means nothing, a sign-off like the end of a text message. The words are not wrong. The emptiness is.
We can use the name to sanctify our own will. If I decide what I want and then add “in the name of Jesus” to make it sound authoritative, I have not prayed in His name at all. I have borrowed His name for my plan.
We can use the name against people. Some prayer meetings are full of declarations such as “every enemy of my destiny, die by fire in the name of Jesus.” The name of the One who prayed “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34) for those who crucified Him cannot be invoked to call down death on people. Spiritual authority is exercised against the works of the devil, not against human beings made in God’s image.
And we can use the name for gain. When anyone offers to “release” the power of Jesus’ name in exchange for money, or sells special oils, handkerchiefs or prayers as though the name could be bought, they are walking in the footsteps of Simon in Samaria, who thought the gift of God could be purchased.
NuggetNone of this should make us timid about the name. Misuse does not cancel right use. It should make us reverent.
The name in ordinary life
How then should believers use the name of Jesus?
We are baptised in His name. Peter told the crowd at Pentecost, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). From the start of the Christian life, we are identified with Him and placed under His lordship.
We pray in His name, coming to the Father on His merit and for His glory, as we have seen. That includes bold asking. Jesus said, “ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
We gather in His name. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). A gathering in His name is a gathering under His authority, around His person, with His presence promised.
We minister to the sick in His name. James tells the elders to pray over the sick, “anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). That does not replace medical care, which James never forbids, but it brings the sick person before the Lord who heals.
We resist the enemy in His name. Paul cast a spirit of divination out of a girl in Philippi with the words, “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (Acts 16:18). Believers can and should do the same when they meet the works of darkness, speaking with quiet confidence because Christ has already triumphed.
We give thanks in His name. “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).
And finally, we live in His name. “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Colossians 3:17). That is perhaps the widest use of all. Your work at the office, your trading in the market, your words to your children, your driving on the expressway: all of it can be done as His representative, under His authority and for His honour.
A nurse I will call Ogochukwu works night shifts at a large teaching hospital. She told me that on the hardest nights, when a patient is frightened and the ward is short-staffed, she will lay a hand briefly on the patient’s arm, if they are willing, and say quietly, “In the name of Jesus, peace.” She does not do it as a ritual. She does it because she knows Him, and she wants His presence in that room. Then she checks the drip, adjusts the pillow and carries on with her work. That is the name of Jesus in ordinary life: spoken with faith, joined to faithful service, and aimed at the good of another person.
Luke tells us something lovely about the man who was healed at the Beautiful gate. When the crowd ran together to Solomon’s porch, the man “held Peter and John” (Acts 3:11). He would not let go of them. The man who had spent forty years being carried by others was now holding on to the two men who had brought him the name of Jesus.
And the next morning, when Peter and John were standing before the council, he was there. Luke records that the rulers, “beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it” (Acts 4:14). The man who had never stood was standing. He had come into the most intimidating room in Jerusalem, before the same men who had condemned Jesus, and stood beside the apostles as living evidence.
He did not have a sermon to preach. He had his legs. And he had the name of the One who had given them to him.
That is what the name of Jesus does when it is spoken in faith by those who belong to Him. It does not place power in our hands to use as we please. It brings the living Christ into a situation, and He acts. Those He touches stand up. Those who speak His name stand before councils, sometimes to suffer for it. And the name itself is magnified, because it was never ours to begin with.
PunchlineSilver and gold you may not have. But if you belong to Jesus, you have His name. Use it boldly. Use it reverently. And let it always point to Him.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What has the name of Jesus meant to you until now? Has it ever become a habit or a formula in your prayers?
- How does knowing that the name of Jesus was exalted because of the cross (Philippians 2:8-10) shape the way you use it?
- In John 14:13-14, Jesus says “I will do it.” What difference does it make that He is the one who acts when you pray in His name?
- What does the contrast between the sons of Sceva and the man in Mark 9:38-40 teach you about relationship with Jesus?
- Are there ways in which you have used the name of Jesus to sanctify your own will or against other people? How will you change?
This Week
This week, before you pray, take a moment to remember who Jesus is: crucified, risen, seated at the Father’s right hand. Then, when you close your prayers “in Jesus’ name,” pause and ask yourself whether what you have just prayed is something He would pray. If it is not, change the prayer. Choose one ordinary task each day, at work, at home or on the road, and do it consciously “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17), as His representative. Read Acts 3:1-16 and Acts 4:1-14 twice during the week.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, Your name is above every name, because You humbled Yourself to the cross and the Father has highly exalted You. Thank You that I can come to the Father in Your name, not on my own merit, but on Yours. Forgive me for every time I have used Your name carelessly, as a formula or as a seal on my own desires. Teach me to know You more, so that when I speak Your name it is with faith in You. Let Your name bring healing, freedom and peace through me, and let me bear it faithfully even when it costs me. Whatever I do in word or deed, let me do it all in Your name, giving thanks to God the Father by You. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.