by T. Austin-Sparks
Transcribed from messages given in August 1953, the spoken form has been retained verbatim. Missing messages from this series are published in the series, "The Altar and the Name".
The Name of the Lord Jesus came before Christianity. Christianity took its character, in the first place, from the Name. It was the Name that gave to Christianity its nature. I fear that it may have been reversed since. It seems, although perhaps not deliberately and intentionally or consciously, but it does seem that Christianity has come before the Name, and gets in the way of the Name, and very largely is a contradiction of the Name. So that what we have to understand, and what has to be recovered if there is going to be anything like the power and effectiveness and fruitfulness that there was at the beginning, is what the Name signified and implied because it is not just a title, a designation, some phrase, some tag put on: "in the Name of Jesus".
