Well, no sooner did I post a wonderful quote from Charles Spurgeon on Facebook tonight than someone decided to start a debate (claiming the quote was a great example of “hyper-grace” — whereas, in fact, Spurgeon stood firmly against what is taught in hyper-grace circles today; plus, I don’t post inspirational quotes to start debates!), someone else questioned why I an Arminian, would quote a Calvinist (loud sigh from me), and someone else got us sidetracked on the Hebrew names for God and Jesus. (Seriously!)

I’ve already addressed those who feel that any inspirational quote is the place for them to introduce their doctrine and start a debate (see here), finally having to stark blocking folks from posting when they just wouldn’t follow our simple posting guidelines. But I really didn’t expect to see tonight’s quote, which is as doctrinally generic as can be, to end up migrating over to a discussion about Hebrew names. (After all, this was the quote: “I thought I could have leaped from earth to heaven at one spring when I first saw my sins drowned in the Redeemer’s blood.” I deleted all the comments that weren’t relevant to the post so we could get back to rejoicing in Jesus-Yeshua!)

So, for the record, once again, THERE IS NO SUCH NAME AS YAHSHUA. It didn’t exist in biblical times and it has not existed as a genuine Hebrew name in history — until people who really didn’t understand Hebrew made it up, thinking that it somehow restored the “Yah” element (from “Yahweh”) into the Savior’s name. If you want more details on this, you can read my article here. (While I’m at it, there’s no such either as Yahushua — Joshua was pronounced ye-ho-shu-ah — and God’s name was NEVER pronounced Yahua or the like. (Loud sigh again.)

Having said all that, I feel like quoting Spurgeon again: “I thought I could have leaped from earth to heaven at one spring when I first saw my sins drowned in the Redeemer’s blood.” It makes me want to shout!