Does knowing the name of God have anything to do with salvation? Or, to put it another way, does the third commandment have anything to do with salvation? It has everything to do with the quality of the way that we do things. And the quality of the way that we do things is directly attached to knowing the name of God.
Now back to verse 3, just to touch on this - the Bible's definition of eternal life. You know that the Bible says that sin is the breaking of God's law. This is a strange definition: Eternal life is to know God. I think all of us understand that know, biblically, has a sexual connotation to it, and what it is implying is experiential knowledge - not theoretical knowledge.
In Amos 5:4, God through Amos said, Seek Me, and live! He is implying eternally. If we seek God, we will live. Now eternal life does not especially have to do with duration, because living the kind of life that God wants us to live is an enjoyable life. Just because one lives eternally does not mean that they are going to be enjoying life.
When Jesus Christ says that eternal life is to know God, He is implying a quality of life as primary and length of life as secondary. He is implying that, if we begin now to know God, the abundant life already begins, and we begin to experience the kind of life that God lives - the only kind of life that is worth living eternally (that is, days without end).
We find, then, that this kind of life comes from an intimate relationship with God - implied by the word know. Sexual connotations. Adam knew his wife Eve, and suddenly she had babies. So eternal life comes about as a result of experience - intimate experience - of living with God.
Again, I ask the question, What happens if you don't know anything about God? That is partly what His names are for - that we might get to know Him. This that I am heading for is even contained in the Greek word aionios (translated here eternal). It has to do with quality. Eternal life is the life of God.
Did you notice how frequently Jesus (in this prayer) mentioned the name of God? Three times, He did. The name represents what Jesus Christ is revealing to us about God. This is how you come to know God - through what Jesus Christ has revealed about God. We are kept by that name: First, by trusting in it as David did, as in Psalm 18. When David was in trouble, when he had need, he went to God, and he named names of God that would indicate what God would do for him.
In His Passover prayer, Jesus includes a fundamental and priceless aspect of this covenant, that of knowing God personally. Jesus says in John 17:3, And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. The establishment of this covenant allows for those entering the covenant to have a relationship - a fellowship, a communion - far beyond what ancient Israel ever had. Jesus calls this relationship eternal life. It is a life of abundance - foremost spiritual - that continues past the grave. This speaks to the quality of life that comes through the New Covenant, a quality that is not dependent on our physical circumstances.
