How Do You Run Into a Name?
The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. -Proverbs 18:10
In 1505 a young Martin Luther was traveling back from a visit to family when he was caught in violent thunderstorm. Luther, always one with a fearful and sensitive conscience, believed the thunderstorm was God displaying anger and threatening to take his life. Luther attempted to find shelter but all he could find was a large granite rock. There he clung to the rock and cried out, “Help me, Saint Anne, and I will become a monk.”
Luther didn’t die that evening. He went back to Erfurt, gave up his law books, and entered the monastery of Erfurt. Here he hoped to please God and find the rescue and safety his soul longed for. To use the language of Proverbs—Luther ran into a strong tower. But did he find safety?
What Luther found in that monastery was not refuge. He found instead a cruel taskmaster. Luther was given a list of rules to follow and disciplines to carry about to bring about personal holiness. His great desire was to find peace for his conscience. He later said this about his “refuge” of the monastery:
Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience.[1]
In Proverbs 18:10 we that the name of the Lord is a strong tower. Just as Luther ran into a monastery for protection from his troubled conscience, similarly ancients would run into a strong tower as a place of refuge for enemies. It was here that one could find protection. But let’s not pretend that find a sanctuary of safety like this wasn’t costly. If you were a foreigner, it would require payment to be protected. Perhaps you would become a very citizen of the ones who rescued you—at times even selling yourself into slavery.
That’s how running into a tower works. You offer something. They protect you. For Luther he offered penance, service, prayers, vigils, etc. etc. in order for God to protect him. But it never satisfied his conscience. He never found security in this “strong tower”.
And if we’re honest, many of us have the same kind of relationship with God. We’ve run into this strong tower—but we’re always a little uncertain as to whether or not we’ll get to stay. Will he throw us out into the cold if our behavior doesn’t quite line up? Will He even give us entrance if we’re shown to be dangerous to the ways of His kingdom?
I would argue that such a tower isn’t the strong tower referenced in Proverbs 18:10. It is a source of refuge just as empty as running into a brothel, a den of robbers, or any entertainment complex. Running into religiosity for “protection” will never satisfy. Why? Because it’s running into a tower of human effort. It’s running on our own name. Contrast this with what we see in Proverbs.
The name of the Lord is the strong tower. This begs a question. How do you run into a name?
This is the only use of the phrase “name of the Lord” in Proverbs. But in other Scriptures it is more common. In the Scriptures a name means more than it does today. My name, “Mike”, is what you yell if you’d like me to turn around in the parking lot. (Though, you might shout it a bit louder than you think you need to—I’m finding all the heavy metal and power saws has done a number on my hearing). For us, a name is an identifying marker. But in the Scriptures your name is who you are. The name of the Lord signifies every bit of His character. To run into the name of the Lord is to throw oneself into the identity of the Lord. It is to bank upon His attributes and His character.
When my daughter was around three years old, she must have struggled with depth perception. We did a good job of teaching her that cars are dangerous. But somewhere she missed the lesson that a car from 100 yards away doesn’t pose a massive threat. When we were walking around a downtown area and crossing the street she’d throw herself into my arms. “Car!!!” She saw me as her strong tower. Daddy would protect her from the dangerous cars. She didn’t do this because of my title of “father”. She did this because she trusted in both my character to want her safe and my car-dodging attributes.
To “run into” the name of the LORD, then, is to entrust ourselves to Him. This is what Luther eventually found. As he read through both Galatians and Romans, Luther began to see another tower emerge—this one far stronger. This is how he tells it:
At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ ” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.[2]
That is what it means to run into the strong tower of God’s name. We trust His righteousness and not our own.
[1] Luther’s Works, volume 34, pg. 336
[2] Luther’s Works, Volume 34:336-337