The Names of God in Greek: Theos, Kyrios, and the Titles of the New Testament

If you searched for the Greek names of God and kept landing on pages about Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, you are not the only one, and you are not confused. The search engines tangle two very different things under the same words. There are the Greek gods, the gods of the old myths, and there are the Greek names of God, the names and titles the New Testament gives the one true God. This page is about the second kind. Not the gods of the stories, but the names of the God who is.

It helps to know why the names are in Greek at all. The God of the Bible first revealed his name in Hebrew, to Moses at the burning bush, as Yahweh, the I AM. But by the time Jesus walked the earth, Greek had become the common language of the whole eastern Mediterranean. So the New Testament was written in Greek, and the early church spoke of God in Greek words. When they reached for a name for the God of Abraham, they did not invent a new one. They took the ordinary words their neighbors used, Theos for God, Kyrios for Lord, and filled them with the living God of Scripture.

What follows is a slow walk through the main Greek names and titles of God in the New Testament. For each one you will find the Greek word, how it is said, what it plainly means, and a verse where you can see it doing its work. None of these is a different god. They are different windows onto the same face. And by the end, you will see that the New Testament does something startling with almost every one of them. It hands them to Jesus.

Why the Greek names of God matter

A name is not a label in the Bible. A name is a revelation. When God tells Moses his name in Exodus 3:14, he is not giving Moses a word to file away. He is opening himself up. So when the New Testament writers chose their Greek words for God, they were not being careless. Every title carries weight.

The names matter for a second reason, and it is the reason the church has cared about them for two thousand years. The Greek-speaking Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek, in the version called the Septuagint, used the word Kyrios, Lord, to stand in for the unsayable personal name of God. So Kyrios was already soaked in the holiness of Yahweh long before the New Testament was written. Then the New Testament turns around and calls Jesus Kyrios. That single word does more theology than a paragraph could. It puts the name of God on the man from Nazareth.

A.W. Tozer wrote that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The Greek names of God are a way of letting Scripture, rather than our own imagination, decide what comes into our minds. They keep us from making a small god in our own image. Each name pulls us back to who he actually says he is. God in his being. Lord in his authority. Almighty in his power. Father in his nearness. Savior in his mercy. The names are not a vocabulary quiz. They are an invitation to know him better.

And they matter for the reader who came here weary of the myths. The Greek world was crowded with gods who were powerful but not good, who used people and discarded them. The names below describe a God who is the opposite of all that. Holy and near. Sovereign and tender. The Master who became a servant.

Theos, God

The first and most basic Greek name of God is Theos (θεός), pronounced theh-OSS. It means, simply, God. It is the root behind English words like theology, the study of God, and theism, belief in God. It appears more than a thousand times in the New Testament, more than any other divine name.

What is striking is how ordinary the word was. Theos was the everyday Greek word for a god, any god. A Greek of the first century would have used it for Zeus or for one of the household gods on the shelf. The first Christians took that common word and did something bold with it. They pointed it at the only God there is, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and quietly refused it to all the rest.

You can watch the word at its most loaded in the opening line of John's Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

— John 1:1

Read it slowly. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Theos appears twice in one sentence. Once for the Father, that the Word was with God, and once for the Word himself, that the Word was God. The Greek packs the whole mystery of the Trinity into thirteen words. The Word is distinct from God and is fully God at the same time. John is not being sloppy. He is being exact. And he is telling you, before the Gospel even begins, that the one he is about to write about is Theos.

So the most ordinary Greek name of God turns out to carry the heaviest claim. The God who made the heavens is not a force or a feeling. He is a person, Theos, and he came near.

Kyrios, Lord

The second great name is Kyrios (κύριος), pronounced KOO-ree-oss, which means Lord, master, the one who has authority. In ordinary Greek it could mean something as plain as sir or owner. But in the Bible it carries a freight that ordinary Greek never gave it.

Here is why. When Greek-speaking Jews translated the Hebrew Old Testament, they came to the personal name of God, Yahweh, which was considered too holy to pronounce. So they replaced it with Kyrios, Lord. For centuries, every time a Greek-speaking believer read Kyrios in their Scriptures, they heard the name of God. The word was holy ground.

Now watch what the New Testament does with it. When doubting Thomas finally sees the risen Jesus, he does not say teacher. He does not say sir. He falls down and says something only a Jew would understand the full danger of.

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

— John 20:28

My Lord, Kyrios. My God, Theos. Thomas puts both of the highest names of God onto the man standing in front of him, and Jesus does not correct him. Paul does the same thing in Romans 10:13, quoting an Old Testament promise about Yahweh and applying it to Jesus.

for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

— Romans 10:13

In its original setting, in Joel 2:32, the name of the Lord meant the name of Yahweh. Paul takes that promise and says it is fulfilled in calling on Jesus. To confess Jesus is Kyrios, as the earliest Christians did, was the most dangerous and the most freeing thing a person could say. It meant Caesar was not Lord. It meant the myths were not lords. There was only one.

Pantokrator, Almighty

The third name is one of the grandest in the whole Greek New Testament: Pantokrator (παντοκράτωρ), pronounced pan-toh-KRAH-tor. It is built from two words, pas, meaning all, and kratos, meaning power or rule. Put them together and you have the one who holds power over all things. The Almighty. The ruler of everything.

The word appears ten times in the New Testament, and nine of those are in the book of Revelation. That is not an accident. Revelation was written to churches under pressure, believers who were watching the Roman Empire flex its power and wondering whether God was still on the throne. To them, John keeps using this one enormous word, Pantokrator, to say the empire is not in charge. The God on the throne is.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

— Revelation 1:8

That last word, the Almighty, is Pantokrator. To the persecuted reader, it lands like a hand on the shoulder. Whatever power seems to be crushing you, there is a greater power who holds it all. R.C. Sproul spent much of his ministry teaching that the holiness and sovereignty of God are the ground every fearful believer can stand on. Pantokrator is that sovereignty made into a single word. The one who rules over all is not anxious about your enemies. He is not pacing the throne room. He holds all power, and he is good.

Logos, the Word

The fourth name is unlike the others, because it is not a title of office like Lord or Almighty. It is Logos (λόγος), pronounced LOH-goss, which means word, reason, the expression of a mind. In Greek thought, the logos was the principle that gave order to the universe. John takes that loaded word and does something no Greek philosopher ever imagined. He says the Logos is a person, and the person is Jesus.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

— John 1:1

The Word here is Logos. And then John says the thing that changed the world.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

— John 1:14

The Logos became flesh. The eternal reason and self-expression of God did not stay an idea. He took on skin and bone and made his dwelling among us. The Greek word for made his dwelling is rooted in the word for tent, the same image as God's tabernacle in the wilderness. God pitched his tent among us. If you have ever wondered whether God is distant, the name Logos is the answer. He is the God who speaks, and the Word he spoke walked into the room.

Soter, Savior

The fifth name is Soter (σωτήρ), pronounced soh-TAYR, which means Savior, rescuer, deliverer. It comes from the same root as the name Jesus, which in Hebrew, Yeshua, means the Lord saves. So Savior is not just one thing Jesus does. It is woven into his very name.

In the Greek world, Soter was a title people gave to kings and emperors, the strong man who would deliver the city. The New Testament takes the title away from the emperors and gives it to the only one who can actually save, and not from invading armies but from sin and death.

while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,

— Titus 2:13

Look closely at the grammar. Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul puts God and Savior together and pins them on one name, Jesus Christ. Both titles, the highest one and the most tender one, belong to him. This is the heart of the good news. The God who has all power, Pantokrator, is also the God who came down to rescue, Soter. He did not stay on the throne and watch us drown. He came into the water.

For the reader who is tired and unsure whether the door is still open, this is the name to carry. He is called Savior because saving is what he does. Not for the strong. For the ones who cannot save themselves.

Pater and Abba, Father

The sixth name is the most intimate of them all: Pater (πατήρ), pronounced pah-TAYR, which simply means Father. Jesus used it constantly. He called God his Father and, astonishingly, taught his followers to do the same. The God of all power invites you to speak to him the way a child speaks to a dad.

Alongside the Greek Pater there is one Aramaic word the New Testament refuses to translate away, because it carries something the Greek cannot. That word is Abba (Ἀββᾶ). Abba is not Greek. It is Aramaic, the everyday home language Jesus spoke, and it is the warm, close word a child uses for a father, nearer to papa than to a formal sir. The New Testament keeps the Aramaic and then adds the Greek translation right beside it, so you feel both the closeness and the meaning at once.

You hear it first on the hardest night of Jesus' life, in the garden, when he is sweating and afraid.

"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

— Mark 14:36

Abba, Father. The same cry. And then Paul says the wonder of the gospel is that this very cry is now placed in your mouth.

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

— Romans 8:15

The next breath, in Galatians 4:6, names the cry itself, that God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. The same word Jesus prayed in the dark, the Spirit teaches you to pray. If you have been hiding from God, sure you have to clean yourself up before you can come close, this name is for you. The door home is not marked Master. It is marked Father.

Alpha and Omega

The seventh title is not a single word but two letters: Alpha (Ἄλφα) and Omega (Ὦ), the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The way an English speaker might say from A to Z, the Greek says from Alpha to Omega. It is a title for the God who is the beginning and the end, who was there before anything and will be there after everything, who holds the whole story in his hands.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

— Revelation 1:8

In that verse the title belongs to the Lord God, the Almighty. But hold on to the book, because near its very end the same title is spoken again, and this time by Jesus.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

— Revelation 22:13

The same eternal name, given to the Father at the start of Revelation and to the Son at its close. The New Testament hands the most absolute claim it knows, that God alone is the beginning and the end of all things, to Jesus, and does not flinch. If your life feels like it is somewhere in a chapter you cannot read your way out of, this name is the comfort. He is the Alpha you came from and the Omega you are going toward. He has already read the last page.

Despotes, Sovereign Master

The eighth name is Despotes (δεσπότης), pronounced des-POH-tace. It is the word our English despot comes from, but in Greek it carried no cruelty. It simply meant the master of a household, the one with full and rightful authority over everything in his care. Applied to God, it means Sovereign Master, the Lord who owns everything and rules it well.

It is a rarer name than Kyrios, and that rarity makes the moments it appears feel weighty. The first is on the lips of an old man named Simeon, who has waited his whole life to see God's promised salvation. When at last he holds the infant Jesus in the temple, he prays.

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

— Luke 2:29

Sovereign Lord is Despotes. Simeon speaks like a servant who has finished his watch and may now go home in peace, because the Master has kept his word. The early church reached for the same name when they were threatened and afraid, lifting their voices together in prayer to God in Acts 4:24, addressing him as Sovereign Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. When the world feels out of control, Despotes is the name that says someone is still in charge of the house, and the house is his.

Theotes, the fullness of deity

The ninth name is the most concentrated piece of theology in this whole list: Theotes (θεότης), pronounced theh-OH-tace. It does not mean a god or even God as a person. It means deity itself, the very nature and essence of being God. Some older translations rendered it Godhead. The plainer sense is the full divine nature, everything that makes God God.

Paul uses this dense word for one reason, to say something almost too large to say about Jesus.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.

— Colossians 2:9

Read every word. All the fullness. Of the Deity, Theotes. Lives in bodily form. Paul is not saying Jesus is godlike, or a great spiritual teacher, or a lesser divine being. He is saying that the entire nature of God, the whole of what it means to be God, took up residence in a human body. Nothing was held back. This is the claim the Greek philosophers could never have made and the myths never dreamed of. The fullness of deity did not float above the world. It walked through it, ate fish, wept at a grave, and went to a cross. D.A. Carson has spent a career pressing readers to take the full weight of who the New Testament says Jesus is, and Theotes is that weight in a single word.

How these names point to Jesus

If you have read this far, you have noticed the pattern, because it is impossible to miss. Almost every great Greek name of God lands on Jesus. Theos, God, John 1:1. Kyrios, Lord, John 20:28. Soter, Savior, Titus 2:13. Alpha and Omega, Revelation 22:13. Theotes, the fullness of deity, Colossians 2:9. The most exalted names in the Bible, the names that belong to God alone, the New Testament gives to the man from Nazareth.

This was not a slow drift over centuries. It is there from the earliest pages. The first Christians were Jews who would sooner die than call a creature God, and they called Jesus Lord, God, and Savior within a few years of the empty tomb. They were not lowering God to fit a man. They had met a man they could not explain except by raising him to the place of God.

Paul gathers it into one of the oldest hymns of the church, in his letter to the Philippians.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

— Philippians 2:9-11

The name that is above every name. Every knee bowing. Every tongue confessing Kyrios, Lord. This is why the Greek names of God are not a museum of old words. They are the answer to the question everyone is really asking. Who is Jesus? The New Testament answers in its highest vocabulary. He is Theos. He is Kyrios. He is Soter. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The names of God came looking for you, and they have a face.

Further study

If you want to go deeper into the Greek words themselves, three standard tools are worth keeping at your elbow. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words and Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words are the two trusted reference works for what each Greek term means and where it appears. For free, the Blue Letter Bible lexicon lets you click any word in the text and see its Greek root and every place it is used.

For careful, broad-evangelical teaching on the names and character of God, A.W. Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy is the classic short read, and The Gospel Coalition's essay on the names of God is a solid overview that keeps the biblical names clearly separate from the myths.

The Greek names sit on top of the older Hebrew ones — the name Yahweh and the name Elohim are where the God of the New Testament first told his people who he is. And if the deeper question under all of this is whether the God behind the names is even there, start with is God real. If you came to these names through the book of Revelation, where Pantokrator and Alpha and Omega ring out, the rapture page walks the end of the story the same titles point toward.

May the God who told Moses his name in Hebrew, and gave it to the world in Greek, give it to you tonight in a language your own heart can finally hear. He is Theos, God over all. He is Kyrios, the Lord who saves. And he is Pater, the Father, who has been waiting for you to come home.

Honest questions about the Greek names of God