This past Tuesday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved a long dispute over the definite article – that is, the word “The”. “The” Ohio State University just this past Tuesday won its appeal to an earlier decision that did not allow them to trademark “The” in the name of the university. To those Buckeyes in Columbus, “The Ohio State University” has a distinct difference from “Ohio State University”.
There is something to the definite article. The word “The” makes a difference when we use it. It specifies. It often makes exclusive. It gives grandeur and perhaps some depth. “The” is a big deal.
In Christianity, we confess that our God is “the” God – there is no other. We confess that Christ is “the” Christ. We look forward to “the” Resurrection. Our faith is a specific faith, a faith of “the”.
Far too often though, we can begin to act as if we are an indefinite article people. When we do that, our God becomes just “a” God, our Christ just one among many, our hope in the Resurrection just one among many afterlife possibilities. We can easily slip away from the definiteness of the articles of our God in our sins.
When we do slip away, however, God comes back and reestablishes Himself as “the” answer for us. As much as we look other places, we find that in the end, He is “the” only One who has salvation for us.