Hey! You in the burning bush! What’s Your name? He wasn’t irreverent but desperately needed to know the One who commissioned him. “Moses asked God, ‘If I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” what should I tell them?’ ” (Exodus 3:13). As God’s representative to the Hebrews, Moses had to be able to disclose God’s name and character.
“God replied to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you’ ” (Exodus 3:14). “I AM WHO I AM” may mean I AM BECAUSE I AM or I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE. He always was, He is, and He always will be. God is self-existing, eternal, and unchanging.
“God also said to Moses, ‘Say this to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation’ ” (Exodus 3:15).
God instructed Moses to say to his Jewish relatives, “the Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me.” Two chapters later, after Moses arrived in Egypt, God told Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I was not known to them by my name ‘the Lord’ ” (Exodus 6:3). “Moses, your ancestors have known Me as ‘El Shaddai or God Almighty’ but they haven’t known me by a personal, intimate name, ‘Yahweh or Lord.’ ”
The God of Moses’s ancestors was an All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Ever-Present God. At the burning bush Moses was introduced to an intimate God, a God who came near, a God with a personal name, the name Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah! This is the God who would indwell the Pillar of Fire and the Pillar of Clouds. This is the God who would pour out His glory upon Mt. Sinai. This is the God who would go with His chosen people through the wilderness.
In the New Testament, Jesus revealed Himself, saying “I AM the Bread of Life” (John 6:35), “I AM the Light of the World” (John 8:12), “I AM the Gate,” the doorway to the Shepherd’s security (John 10:7), “I AM the Good Shepherd”who lays down His life for His sheep (John 10:14), “I AM the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25), “I AM the Way the Truth and the Life” (Joh n 14:6), and “I AM the Vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit” (John 15:7). Seven times, Jesus linked Himself to the great “I AM,” the self-existing, eternal, and unchanging God of the Old Testament ... and the God of the New Testament.
He “became flesh and dwelt among us.” The great “I AM” wrapped himself in humanity, to reveal “his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 (CSB).
Who is the God who came near? Who is the God who commissions us to go? “What is his name?” His name is Jesus!
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