AP

Exodus 3:13-15   Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’  Then what shall I tell them?”  God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”  God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers  – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.’  “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

Although throughout Genesis Moses had often used the special Covenant Name, ‘Yahweh’, when most appropriate to emphasise the unique Covenant relationship the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob had with their descendants, Israel, he takes the opportunity here to remind them of the origin of the name.

When God first commissioned Moses for the massive rescue operation for his people from their four centuries of bondage in Egypt, the ‘Exodus’, he revealed the special Name to him.  This is a very important piece of information for us to note.  The Hebrew word ‘I AM’ is ‘ehyeh’ from ‘hayah’, the verb ‘to be’, and that is the basis of the name ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Jehovah’, which English versions translate as ‘the LORD’.

The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) are introduced by the phrase, “I am the LORD [Yahweh] your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” – the basis of his unique Covenant relationship which he would maintain with them was his ‘salvation by grace alone’ from cruel bondage – grace, because there was nothing they could have done to save themselves by their own efforts!  Even obedience to the Commandments themselves could only ever be a  response to this unmerited grace, and not a contributing factor in their salvation!

The importance of all this to ua is that every time Jesus used the phrase ‘I AM’ he was claiming to be God, and the Jewish leaders recognised this, which is why they accused him of blasphemy.  This applies, not  only to all his many ‘I am the …’ statements, but also, and especially, when he said things like “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58) and “Take courage!  It is I [I AM]. Don’t be afraid.” (Mark 6:50, etc), and in accounts like, “Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’  ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied.  ‘I AM [he]’, Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, ‘I AM [he]’ they drew back and fell to the ground. [because he was claiming to be God!]” (John 18:4-6).  It is clear that modern ‘theologians’ who have tried to make out that Jesus himself never claimed to be God, but was only later ‘deified’ by the Early Church, are sadly mistaken!

– Bruce Christian