Exodus 3; Luke 6.
Yesterday's post is here.
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14)
God's name. At the burning bush, God reveals his name to Moses as "I am". When spoken in the third person singular ("he is") the word is yhwh (with vowel pointing: Yahweh). These Hebrew letters, YHWH, are called the "Tetragrammaton," and no one is completely certain how the name was pronounced. But this name, usually translated as "LORD" in modern versions, is used over 5,000 times in the Scriptures.
What's in a name? What's does God's name mean? The meaning could be summarized as, "The God Who Is". But there's a lot of meaning packed into that name. YHWH gives us insight into God's character and attributes...
1) He is personal: “I am” [not, "it is"]
2) He is eternal: “I am what I am” [not bound by time = “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev 1:8)]
3) He is living and true: “I am [and others are not]” (Deut 5:26; 1 Thess 1:9)
4) He is independent and self-sufficient: “I am who I am [in myself and apart from anything else]” (Ps 90:1-2; Isa 43:10-12)
5) He is sovereign (supreme): “I [alone] am” [I.e., above all others] (Ex 20:1-3; Dan 4:34-35)
6) He is immutable (unchanging): “I am who I am [permanently]” (Mal 3:6)
7) He is incomprehensible: “I am who I am [beyond your full understanding]" (Rom 11:33)
8) He is present and faithful: “I am [with you]” = "I will be with you" (Ex 3:12)
9) He is merciful provider: “I am [what my people need]” [E.g., Jesus: "I am the bread of life", etc.]
The Lord (Yahweh) is sovereign over, and independent of, all creation. His presence with his people guarantees the fulfillment of all his promises. In the Gospel of John it is significant that the Lord Jesus makes many "I am" statements, e.g., John 8:58.
"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)
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And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. (Luke 6:17-18)
Jesus' teaching in Luke 6 is very similar in structure and wording as that recorded in Matthew's sermon on the mount (Matt 5). Note, however, that Matthew says, "seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him" (Matt 5:1). Whereas, Luke writes, "he came down with them and stood on a level place" (Luke 6:17). It may be that these are two different ways of describing the same event (and Luke is summarizing the sermon), or possibly, these were two different occasions. It would not be unusual for Jesus, over his three years of ministry, to give the same or similar messages to different audiences.
Image at top: Painting, "The Burning Bush", by Jamie Holbrook.
We are following the Robert Murray M'Cheyne (RMM) two-year reading schedule, as arranged by D. A. Carson. A PDF copy is available here.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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