Introduction
I spent
some time with friends last week who are faithful Christians and have
graciously allowed me to do work for them over the years. We spent time talking
about work, faith, culture and lots of time talking about our government and
the embarrassing scandals that have rocked the President’s administration. It seemed
somewhat ironic as we prayed over our meal thanking God for his provision, care
and sovereignty. We sat around the kitchen table and laughed at what a circus
our government has become. Less funny was realizing how distressed some people
were about the events and the real dangers facing America. We wondered what it
must feel like to think an elected official is going to be that special person
that will make life perfect just to find out they are corrupt and incompetent.
I suppose it could be really frightening. Who do you turn to when there’s no
one left to turn to? Who do you trust when you can’t trust the people who
should be the most trustworthy?
The Hebrews were slaves in Egypt
for 400 years. They waited and hoped a long time for deliverance. I wonder how
many times someone presented himself as the one who would lead them out of
their slavery just to watch them all fail. I wonder how many times they were
disappointed before Moses showed up to announce that he was sent by God to free
them. It seems Moses anticipated that they would be skeptical of him so God
told him what to say to calm their fears and skepticism. I’d like to look at
that exchange for this week’s lesson and see if what God can calm our fears and
skepticism today as well.
Subject Text
Exodus
3:13-17
13Moses 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?” 14God 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.’” 15God 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 by which I am to be remembered from generation
to generation. 16Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The
LORD, the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared
to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has
been done to you in Egypt. 17And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites,
Hivites and Jebusites--a land flowing with milk and honey.’”
Context
From the middle of chapter 2 until
our subject text in the middle of chapter 3 we go from Moses as a baby to Moses
leading the Israelites out of Egypt. The biblical text doesn’t provide much
detail about the time in-between. Nevertheless, we know from the text that
Moses was the son of a Hebrew slave who was destined to be murdered by the new
Pharaoh of Egypt who was concerned that the Hebrew population had become too
large. He feared that an uprising by the slaves could successfully overthrow
his kingdom. As a result, he ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder all the
newborn Hebrew boys. Having been alerted to Pharaoh’s plan, Moses’ mother
placed him in a basket and floated him down the Nile to where Pharaoh’s
daughter was bathing. Moses was taken from the Nile by Pharaoh’s daughter and
raised as an Egyptian prince. When he was grown, he witnessed an Egyptian
beating a Hebrew slave. Moses overpowered the Egyptian and killed him.
Eventually, word spread about what Moses had done and when Pharaoh found out,
he tried to kill Moses. Moses fled Egypt and settled in Midian where he married
the daughter of a Midian priest named Jethro. As the oppression of the Hebrew
slaves in Egypt continued to worsen, Moses spent his days tending to Jethro’s
flocks. While moving the flocks to new grazing lands, Moses found himself at
the foot of Mt. Horeb, the mountain of God. This is where Moses encountered the
bush that was on fire but didn’t burn up. This is where Moses encountered God personally.
It was here that Moses received his instruction about God’s plan to free the
Hebrews from their 400 year Egyptian bondage.
Text Analysis
I’ve read our subject text countless
times without really considering Moses’ questions to God too closely. But they
struck me as very odd this week when I felt led to prepare this lesson. See if
you don’t agree. In v. 13 Moses proffers a question to God’s instructions by
asking, in essence: ‘What if I go and tell them what you said and they want to
know your name—what should I tell them?’ You’ve probably read over that as many
times as I have without giving it much thought. If someone steps forward with
some crucial information, it’s not unreasonable to expect that people would
want to verify the credibility of the information based on its origin. Here’s
what piqued my curiosity: Moses is supposed to tell them that the message
originated from the God of their fathers! You can search high and low in the
text preceding our subject text and you will not find a place where a formal,
singular name for God is recorded. So why in the world would Moses wonder how
to answer this hypothetical question? Why would he think that the Israelites
would even ask the question? Was Moses confused or obfuscating or is there
something else going on here? To answer this question, we must remember that in
the context of Israel, a name was more than a tool used to identify or summon a
person. A person’s name was intended to convey something about that
person—their essence; their character. Let me restate something I wrote in a
previous lesson: ‘In our present day, parents usually give little thought to
the meaning of the names they give their children. Names or a derivation
thereof are often passed down from one generation to the next. Or perhaps a
name is chosen based on personal preference (that’s how we picked the names of
our children anyway). But in ancient Judaism, this wasn’t the case. Ideally, a
name represented a person’s personality. Names may also be prophetic in nature;
foretelling a person’s hoped-for destiny. A child’s name could also be a form
of prayer that the person bearing the name will live up to the potential
conveyed by the name.’ (See lesson titled: What’s
In A Name -- http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2013/04/whats-in-name.html).
In a certain sense, this is what Moses was angling for. Perhaps if I rephrased
Moses’ question it might make my point more clear. Moses is asking: ‘What if
they ask me what You’re like—what should I tell them?’ “Characteristically, in
Hebraic Scripture, God’s being is revealed to us through sublime names that
designate who God is. The revelation of God’s personal character is closely
connected with these names that reveal God’s nature. The discussion of divine
attributes is best viewed as a fuller development and clarification of
scriptural names for God…In no case do these scriptural names imply that God
can be fully comprehended in essence (as God is to himself) merely by being named…But
this does not mean that God is wholly unnameable.”[1]
God answers
in v. 14 when he instructs Moses to tell the Israelites that He is to be known
as “I AM WHO I AM” and that this is the way he was to be known by them and all
the generations that succeeded them according to v.15. However many
interpretations you can think of will probably fall short of the number of
interpretations that have been postulated about how these verses should be
interpreted. In part, that’s because naming God and knowing God fully and
completely is just not possible for us. Therefore, the varied possibilities for
interpreting this verse are not necessarily wrong in their entirety. More likely,
the varied interpretations could be seen as puzzle pieces used in an attempt to
construct an image of God. Nevertheless, I will attempt to offer a general
interpretation I believe captures the broad (very broad) understanding of God’s
self-identification as “I AM.” “Some biblical texts describe God as Pure
Existence. When Moses asked God His name in Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, ‘I
AM WHO I AM.’ God is pure ‘I AM’-ness; He is the self-existent One who depends
on no one else for His being. This traditional understanding of Exodus 3:14 is
confirmed by Jesus’ usage of it in John 8:58, when He declared, ‘Before Abraham
was born, I am!’ The Jews listening not only understood His claim but responded
accordingly: ‘At this, they picked up stones to stone him’ (John 8:59), because
only God could make such a claim.”[2]
I wonder,
does v. 16 bother you the way it bothers me? Can’t we look at this verse with
encouragement or with cynicism?
Consider this: It is encouraging and comforting that the Creator of the
universe recognizes the oppression and needs of His people and cares enough to
send someone to deliver them from their bondage. However, as much as I try not
to, the cynic in me wants to scream out: ‘Why did You wait 400 years to do
something?’ Be honest, how many of you think the latter more often than the
former? Well in this case I’m not going to speculate about why God waited; I’ll
tell you exactly why God waited 400 years to deliver the Hebrews from their
bondage—because that’s exactly how long God said they would be in bondage. One
of the many reasons we can put our trust in God is that he is always right even
when we don’t like what he has to say. The answer to the question of why God
waited 400 years to free the slaves can be found back in Genesis as part of
God’s calling and promise to Abraham as the one who would father the nation of
Israel:
Genesis
15:13-16
13Then the LORD said to him
[Abraham], “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a
country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated
four hundred years. 14But I will punish the nation
they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with
great possessions. 15You, however, will go to your
fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16In the fourth generation your
descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet
reached its full measure.”
Technically, God waited 400 years
because he said he would wait 400 years. However, if that’s the only reason, we
might think God is not a loving and caring God. Instead, we might be tempted to
think that God is coldly obliged to follow some impersonal rules regardless of
human loss and suffering. But God is not some impersonal and uncaring Being.
Genesis 15:16 gives us the reason God waited 400 years to free the Hebrews:
Because he was not done with the Amorites who possessed the land that would
eventually be given to the Jews and become Israel’s home. We tend to have a
myopic view of God generally when it comes to his plan of salvation, mercy and
grace. Specifically, when we read the Old Testament, we tend to think that God
only loves the Jews and only has plans for them. But nothing could be farther
from the truth. Even though God’s love for all of humanity is explicit in the
New Testament, it is nevertheless implicit in the Old Testament. “God knew the
people [Amorites] would grow more wicked and would someday need to be punished.
Part of that punishment would involve taking away their land and giving it to
Abram’s descendants. God in his mercy was giving the Amorites plenty of time to
repent, but he already knew they would not. At the right time, they would have
to be punished. Everything God does is true to his Character. He is merciful,
knows all, and acts justly—and his timing is perfect.”[3]
Of course we know that God intended on bringing the Israelites to Canaan
which he promised long ago to Abraham. But they
didn’t necessarily know that so you can only imagine their joy at hearing that
they would not only be liberated from their oppression, they were going to the
Promised Land; they were going home to a land flowing with milk and honey. The
expression, “a land flowing with milk and honey,” has endured many millennia to
our own day as depicting the quintessential place to reside. However, the
expression “Does not only refer to the wealth and natural fertility of the
Promised Land, but may reflect the different modes of existence prevalent in
ancient Israel. The expression forms an essential part of Israel’s historical
credo, emphasizes God’s constant involvement in the daily concerns of his
people, and remains the symbol of God’s favor, which the eschatological Israel
eventually will repossess (Joel 3:18 [4:18]; cf. Isa 60:16).”[4]
There is a purpose behind everything
God causes to occur or allows to occur even though we don’t understand the
purpose or witness the final unfolding of that purpose. In fact, there is an
embedded purpose every time God reveals something of himself to us. “The story
of Exodus 3 is characteristic of the biblical approach in joining the act of
God’s self-disclosure with the call for commitment from its recipients.
Revelation is not information about God and his nature, but an invitation to
trust in the one whose self-disclosure is a foretaste of the promised inheritance.”[5]
Application
I don’t know about you but when I
think of The Great I AM, I picture
Jesus who represents the pinnacle of God’s revelation of himself to humanity. I
described, above, the technical theology inherent in God identifying himself as
“I AM.” However, there are also practical implications in the identification
that correspond to the introduction of this lesson. People (sometimes including
us) become disillusioned and distressed because they hope that some human being
or some institution will be The Great I
AM they long for deep in their hearts. They want someone to lead them who
is different; perfect; just; honest; courageous; loving; caring; selfless; a
healer; a friend; a protector; a giver; a deliverer. However, every time some
human or institution falls short of those expectations, people become
increasingly distraught, disillusioned and distressed. For millennia, people
have imposed on other people and institutions the characteristics that belong
only to God and have been revealed to us in the person of Jesus. Let me
demonstrate as though Jesus himself would be telling you:
- I AM—Honest: “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” John 14:6
- I AM—Courageous: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42
- I AM—Selfless: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8
- I AM—a Healer: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.” Matthew 4:23-24
- I AM—a Friend: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
- I AM—a Giver: “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” John 6:33
We can become distressed and distraught because we
look to sinful humanity or institutions governed by sinful humanity to do for
us what only God in Jesus Christ can do, and has already done, for us. In fact,
we become so tightly wound around the idea that someone like the President of
the United States or some other earthly ruler is so important that we are ready
to kill one another when he or she fails to live up to our high expectations or
confirms or exceeds our low expectations. But Christians must not get caught in
the vortex that attempts to suck everything into a dark hole where no one looks
to Jesus as the only answer to every question. Instead, Christians must be a
kind of compass that reorients everyone to look and pursue the One who is
greater than everyone and everything—The
Great I AM!
[1]
Thomas C. Oden, The Living God—Systematic
Theology, Vol., 1 (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1987), p. 32.
[2] Dr.
Norman Geisler, God &
Creation—Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House
Publishers, 2003), p. 32.
[3] Life Application Bible—Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers and Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1991), p. 32.
[4]
Willem A. VanGemeren, gen. ed., New
International Dictionary of Old Testament Theoloy and Exegesis, Vol. 2,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), p. 136.
[5]
Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus—A
Critical, Theological Commentary, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2004), pp. 88-89.
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