Part II: The weight
“Who should I say sent me to you?” asked Moses. Say, “I AM has sent me to you”
Exodus 3:14
This alluring response only seems to stir more questions, increase desire, and usher reverence. If Moses was standing, I’m sure he is bowed down now. A posture of complete humility before the Creator God would be appropriate. This name signifies God’s absolute being. No ending, no becoming, no dependence on anything outside of himself — That’s His name! (Piper, “You Will Never See Death“). How can the fragile, finite mind of man seek to understand, let alone, personally know a God whose very name emphasizes his unfathomableness? Man is but dust. We cannot grasp Him. He must reveal himself.
Further, God told Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — a name he would be remembered by forever. This is not a new God, he is the one who chose them to be His own people many generations ago. A chosen people set apart for himself. He has not left or abandoned them, He remembered His own. I wonder what the Hebrews must have felt when they heard the names of their forefathers. Did this name revive those quiet hopes of four long centuries of crying out to Him from under the whip of their slave masters? This is the one who created the heavens and the earth! This is the one who put Jospeh in power beside pharaoh!
Secondly, we see in the text that God is a personal God: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7-8). He “sees”, “hears”, and “knows”. Accompanied with knowledge of His name and reminders of His faithfulness, was a promise. A promise of deliverance that would quiet the fearful heart with assurance that — this immutable, absolute, self-existing God is for us, not against us. He uses His power to save, not exploit.
When the scribes invented the Hebrews vowel system, they ensured that anyone who read the name given to Moses by God in Exodus 3, YHWH, would be read as yahweh. Implementing vowels in this way was akin to building a fence around the law of God, prohibiting the misuse of His name or taking His name in vain. Such careful attentiveness in abstaining from even whispering this name leaves an air of purposeful mystery. When Manoah asked the angel of the LORD, “What is your name?“, in Judges chapter 3, he was met with this unexpected response: “seeing it is wonderful” (Judges 3:18, ESV).
How could this not fill your heart with curiosity? A gentle, inviting wonder? Akin to beholding the expanse of the heavens on a clear night. A recognition of own’s own finiteness in pondering the reality of the great I AM. We are but dust. He is all in all.
To better understand the weight and wonder of His name manifested in Christ — the Word made flesh — let’s fast forward about a thousand years from Moses’ encounter with God in the wilderness to a tense conversation between Jesus and the Jews within the temple. Prior to this confrontation, the religious rulers had taken offense that Jesus had said their religious works aligned more with the devil that the Father’s desires. And so, they began to insult and accuse him:
“Are you greater than our Father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’. But you have not known him, I would be a liar like you, but I know him and I keep his word. Your Father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad”. So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am“. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” (John 8:48-59).
With the memory of Exodus 3 rekindled in the minds of those gathered, this statement is the clearest, most forthright claim in the gospel of John that Jesus is Yahweh, the God of Israel. The great “I Am” who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As John Piper noticed in his sermon, “You will never See Death“: If Jesus wanted to claim pre-existence, he could have said, ‘Before Abraham was, I was.’ But Jesus meant to move beyond pre-existence. He says, “Before Abraham was, I am. It is this response that fueled their rage to pick up stones and destroy this “blasphemer” who claimed to be YHWH.
Here, we see how the identity of Jesus leads either to one of two responses: (1) worship, or to (2) blaspheme. He came to his own and they did not recognize him, they did not receive the one they claimed to know (John 1:11).
With this, let us ask God to impress the weight of His name upon our hearts. Not a weight that crushes mere frames of dust, but a weight of glory that turns our gaze to behold His infinite worth. A weight of glory that inclines us to draw near to this once unapproachable light. A weight of glory that transforms us more and more into his image (1 Corinthians 3:18). For, seeing it is “wonderful” (Judges 13:8).