I AM WHO I AM
Sunday 15th June 2025
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.”‘ Exodus 3:14
Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered,
‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ John 8:58 (NIV)
I Am Who I Am
Whenever we read the word ‘LORD’ (usually printed in small capitals) which occurs over 6800 times in the Old Testament, it translates the Hebrew name for God, ‘Yahweh,’ which when translated into English is something like ‘I AM WHO I AM’ or ‘I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.’
It’s in Exodus 3 that God first introduces himself with that name, and it comes in response to Moses asking what he’s to tell the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, when God sends Moses to them to tell them he’s going to bring them out of slavery.
It’s a unique name, which in one sense is obvious if it’s God’s name. But it’s a way of saying he’s absolute being. There’s no reality before, above, after or greater than he. In his book Providence, Jon Piper unpacks some of what it means that God is absolute being:
God’s absolute being means that:
1. He never had a beginning …
2. God will never end. If he did not come into being, he cannot go out of being …
3. God is absolute reality. There is no reality before him. There is no reality outside of him unless he wills it or makes it …
4. God is utterly independent. He depends on nothing to bring him into being or to support him or counsel him or make him what he is …
5. Everything that is not God depends totally on God … The entire universe is utterly secondary …
6. All the universe is by comparison to God as nothing … as an echo to a thunderclap, as a bubble to the ocean …
7. God is constant. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He cannot be improved. He is not becoming anything. He is who he is. There can be no development in God. No progress.
8. God is the absolute standard of truth, goodness, and beauty. There is no law book to which he looks to know what is right. No almanac to establish facts …
9. God does whatever he pleases, and it is always right, always beautiful, and always in accord with truth …
10. God is the most important and most valuable reality and person in the universe. He is more worthy of interest and attention and admiration and enjoyment than all other realities …
Prayer
O God, from you and through you and for you are all things. To you be glory for ever! Amen. [Romans 11:36, NIV].
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)