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“If you’re able, please stand.” Reading of Exodus 3:1–15. “Thanks be to God.”
This week the Lucianos got the very hard news that their son Lester has a brain tumor. He starts chemo tomorrow.
There are many other situations affecting individuals in our church and people we’re connected to that feel enormous. Situations that remind us of how small we are. How powerless we are in the scheme of things.
We read of national events and the decisions of politicians and shake our heads. What! Again! Situations that remind us of how small we are. How powerless.
Our passage this morning points us toward the answer. The answer is not AI. It’s not a political party. It’s not a medical procedure. The answer is a Person.
In our passage Moses is the person who will face the situation that will make him feel small. Powerless.
God will meet him in that moment and point him toward the answer. The answer is a Person. A totally unique Person. I know we’re not supposed to say “totally unique.” But in the case of God, it feels appropriate. He is so completely without equal. Without peer. Without comparison. “Totally unique.”
Our series is from the Old Testament book of Exodus: Yahweh Our Deliverer. This morning is where we get more explanation of this mysterious name of “Yahweh.” We learn more about the deliverance he will accomplish.
He is the God Who Is: (1) The Holy God (3:1-6); (2) The Covenant God (3:7–12); (3) The Self-Existent God (3:13–22).
Prayer: Lester Luciano (Theo and Joyanna and the family).
Read Exodus 3:1–6.
Remember where we are. God is preparing to deliver his people (Exod 2:23–25). To do that he needs to prepare the deliverer.
At this point, he’s an unlikely hero. His backstory isn’t what you’d expect.
But the Lord has his ways of making us into the kind of person he will use!
The shepherd leads his flock to “Horeb, the mountain of God.” The shepherd leads his flock to Mt. Sinai.
Exod 3🔢 “The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire…”
Exod. 3🔢 “the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.”
For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deut 4:24)
Our God is a consuming fire. (Heb 12:29)
God speaking out of the fire will happen again!
The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, (Deut 5:2–4)
We also see that this place is HOLY.
“Holy ground” – Where God is, is holy. Common things become “holy things” when they are set apart for his purposes.
In the tabernacle, the temple in the Old Testament: candles, tables, altars, curtains, wooden boxes—these are the normal stuff of life. But when they are set apart to be used in the temple, they become holy things that can’t be treated in a common way.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pet 2:9)
We are “a holy nation,” a people set apart. Normal people, common people in every way—and yet “holy” because God has set us apart.
Luther’s encounter with “the Holy” at his first mass.
When Luther was giving the mass, he said the words in front him, “We offer unto thee, the living, the true, the eternal God.” Later he said,
At these words I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, ‘With what tongue shall I address such Majesty, seeing that all men ought to tremble in the presence of even an earthly prince? Who am I, that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround him. At his nod the earth trembles. And shall I, a miserable little [nothing], say ‘I want this, I ask for that’? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin and I am asking to the living, eternal and the true God.
Martin Luther[1]
Application:
Don’t play around with God. Don’t treat him like he’s some Chatbot. There to answer your questions and help you do your tasks. And of course, the reverse is true: don’t treat AI like it’s a god. Like it’s the “consuming fire” of the universe.
Read Exod. 3:7–12.
Twice in these verses God speaks of Israel as “my people”:
And three times in this chapter he calls himself “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exod 3:6, 15, 16).
God has attached himself to Israel as his people in a unique way. Among the peoples of the earth, he has made a covenant with this particular people.
A covenant is an agreement between two parties that defines the relationship. You can have a covenant between two equal parties—a marriage covenant.
We have “neighborhood covenants” that define what we can do and not do with our houses in certain neighborhoods.
God’s covenants with us are not a covenant between equals. They are like ancient covenants made between a king and his subjects (technically called “suzerain-vassal covenants” or “royal covenants”). The king dictates the terms: the promises, the conditions.
The covenant that is all over the book of Exodus is the one made with Abraham back in Genesis 12:
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:1–3)
Note the three promises:
In Genesis 15 and Genesis 17:1–17, God will add more detail to the covenant with Abraham.
The covenant promise of deliverance: Exod. 3:7–8.
The Lord has truly seen Israel’s affliction. “Surely seen” (Exod 3:7). Also in Exod. 3:9, 16. Each time it is with “seen.”
“Oppression.” (Exod 3:9). This word for “oppression” in the Bible always refers to undeserved oppression (Currid).
“I have come down to deliver them” (Exod 3:8).
That “deliverance” is dramatic and involved and will happen in a way Moses could never have predicted.
But this deliverance is God fulfilling his promise. He said he would and is going to do just that.
Then there’s the covenant promise of a “good and broad land” (Exod 3:8).
God will bring Israel both “out of” a land—Egypt—and “to a good and broad land” (Exod 3:8).
The land promise—Abraham and Gen. 12:1–3. Canaan in Gen. 12:7.
The specific nations in Gen. 15:18–21.
“A land flowing with milk and honey” (Exod 3:8, 17). What?!?!
They’re being delivered OUT of Egypt and TO the land of Canaan.
That reminds us God’s redemption is always OUT OF something and TO something.
We’re not just saved FROM something. We’re saved FOR something.
Back to Israel’s deliverance.
How is this all going to happen? “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh…” (Exod 3:10). What?!?!?
Moses’s response to the calling is not at all like Isaiah. Isaiah also has a vision of God the exalted one. There’s fire in his vision, too. A coal is taken from the altar of God and touches his lips. His sin and guilt are taken away. God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah says, “Here I am, send me!” (Isa 6:8).
But Moses?
Moses is like, “Yeah, I’m not sure.”
Exod. 3:10 begins a series of five questions and retorts from Moses. Reasons why he shouldn’t do exactly what God has just called him to do:
His first question is, “Who am I?” (Exod 3:11). “I’m a fugitive. I killed a guy. I can’t just walk into Pharaoh’s office and ask for a 3-day vacation for his entire workforce! On whose authority, by what power can I do this? I need something more than, ‘Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s God has sent me.’”
Application:
Rest in God. His commitment to us is a covenant commitment to us. When he makes promises to us it says he has “sworn” these promises. His love is an “everlasting love.”
Read Exod. 3:13–22.
Above Moses asked, “Who am I?” Now his section question, “Who are you?”
Exod. 3:13, “What is his name?” Some feel that he is asking, what is the significance and meaning of your name? But John Currid (and Christopher Wright) reads it more straight-forwardly as if Moses is really asking for God’s name:
By asking for God’s name, Moses shows he does not know it. This does not mean that the name about to be revealed was not known prior to the burning bush incident. It simply indicates that either the name had somehow been lost to the Hebrews in their many centuries of slavery, or that it was not a prominent designation for God before this time.
John Currid, Exodus[2]
That reminds us of Moses’s story. He’s 80-years old now. A shepherd who works with his father-in-law who is a priest in Midian. There’s no reason to think Jethro was any different than any other priest in Midian at this time. He was a polytheist, a worshipper of false gods.
In Exodus 18 Jethro will hear Moses describe all the events of the Exodus and how Yahweh had delivered them and say, “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods.” (Exod 18:11). But that’s a few months down the road.
Moses had spent 40 years with a priest who worshipped false gods. Before that he was raised in the house of Pharaoh’s daughter. Remember, the book of Genesis hadn’t been written yet! Moses wasn’t in a position to write it!
It makes sense that Moses would ask his question, “What is his name?”
God does something here more than simply repeat himself by saying again, “Didn’t you hear me the first time, I’m the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?”
He is “God” (Elohim): The “God” who created all things and is sovereign over all things—21 times in this chapter he is “God.”
But “God” is not his name. It’s his title.
But God? It’s true that several times in this chapter he has identified himself with the Israelites: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exod 3:6, 15, 16).
That takes his title and combines it with his people. That tells us a lot!
But it’s not his name. In terms of his name, the answer is different.
God is REVEALING something of himself for Moses and the Jewish elders that Moses will talk to first. And ultimately, he is revealing something of himself for Pharaoh.
God’s name and nature revealed.
“I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14). One of the most studied phrases in the Old Testament.
Some things to notice: God doesn’t define himself by anything other than himself. We never do that. We always define ourselves by something other than ourselves.
Not God. He defines himself only with himself!
Imagine how ridiculous if we did the same: “Who are you? I AM.” What!
The Hebrew is complex. Very hard to tell how exactly what tense of the verb to use: I AM WHO I AM. I HAVE BEEN WHO I HAVE BEEN. I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.
Normally, you try and choose the one that makes the most sense. But in this case, it seems all of these translations capture something that is meant in the text. They’re getting at the fullness of God’s being. He is pure existence in a way nothing else is.[3]
There is a fullness to God that defines our ability to describe it. One author used this to speak of God as “ineffable.”[4] “Ineffable” is a fancy way of saying words can’t describe him. They are all we have. But he is infinite and words are finite.
“I AM WHO I AM” is one of those places where words are revealing something—but also showing us that our God is a mystery beyond our comprehension! God’s names all REVEAL something of who he is, but they also remind us that he is a MYSTERY BEYOND COMPREHENSION.
To bring it together, a reflection on I AM by Herman Bavinck:
By [I AM WHO I AM] the Lord says that he who now calls Moses and wants to save his people is the same [God] as he who appeared to their fathers. He is who he is, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He will be what he was for the patriarchs, what he is now and will remain: he will be everything to and for his people. It is not a new and strange God who comes to them by Moses, but the God of the fathers, the Unchangeable One, the Faithful One, the eternally Self-consistent One, who never leaves or forsakes his people but always again seeks out and saves his own. He is unchangeable in his grace, in his love, in his assistance, who will be what he is because he is always himself.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics 2.143
Notice how Exod. 3:14 leads to Exod. 3:15. Exod. 3:14 explains God’s name. In Exod. 3:15 we see God use it in a word Moses is to say to “the people of Israel”: “The LORD, the God of your father, the God of Abraham…”
“The LORD” in capital letters like that is the Hebrew Yahweh, Hebrew that mirrors really closely the Hebrew of “I AM WHO I AM.” That’s why in explaining the name Yahweh we come here to Exodus 3. This isn’t the first time God or others will use the name Yahweh. But it’s here where we find the explanation for why. Eve is the first person in the Bible to use it when naming Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD” (Gen 4:1). The next time by the parents of Noah (5:29).
Jesus uses the divine name of himself in John 8:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8:58–59)
Application:
TRUST IN HIM: Understanding God as the self-existent one should give us a rock-solid trust in him. He is unlike anyone or anything else. You can TRUST him.
Trust is more than knowledge (I understand!). It’s more than assent (it’s true!). It’s taking another step and putting your active trust in him.
Think of a 2-story ladder. Now, I hate being on 2-story ladders. I UNDERSTAND they’re strong enough. I even believe it’s TRUE what the label says: Supports 300 lbs or whatever. It’s the TRUST part, where I have to walk up the rungs.
But that’s what saving faith is: Understanding + Affirming + Entrusting.
Our God who is SELF-EXISTENT is worthy of your trust!
The riddle in this text: how can a holy God who is the self-existent one attach himself to a covenant people who are sinners?
We’re like a bush on a mountainside. How can we be filled with the fire of God and yet not consumed?
Martin Luther was not wrong to feel the weight of God’s holiness at that mass early in his life as a monk.
The answer is the gospel! The answer is Jesus Christ, the God-man.
In honor of Reformation Day just around the corner: Martin Luther to his friend George Spalatin who was “brooding over his mistakes” at the end of his life. He was facing an extended depression. Luther accused him of being a “feeble sinner.” Then he wrote to him,
Now join with us prodigious and hardened sinners lest you diminish Christ for us. He is not a savior of fictitious or petty sinners but of genuine ones, not only the lowly but also the big and powerful ones; indeed he is the savior of all sinners. My Staupitz consoled me this way when I was downhearted. You can be a bogus sinner and have Christ for a fictitious savior. Instead, get used to the fact that Christ is a genuine savior and that you are a real sinner.
Martin Luther, Letter from August 21, 1544[5]
Prayer and closing song
[1] Cited in Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (Hendrickson, 2012), 21.
[2] Currid, Exodus, EP (2000), 82.
[3] On this point see George Athas, “The creation of Israel: the cosmic proportions of the exodus event” in Exploring Exodus: Literary, theological and contemporary approaches (Apollos, 2008): 40–47.
[4] Jonathan Platter, “Divine simplicity and scripture: a theological reading of Exodus 3:14,” Scottish Journal of Theology 73 (2020), 301.
[5] Cited in Scott Hendrix, Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer (Yale, 2016), 281.
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