September 22, 2006

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

Exodus 3

In my introductory message to this series two weeks ago, I mentioned that there are three main characters that we will be focusing on as we work our way through the narrative sections of the Pentateuch. One of those, of course, is Moses. The other is the people of Israel as a whole. The third, and truly the MAIN main character is God himself.

In Exodus 3 and 4, we have the well known account of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush. It is such an important, foundational text that we are actually going to spend two weeks on it. Next week we are going to focus on Moses, and what we can learn from his experience and reactions in this account. Today, however, I want to focus on what we can learn about God from this passage.

It is an appropriate text for such a focus as we can tell from a couple of techniques used by the writer. The first is a change in what narrative analysts call “focalization”. It relates to the point of view assumed by the narrator of the story. Typically this point of view can be external, in which events are recorded as by an eye-witness. Or it can be internal, in which the narrator not only tells us what is happening, but also tells us what the character is thinking or feeling. But there is a third point of view that is called omniscient. In this case the narrator moves behind the scenes and describes what is happening behind the scenes, from God’s point of view.

In the last few verses of Exodus 2, the writer assumes this omniscient point of view. (Read Exodus 2:23-25). In this paragraph, we are told not only what is happening on earth, particularly back in Egypt. We are also told what is happening in heaven. Such texts are very important and helpful to us, because they reveal God and his character to us in a “plain language” kind of way. They provide divine commentary on earthly events.

The second narrative technique that is very common and useful in Hebrew narrative is the extensive use of dialogue or speech. They are parts of the text that can be placed in direct quotation marks. Such “speeches” are also very helpful in revealing what is going on in the speaker’s mind. Exodus 3 is a treasure house of such insight, because 20 out of the 22 verses include direct quotations, and the entire chapter represents a dialogue between God and Moses. We can learn a great deal about God from this chapter because much of the text quotes God speaking in his own words.

With this introduction, let’s get into the text itself. After giving us the omniscient point of view in the end of chapter 2, we pick up the narrative back in Midian. Moses is still herding his father-in-law’s flock. He’s been doing this now for 40 years. In all probability, he assumes that this will be his job for the rest of his life. He is out with the flock in what is called the “far side” of the desert. The KJV calls it the backside of the desert. While he is out there, he witnesses a very strange phenomenon. He sees a bush on fire. Now this might have been strange in and of itself. How was this fire started? Are there people around he has not seen? Why is there only this one bush burning? But what really intrigues him and arouses his curiosity is when he watches and sees that while the bush burns, it is not consumed. The bush itself is not turning black, and collapsing in ashes. It remains fresh and vibrant even as the flames burn. So he turns aside to witness this strange thing.

As he approaches the bush, we are told that God spoke to him from the bush. He called him by name. “Moses! Moses!” Thus began one of the most intriguing conversations in the Old Testament. God speaks, and as he speaks he reveals vital truths about himself.

As we unpack God’s words in this text, I want to highlight six truths we can learn about God.

First: HE IS A HOLY GOD.

Look at God’s words in verse 5: “Do not come any closer,” God said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

I want to point out something that you might not be aware of. This is the first use of the word “holy” in the Bible. This word, either in Hebrew or in English translation, does not occur in the book of Genesis. Yet it becomes a major theme of the book of Exodus, with 53 occurrences. First occurrences are significant. The holiness of God is not a concept men thought up. Its first occurrence is from the mouth of God himself. It is a somewhat unshaped and undefined concept in this first passage. There is the sense of separation or distance, when God says “Don’t come any closer.” There is also the notion of cleanness and freedom from contamination in the instructions for Moses to take off his sandals. What will become increasingly clear through the book of Exodus is God’s freedom from all sin and moral contamination and of the need that those who approach him must also be holy and cleansed from sin.

As I said, this passage is not an exposition of God’s holiness, but it is an introduction. “Take off your sandals, Moses, for the place where you are standing is holy ground, and it is holy because of my presence.” Our God is a holy God. One of the titles for God in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Isaiah, is “The Holy One of Israel.” This is where God begins his self revelation to Moses.

Second: HE IS A PROMISE KEEPING GOD.

We find this in verse 6: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Why does he mention these men? What is their significance to the text? Is it simply a matter of family history? No, there is more involved than that. Look back at Exodus 2:24: God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God had formed a covenant with Abraham. It was a relationship based on certain promises that he made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and then expanded and reiterated in Genesis 15 and 17. These promises involved making Abraham’s descendants into a great nation, of giving his descendants the land of Canaan for an inheritance, and then, through Abraham’s seed to bless all the nations of the earth. These same promises and this same covenant were then confirmed to Isaac and to Jacob.

When God says to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” he is committing himself to the keeping of his covenant promises. He has not forgotten his promises. He remembers his covenant. This is a second truth we learn about God from his own mouth. He is a promise keeping God.

Third: HE IS A HEARING, SEEING, KNOWING GOD.

In verse 7 we read his words: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. One of the literary devices for highlighting or emphasizing something in Hebrew literature is the use of repetition. The verbs in Exodus 3:7 contain a very deliberate and strong repetition of those used back in Exodus 2:23-25. (Read)

Did you hear the repetition? That is the equivalent of the author using bold print and underlining and circling all at once! Don’t miss this! God heard their cries and he saw their misery. There is a word that is used in both 2:25 and 3:7 that in both cases is translated “he was concerned about their suffering.” The word is actually the Hebrew word for knowing. Our God knows our misery, our pain, our struggle. He knows and he cares. He is a hearing, seeing, knowing God.

Fourth, HE IS A DELIVERER.

Look at God’s words in verse 8: So I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them  up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

I love that phrase. I have come down to rescue them. That is our God speaking! That is the kind of God he is! He is a God who comes down to deliver his people. This is the point of this whole dialog. This is the reason for the appearance to Moses. See verse 10: So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. This is Moses’ commission. But it is not for him to do alone. It is God’s work, through Moses. “I have come down to rescue them.” God will deliver them. He has come down!

For the rest of the Old Testament, this will be one of his most prominent titles. I am the LORD, your deliverer, who redeemed you out of Egypt. Our God is a deliverer.

Fifth: HE IS THE ETERNALLY PRESENT GOD.

During their dialog together, Moses asked God an interesting question. He asked God, “What is your name?” We see this in verse 14: Moses 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?”

What is Moses asking for here? Scholars have a variety of opinions. Some believe he is asking for a name to single out and identify God as the one true God as distinct from all the false gods of Egypt. Others suggest that the name of the God of Abraham was already known to the Israelites, but was kept secret from outsiders; that the test for whether Moses truly represented the God of their fathers would be whether he knew him by his secret name.

Personally, I think the answer is both more profound and less mysterious. In the cultures of the Old Testament, a person’s name was far more than just a label. A name was synonymous with identity, reputation and character. When the Israelite would ask, “What is God’s name?” they would be asking, “What is he like? What kind of God is he? How has he revealed himself to you? What do you know about him? Is he a God who can be trusted?”

So how did God answer Moses’ question? It’s in verse 14: 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.’”

This is a difficult verse to translate and to fully grasp. It involves a play on the Hebrew verb “to be”. The tense used is one that is independent of time. One commentator translates it, “I am he who is, was and will be.” That’s what I have attempted to capture in the phrase “the eternally present God.” “I am the one who is, I am the one who was and I am the one who will be. I am the eternally present one.”

Then he turns this into a proper name in the end of the verse. Say to the Israelites, “I AM has sent me to you.” The word translated I AM in the English translation is the name Yahweh. It is a formalized name using the root letters of the Hebrew word “to be”.

This name, Yahweh, was lost to us for many years due to an excessive reverence for the name that turned into superstition. At some point in Israel’s history, Jewish scholars looked at Exodus 20:7 and read, You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Reading that, they concluded that one sure way to never misuse the name of Yahweh was to never use the name at all. So this became their practice. They had far too much reverence to ever change the actual script of the ancient texts, so the four root consonants YHWH remained in the text. But when they added the markings for the vowels in later generations for whom Hebrew was not a native tongue, they actually put in the markings for another Hebrew word, the word Adonai or Lord. And whenever they came to the name in the text, they would replace it with the word “Adonai”. It is this combination of the four original consonants YHWH and the vowel sounds from Adonai, that actually gave rise to the name Jehovah, a word that actually has no meaning in Hebrew. Only a generation ago were scholars able to reconstruct the name from the text.

Interestingly, most versions of the Bible are still hesitant to use this spelling and name in their translations, for fear that it will sound strange to modern ears. But there is a way to discern when this name of God occurs in the original text. Whenever it occurs in the text, most translations have chosen to translate it Lord, but to render the word in all capital letters (LORD) to distinguish it from the word Adonai or master. So you know whenever you see LORD in all capitals, it is the name of God, Yahweh. Such a rendering is found right here in our text in verse 15 as God expands his instructions to Moses: God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD (Yahweh) the God of your fathers…has sent me to you.’” This is my name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Well, that’s a bit of a history lesson and a Hebrew grammar lesson all rolled up in one! I am not so concerned that you remember the etymology, or even the history. What really matters is the theology. His name reflects his nature. He is the eternally present God. “I am he who is, was and will be.” That is my name.

So, these are five truths which God revealed about himself when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush: He is a holy God. He is a promise keeping God. He is a hearing, seeing, knowing God. He is a Deliverer. And he is the eternally present God.

That’s five, but I promised you six. For the sixth, I want us to turn to the New Testament to John 8. In this chapter, Jesus is engaged in a long debate with the Jewish leaders. The Jews are claiming Abraham as their father. Jesus states that if they were truly Abraham’s children, they would believe in him. Let’s pick it up in John 8:56: Jesus is speaking:

“Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

It is a stunning claim in the light of Exodus 3! He is claiming for himself the name, the memorial name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who appeared to Moses. “Before Abraham was born, I AM!” The eternally present God. You’ll notice that the Jews didn’t miss the intent of his claim. It says in verse 59, At this they picked up stones to stone him. Why? Because in their view he had committed the sin of blasphemy by claiming to be God. And he had claimed exactly that. The issue isn’t whether he claimed it or not. The only controversy can be over whether or not his claims are true.

That leads us to our sixth truth about God. He is an incarnate God. As the gospel of John states in John 1:14: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory… The eternal I AM became flesh and dwelt among us. And he bore the name Jesus, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament name Joshua. Joshua, by etymology means literally, “Yahweh saves.”

Do you see how the Bible completes and interprets and fulfills itself? Our God is a holy God who cannot tolerate sin. Yet he is also a promise keeping God who promised to send a deliverer. He is a hearing, seeing, knowing God who knows our misery and our bondage. As a saving God he not only sent a deliverer, he became our deliverer. The eternal I AM came in the flesh to redeem us from our sin.

What a God we serve! What a rich treasure trove of truth we have discovered in this text. Which of these truths do you need to meditate on this morning? Is it his holiness? “Take off your sandals, Moses!” Is there something you need to remove, some act or attitude in your life that is in violation of his holiness that you need to confess and make right? Are you discouraged? Do you need to focus on the reality that he is a promise keeping God? Do you feel overwhelmed and lost in your difficulties? Cry out to God like the Israelites did! He is a hearing, seeing, knowing God. What is more, he is a Deliverer. He is a God who comes down to deliver his people. Do you feel alone and forsaken? Remember he is the eternally present God – eternally present in space as well as time. But above all, do you know him as the incarnate God; the God who became flesh and came to die for our sins, and to set us free from the bondage of sin? For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Have you put your faith in him?