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Introduction
One of the most astonishing features of our realm is the multiplicity of the deities it has known throughout human history. Basically every culture, every people group, and nation in the world has its own god or gods. But among all the deities that the world has ever known, there is One who is like no other, One who alone is true, the only God, the God of the Christian Faith, who is Lord of heaven and earth, the Living God, the Great I AM. He Himself declares His uniqueness and transcendency, saying, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me” (Isaiah 46:9). There is none like the One True God, there is no other God besides Him. Other deities the world has ever known are “images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:23), idols made of silver and gold, “the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them” (Psalms 135:15-18).
He who alone is God distinguishes Himself from false gods by His person and works. For instance, when the LORD parted the Red Sea and the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea, and then with His mighty hand the LORD cast into the sea the Egyptians who were pursuing them, Moses and the people of Israel asked this rhetorical question as they praised the LORD for their deliverance and His drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea,“Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). The LORD had previously introduced Himself to Moses, when He appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, by His personal name Yahweh, which means “I AM”; a name that defines the essential nature of God – “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth”, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q&A) points it. Moreover, God’s personal name sets Him apart from all other beings – “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”... “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). “God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘Yahweh, 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, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations” (Exodus 3:15). Thus God reveals Himself as the One who is.
“I AM”: The uniqueness of God’s essence
As the LORD Himself makes known to us in His holy Word, He is like no other; there is none like the LORD. He is unique in essence, character and works. God’s personal name, “Yahweh”, which means “I AM” and is translated “LORD” in most English versions of the Bible today, reveals to us the uniqueness of God’s essence; it speaks of God’s self-existence (God is of Himself). This quality, which God alone possesses, refers to His aseity. Unlike the so-called deities of this world and anything else in the universe, God does not have a source, God did not derive His existence from an external cause, nor does He need to be sustained by someone or something. Rather, God exists by His own power; He is the “I AM”, the self-existent, self-sufficient and independent God who “does all that He pleases” (Psalms 115:3). On the other hand, God’s personal name, “I AM”, speaks of God’s changeless and everlasting being – God is. In other words, there has never been a time when God was not, there will never be a time when He will not be, and He remains the same forever.
The false gods of the world are not of themselves, but are fashioned by human hands, and are utterly dependent on those who worship them – “A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. [They] are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good” (Jeremiah 10:3-5). Isaiah 44:13-17, “The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
The so-called deities of this world are impotent, and on them the LORD executes judgments and puts them to open shame, exposing their uselessness and their incapacity to protect those devoted to them. 1 Samuel 5:1-4 tells us that in the days of Eli, Israel’s high priest, “When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.”
V. 6-12 tells us, “The hand of the Lord was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and He terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for His hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god. So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath.” So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. But after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city, causing a very great panic, and He afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them. So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people.” They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there. The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.”
“I am the Lord; that is My name; My glory I give to no other, nor My praise to carved idols”, declares the LORD in Isaiah 42:8.
“I AM”: The Self-existent Maker and Self-sufficient Sustainer
The LORD alone is God, the Great “I AM”, the only one who is of Himself, who is self-sufficient and who remains forever. He brings the counsel of the nations to nothing and destroys all the gods of the earth. God is a transcendent being, the One from Whom all other beings exist; for He has life in Himself, He is life itself. Moreover, God is the One who alone sustains all other beings. Acts 17:24-25 reads, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” “In Him we live and move and exist” (v.28).
God exists of Himself and is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. “He upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). From God are all things. He is the source of life for all that exists. “For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17); that is to say, before there was anything there was God; He lived in eternity past, and heaven and earth and all that is in them were made by Him who has life in Himself, and their continued existence depends on Him who alone sustains them by His infinite power and wisdom. It is God who maintains by His power and wisdom the balance necessary for the continued existence of heaven and earth and all that is in them. Psalms 104:29 reminds the sons of men of their frailty, of their fleetingness and utter dependence on God, saying, “When [God hides His] face, they are dismayed; when [He takes] away their breath, they die and return to their dust.” Job 12:10 tells us, “In [God’s] hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”
God created all other beings in heaven and on earth, and He controls their existence – He is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:21). Unlike the God who is of Himself, who remains the same forever and who has neither beginning nor end, all other beings derive their existence from a source, that is, from God Himself. Moreover, they are not able to maintain themselves alive, nor are they able to do anything apart from the LORD. The LORD asked Moses some rhetorical questions in the wilderness, when Moses evoked his own lack of eloquence as a handicap that would make him unfit to be God’s spokesman before the people of Israel and before Pharaoh, when the LORD gave him a charge about the people of Israel, to lead them out of the furnace of Egypt, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11). So even the proper functioning or the impairment of our faculties is sovereignly decreed by the LORD.
“I AM”: The Unchangeable and Trustworthy God
Apart from being created and sustained by God, all other beings are in the process of becoming, being bound by time and space, and their existence is fleeting. Human beings and animals, for instance, all pass away at the time that God has sovereignly appointed, according to the counsel of His sovereign will. When a baby is conceived in the womb, he does not remain the same at all. Rather, he goes through multiple phases of development as his body takes shape. Once fully formed, he is born at the time appointed by God and continues to grow. He is an infant today, then a toddler, a young child, a teen, a young adult, an adult, and finally an old man. And at each stage of his life, remarkable development shifts happen. For instance, while during the first five stages of life he grows in vigor and acquires a certain degree of autonomy, a notable decline however begins to occur from late adulthood and culminates with old-age, due to the aging of his cells, which makes him weak, and eventually he expires at God’s appointed time.
Therefore, Solomon the Preacher, inspired by the Spirit of God, urges us to “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days happen and the years draw near in which you will say, “I have no delight in them”; before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain; in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and valiant men bend down, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows grow dark; and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly. Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blooms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home, but the mourners go about in the street. Remember [the LORD] before the silver cord is snapped and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the spring is broken and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:1-7).
Man's life is a journey from his mother's womb to the grave. During this journey, he experiences growth, success and glory, and is full of life and strength in his youth. But when old age comes, he undergoes degeneration, as the Preacher points out; he reaches the twilight of his life. But as for the LORD, He remains the same and lives forever. When a kernel is sown into the ground, it germinates after a few days, bringing forth a new plant that gradually grows over the days. Once the plant enters reproductive growth, the stalk bears ears of corn, and when the ears of corn are fully ripe, the plant begins to wither away and gradually dies as time passes. So also is the life of the sons of men: they are all in the process of becoming; their character and their bodies undergo changes. We are gentle towards those around us one moment and full of bitterness the next; we are courageous one moment and full of fear the next; we are thankful one moment and full of ingratitude the next. One day we are born, and every day that passes brings us closer to the grave.
Like the plant we gradually wither away, and finally, at the time appointed by God, we breathe our last. But the Lord remains the same forever, because He is a transcendent being who has the power to exist in and of Himself and who is immutable. He is not bound by time and space. If the whole universe were to go out of existence, the Lord would live on forever, still being who He has always been – the “I AM”. The Lord Himself declares to the crowd in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Notice that the Lord did not say: “I was”, but said: “I am”. This underscores His boundlessness, His everlasting self-existence, His transcendent majesty, His changeless nature and character.
God cannot grow weary nor can He undergo any change in His nature or character. There are many people who tend to separate the God of the OT from the God of the NT by claiming that the God of the OT is a God of wrath whereas the God of the NT is a God of love. If God could change His character or nature, He would cease to be God. God’s personal name, “I AM”, rules out any possibility of change in His being; for his name is a revelation of his nature and character, which are in essence immutable.
When Moses and Aaron asked Pharaoh the first time to let Israel go, Pharaoh did not obey God’s voice but increased the burden of Israel. Then when the foremen of the people of Israel blamed Aaron and Moses for the increase of their hardship, Moses turned to the LORD on behalf of the people of Israel. Moses complained that his summoning Pharaoh in the name of the LORD, to let the people of Israel go, had not lightened their burden but had instead provoked Pharaoh to do more evil to the people. For even though, through God's revelation, Moses and Aaron had anticipated Pharaoh's refusal to let Israel go, neither Moses nor Aaron nor the people of Israel had anticipated the escalation of Pharaoh's cruel behavior, that Pharaoh would increase the burden of Israel. Therefore, they thought their situation had become hopeless and complained how the LORD did not deliver His people at all. But the LORD told Moses that the apparent hopelessness was simply setting the stage for the LORD to perform mighty acts to deliver His people from Egypt.
Thus after assuring Moses of what He would do to Pharaoh and how Israel would be urged by Pharaoh to leave Egypt, God reminded Moses who He was, saying, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD I did not make Myself known to them” (Exodus 6:2-3). So God reminds Moses of His unchangeableness by using the declaration “I am the LORD”; the One who never changes, neither in His nature, nor in His character, nor in His promises or covenant. The LORD meant to communicate to Moses that He was the same God who, years earlier, had appeared respectively to the patriarchs. His nature had not changed, He was still the same Yahweh, the same self-existent, self-sufficient and independent God who had walked with the patriarchs in faithfulness. Moses and the people of Israel could therefore be assured that the Lord would be with them, just as He was with their ancestors.
In verse 4, the Lord reminds Moses of the covenant He has made with the patriarchs, saying, “I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.” Here the Lord assures Moses of the surety of His covenant and of His essential faithfulness. He is a covenant-keeping God. He does not say one thing and does something else. His steadfastness endures forever. Just as God’s being never changes, His attributes also never change. So in other words, God was simply telling Moses, ‘I had promised to give to your forefathers and to their descendants after them the land of their sojourning. No change has occurred in My covenant with your forefathers; all My promises stand forever. Now I am prepared to accomplish My promise, to settle Israel in their own land. And obviously this demands that I first bring them out of Egypt, so that they can acquire possession of the land of promise. Hence Israel's salvation from Egypt is certain, because the fulfillment of My promise of land requires that I first deliver them from Egypt’.
In verse 5, the Lord also assures Moses of His unchanging goodness, care, love and power, saying, “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered My covenant.” There is never a time when God’s ear is not attuned to the cry of His people, and never does He forsake or abandon them, nor can anyone snatch them out of His hand (cf. John 10:28). He chooses them and He preserves them to the end; He hears them when they call and answers them far beyond what they can ask or think. Thus the Lord then said to Moses in verse 6-8, “Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’” Notice God’s repetition of the statement “I am the LORD” in His response to Moses. This declaration underscores the certainty of God’s fulfillment of His promise to His people by pointing out God's immutable nature and character.
The LORD is the same forever. He, the God who made all things, is one and unchangeable; He does not change to adapt to time, circumstances or peoples. For He is immutable in His being and attributes; He is not in the process of becoming – as it is written, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Moreover, God does not depend on anyone to accomplish His purposes, for He is self-sufficient and independent. The gods of the nations are man-made idols served by human hands. But the Lord, He who has the power of being in Himself and from Whom are all things, is self-sufficient; He is not served by human hand. Rather, it is He who serves all those He has made.
God’s transcendent majesty, His mysterious nature and essential characteristics, which set Him apart from all things in heaven and on earth, render the apprehension of His being by all other beings impossible. Because no other being is like God, none is capable of apprehending the being of God. But although God is incomprehensible, He is nevertheless a knowable God, for He has made Himself known to all. Unlike the false gods of the world, God, the God of the Christian faith, the Great “I AM” is not a mythical God but the True and Living God. Moreover, He has not hidden Himself from us. For it pleased Him to reveal Himself to all.
"I AM": The God who has revealed Himself to all
The creation reveals to us God’s “invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature” (Romans 1:20). Psalms 19:1-6 reads, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” This form of revelation, known as general revelation, gives us some knowledge of God. However, for a full understanding of all that God is, we must turn to God’s own Word, where He gives us a special revelation of Himself.
God in His grace has personally revealed Himself to us through His prophets and through His only Son Jesus Christ — as it is written, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He appointed the heir of all things, through Whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs” (Hebrews 1:1-4).
God has made known to us all that He is by the proclamation of His names and attributes in His Word. God’s names and attributes distinctly define who God is, His uniqueness, the perfections of His beauty and transcendent majesty. Besides them, another thing I personally find remarkable and helpful in God’s depiction of Himself in His Word is His use of metaphorical statements, some of which are delivered to us in the form of “I AM”, and which underscore God’s special characteristics and works.
Throughout the Bible, the Lord gives us extensive understanding of His transcendent being, especially as He relates to us, His image bearers, by using metaphorical statements that best describe for our finite minds His glorious being. God’s personal name, “I AM”, reveals much about His nature and His aseity (God is His essence, God is of Himself). In the like manner, the metaphorical statements that He uses to speak of Himself reveal much about His qualities of character and works. In the Holy Scriptures God speaks of Himself as the Fountain of Living Waters (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13), the Bread of life or Living Bread (John 6:35, 48, 51) the Light of the world (John 8:12), the Door of the sheep (John 10:7, 9), the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25), the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6), the True Vine (John 15:1), the First and the Last (Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 48:12; Revelation 1:17), the Living One (Revelation 1:18), and the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 22:13). I will endeavour in subsequent posts, as the Lord Himself grants me the grace, to examine at length each of these statements which underscore the excellencies of the One who alone is God and who alone is worthy of honour.