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CHAPTER
10
CHAPTER
TEN
I
AM
I
AM
The
actual title of this book is taken from a very spectacular
title, which Jesus revealed belonged to Him. We have
to go back to the time when Moses first met with God.
Moses saw the angel of the Lord in flames of fire in
the burning bush, and yet the bush did not burn up.
God told Moses He was going to send him to Pharaoh to
rescue His people, the Israelites, from slavery in Egypt.
Then:
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?”
God
said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are
to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent you.’”
(Exodus
chapter 3, verses 13-14).
‘I
AM’ is the name by which Almighty God called Himself
in response to Moses’ question of who he could say was
sending him to lead the Israelites. Now, let us see
how Jesus takes this name also:
“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!”
(John
chapter 8, verses 56-58).
Again
we see this revealing of an everlasting life; Jesus
Christ was the root of Jesse and David, and now He claims
to have been around even before Abraham. But this title
(I AM) is much more than a claim to have been around
before any particular character in human history. This
is the name of the eternal, omnipotent, everlasting
Father, the Creator of everything; and Jesus dares to
take it up for himself. Why? Because that is exactly
who He is. He is the Son of God, fully and truly God,
just as the Holy Spirit is fully and truly God; the
unfathomable mystery of the Trinity, not a word used
in Scripture, but used by men to describe what is unmistakeably
implicit throughout the Bible. Can anyone, being aware
of these names and claims of Jesus, be serious in describing
Him as no more than a great man? What sad folly. Everyone
will ultimately be judged by this very same I AM, and
they will be judged regarding their relationship to
Him.
JEHOVAH,
YAHWEH
The
ancient name of Almighty God was thought to be too sacred
to be spoken or written down in its full form, so we
have the four-letters YHWH. The correct pronunciation
is no longer known for certain. Vowels from another
Hebrew word, Adonai, meaning Lord, were added to YHWH;
hence the name Jehovah or Yahweh.
The
New Unger’s Bible Dictionary states: ‘The strong probability
is that the name Jehovah was anciently pronounced Yahweh,
like the Iabe of the Samaritans.’ (Revised and
Updated Edition 1988, page 781).
This
is the name we see God uses from the burning bush---it
has the same meaning as ‘I am who I am’ a meaning that
declares His complete self-existence; a characteristic
of God’s being that only He has.
In
writing this book I have used two main sources for the
verses of Scripture---the Authorised Version (KJV) and
the New International Version. In these versions wherever
God’s name (Jehovah, Yahweh) might have appeared in
the Old Testament, the word LORD is used in capital
letters in its place.
So,
where we read:
“This
is what the LORD says---Israel’s King and Redeemer,
the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God.”
(Isaiah
chapter 44, verse 6).
We
could also read:
“This
is what Yahweh says---Israel’s King and Redeemer, Yahweh
Almighty: I am the first and the last; apart from me
there is no God.”
I
think it also worth a mention that David H. Stern, the
translator of the English Version of the Complete Jewish
Bible, does not accept Jehovah or Yahweh as a correct
spoken or written form of YHWH. He, a Messianic Jew,
and other religious Jews get around it by using the
word ADONAI (My Lord) in capitals.
While
still on this topic, maybe I should bring in four more
titles commonly used by Christians
JEHOVAH
NISSI (THE LORD IS MY BANNER)
(Exodus
chapter 17, verse 15).
JEHOVAH
SHALOM (THE LORD IS PEACE)
(Judges
chapter 6, verse 24).
JEHOVAH
JIREH (THE LORD WILL PROVIDE)
(Genesis
chapter 22, verse 14).
JEHOVAH
SHAMMAH (THE LORD IS THERE)
(Ezekiel
chapter 48, verse 35).
Does
all this mean that the God who is Jehovah, the God who
is Yahweh, the God who is ADONAI, the God who is LORD
of the Old Testament, is the God who is Christ? That
is exactly what it means. Remember those verses from
Philippians, which we saw in chapter one: ‘that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow-----and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord’. According to David
H. Stern, the word used here for ‘Lord’ is the same
word used for God’s name in the Old Testament, therefore,
in the Complete Jewish Bible we read:
---that
in honor of the name given Yeshua, every knee will bow--------and
every tongue will acknowledge that Yeshua the Messiah
is ADONAI
Amazing
words of clarity and power: ‘Yeshua the Messiah is ADONAI’---Jesus
Christ is the God of the Old Testament!
We
have already seen Jesus claim the very name for His
own, ‘before Abraham was born, I am’. Also, in the above
Scripture, Yahweh (Jehovah) is ‘Israel’s King and Redeemer’---so
is Jesus; Yahweh (Jehovah) is ‘the first and the last’---so
is Jesus (we will see this again in a later chapter);
and apart from Yahweh (Jehovah) ‘there is no God’---well
if Jesus is not that same God, who is He? Of course,
Jesus, the Christ, is the very same God.
There
may be some confusion over the correct pronunciation
of YHWH; there is none over Jesus---the I AM.
Mary
did you know that your baby boy is the Lord of all creation?
Mary
did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the
nations?
Did
you know your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This
sleeping child you’re holding, is the great I AM!
(from
a Bill and Gloria Gaither music video)
the
last verse of a song sung superbly by Mark Lowry
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