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Today we begin what I will call the “I am” series and I believe this will truly support your spiritual journey, and enable you to grow in your faith. Let’s start with the first “I am” statement in the Hebrew scripture.

“God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)

אֶהְיֶה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר (Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh) translates “I am who I am.” The tense is imperfect and leads some scholars to render it in the future tense as; “I shall become who I am becoming,” but this isn’t the best translation. The imperfect tense certainly “includes” the future but is not limited to the future. The text would use the future if that was intended, but the imperfect makes God’s name a sort of “omni-present tense.” This provides a theology of God existing only in the present (not past or future) and eternally beyond the framework of time.

After Moses’ experience, the Hebrew people began referring to God’s indefinable name as YHWH (known as tetrrgramatron) pronounced “Yahweh”(vowels are not written but they are pronounced) meaning “He causes to become” or “He who is” from the “hayah” (to be).

The name of God is more than an index among other deities, it’s a pure statement of ultimate ontology. The name of God is the unchanging, entirely self-sufficient, never ending being, or existence, or presence of God, not a deity that is derived by man’s imagination, nor named by man. The name conveys the theological truth that “existence itself is God existing in existence” and frankly most people cannot comprehend this. Here’s another way of seeing this. We are utter nothingness apart from God.

God’s name is the ontological argument for God’s own existence. God must be beyond man’s greatest possible conception, and since an existent God would be greater than any conception, then God must exist since man conceives of God.

This means God’s name extends beyond our tribal religious frameworks…it’s bigger than any tiny religion, but here’s the nuance:

1. Insisting God has only one name.
2. Insisting God is called by all names.

The Hebrew scripture has as many as 24 names for God, each referring to an attribute of God such as His provision, His healing, His nearness, etc… We may address God by other names, but despite there being many names for God, not all names capture the totality of God. We wouldn’t call Yahweh by the name of Baal as some did.

 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.” (Hosea 2:16-17)

Baal isn’t idolatry as we commonly understand it..as a competing deity, but the idolatry of worshiping an aspect of God as the whole of God. Baal means “master, owner, or lord” and certainly Yahweh shares that attribute, but to relate to God only as master, is to miss the existential experience. Idolatry occurs when God is held objectively. In the verse above, “husband” is experiencing God subjectively, owner or Lord is experiencing God objectively. Scripture often has the names of God beginning with “Jehovah” followed by the attribute, not just the attribute so as not to diminish God. God’s name is total integration and convergence of all things, not a single object.

“Hear O’ Israel, The Lord our God is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

People throughout history think each religion addresses a different God as if each was competing in a pantheon of deities. As tribal religion has become institutionalized in the “Religious Industrial Complex,” we’ve drifted farther from God’s own name. We’ve actually regressed to the tribalism of Elijah’s time.

“And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” (1 Kings 18:20)

I don’t think Elijah was comparing the god of the Canaanites with the God of Israel, but contrasting their objective conceptions of God, and proving that “master, owner, lord” is too small and transcendent. The fully existent God, is eminent and exists in and as and beyond the fire that Elijah called down from Heaven, and that is the only God worth following. The idolatry of modern religion reduces our fully existential eminent God into competing concepts of transcendent deities. God is not a concept, that’s a delusion. A concept can help point us to God…nothing more.

Religion’s worst conception of God places God higher and higher, pushing God upward and creating a vast chasm between humanity and God that ironically, only religion can reconcile. All world religions function on this mistaken conception that God is up there. The name,“I am who I am,” the existential, fully present, ultimate ontology cannot be transcendent, that would be an idolatrous delusion. God’s name IS eminence, fully existent in and as our existence, which we receive from him and are sustained in continuously. If God were transcendent, we’d cease to exist.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)

If God is far, we don’t have “I am who I am”, we have an idol. Perhaps this is why our prayers lack power… the signal is weak due to distance. Can we re-think “Lordship salvation?”

This is all right there in the burning bush. God was not transcendent, but eminent. The bush was not consumed because the bush was His existence, His name is “I am”. If the creator, God of the universe “is..existence”, then our biggest delusion is separateness from God. Once we see this, we can’t unsee it. The key is to experience God in and as our life, not prop up an idol in our theology, constructs, or doctrines. We use our intellect only so far, lest we remain in our heads, our experience must complete our understanding of God.

Lastly, the most vital point for our contemplation is that the name of Jesus literally means “Yahweh is salvation.” Jesus reestablishes the existential connection which transcendence deceived in us, and fulfills Isaiah’s prophetic eminence in human history has as “Emanuel, God with us“ (Isaiah 7:14). Jesus’ life embodied the deconstruction of religious transcendence, by displaying the boundless grace and forgiveness and love to all comers. Jesus name is literally “I am who I am who rescues”

This makes Jesus’ version of the Gospel so palatable. Jesus quotes (Luke 4:17-20) Isaiah’s promise that the Messiah would bring good news to the poor, liberation to the captive, the opening of the prison do, and the binding up of the broken heart. Jesus said it was all fulfilled long before he died on the cross. No mention of Hell, no threat that God is far from us, just healing our illusion of separateness.

I believe this is what “I am who I am” means…God’s name is what it means to be saved. God is with us, closer to us that we are to ourselves.