Chapter 2
Chapter 2
WHAT IS HIS NAME?
"And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them. The God ofyourfathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?"—Exodus
3:13.
The question of all ages and of every human heart is expressed here—**What is His name?" The fate of humanity hangs on the answer to this question.
As we all know, the condition of a country depends upon the character of its rulers. The state of an army depends upon the officers who command it. And the more absolute the government, the more this is the case.
We can see how it must be, therefore, that everything in the universe depends upon the sort of Creator and Ruler who has brought that universe into existence. The whole welfare of human beings is bound up with the character of their
Creator. If the God who created us is a good God, then everything must be all right for us. After all, a good God cannot ordain anything but good. But if He is a bad God, a careless God, or an unkind God, then we cannot be sure that anything is right. We can have no peace or comfort anywhere.
The true ground for peace and comfort is only to be found in the sort of God we have. Therefore, we need first of all to find out what is His name, or in other words, what is His character—in short, what sort of God He is.
In Bible language, name always means character. Names were not given arbitrarily, but always referred to the character or work of the person named. Cruden, in his Concordance, says that the names of God signify what He really is. The names of God express His attributes, His purposes. His glory. His grace. His mercy, and His love. They express His wisdom, power, and goodness. A careful study of His names will make this plain.
When the children of Israel asked, '*What is His name?" they meant, **Who and what is this God of whom you speak? What is His character, what are
His attributes, what does He do? What sort of a Being is He?"
The psalmist said, **And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou. Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee"
(Psalm 9:10). The writer of Proverbs echos his confidence: *The name of the Lord is a strong tower:
the righteous runneth into it and is safe''
(Proverbs 18:10).
*They that know thy name will put their trust in thee." They cannot do anything else, because in knowing His name, they know His character and His nature. They know that He is a God who may be safely trusted to the uttermost.
Trusting The Great I AM '*Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
They are brought down and are fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright" (Psalm 20:7-8).
In all that we read concerning Israel of old, we find this constant refrain. All they were and all they had depended upon the fact that their God was the Lord.
*'0 Lord, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the eanh is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his own people, to make thee a name of greatness and terribleness, by driving out nations from before thy people, whom thou hast redeemed out of Egypt? For thy people Israel didst thou make thine own people for ever; and thou,
Lord, becamest their God"
(1 Chronicles 17:2022). **Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord"
(Psalm 144:15).
Blessed is that nation, happy is that people
whose God is the Lord! All the blessing and happiness of Israel arose from the fact that their God was the Lord. Nothing else was of sufficient importance to be mentioned in the review of their advantages. The fact that their God was the Lord
Jehovah was enough to account for every good thing they possessed.
The question of all questions remains, **What is His name?" God Himself answered this question for the Israelites. *'And God said unto Moses,
I AM THAT I AM: and he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations" (Exodus 3:14-15).
In the gospel ofJohn, Christ adopts this name of **I AM" as His own. When the Jews were questioning Him concerning His authority, *7csus said unto them. Verily, verily, I say Unto you. Before Abraham was, I AM" 0ohn 8:58). In the book of Revelation, He again declares,
**I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8).
These simple words **I am " express God's eternal and unchanging existence. This is the first element necessary in a God who is to be depended upon. No dependence could be placed by any one
of us upon a changeable God. He must be thie same yesterday, today, and forever, if we are to have any peace or comfort.
Complete Provision But is this all His name implies, simply / am?
am, what?—we ask. What does this I am include?
It includes everything the human heart longs for and needs.
This unfinished name of God is like a blank check signed by a rich friend.
It is given to us to be filled up with whatever sum we desire. The whole Bible tells us what it means. Every attribute of God, every revelation of His character, every proof of His undying love, every declaration of His watchful care, every assertion of His purposes of tender mercy, every manifestation of His lovingkindness, all, are the filling out of this unfinished / am.
God tells us through all the pages of His Book what He is. / am all that My people need: / am their strength; I am their wisdom; I am their righteousness; I am their peace; I am their salvation; / am their life; / am their all in all.
This apparently unfinished name, therefore, is the most comforting name the heart of man could devise. It allows us to add to it, without any limita- * 'exceedtion, whatever we feel the need of, even ing abundantly above all that we ask or think"
(Ephesians 3:20).
But if our hearts are full of our own wretched **I
am's," we will have no ears to hear His glorious, soul-satisfying / AM. We say, '*Alas, I am such a poor weak creature" or **I am so foolish" or **I am so good-for-nothing" or **I am so helpless." We give these pitiful *'I am's" of ours as the reason of the wretchedness and discomfort of our lives. We even feel that we are to be pitied that things are so hard for us. All the while, we entirely ignore the blank check of God's magnificent / AM which authorizes us to draw upon Him for an abundant supply for every need.
If you are an uncomfortable Christian, the only thing that will give you a thoroughly comfortable
Christian life is to know God. The psalmist says that they that know God's name will put their trust in Him.
It is impossible for anyone to know Him and not to trust Him. A trustworthy person commands trust, not by ordering people to trust him, but by winning their trust with his trustworthiness.
What our Lord declares is eternally true, **And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me" 0ohn
12:32). Once you know Him, Christ is absolutely irresistible. You can no more help trusting Him than you can help breathing.
If the whole world would know Him as He is, sinners would fall at His feet in adoring worship. They simply could not help it. His surpassing loveliness would overwhelm them completely.
The Father Revealed How can we become acquainted with God?
There are two things necessary: ifirst, God must reveal Himself; and second, we must accept His revelation and believe what He reveals.
The apostle John tells us, **No man hath seen God at any time; but the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18). Christ, then, is the revelation of God. None of us have seen God, and we never can see Him in this present stage of our existence. But He has incarnated Himself in Christ, and we can see Christ since He was a man like us.
A man who wants to talk with ants might stand over an ant hill and lecture for a whole day. Not one word would reach the ears of the ants. They would run to and fro, utterly unconscious of his presence. But if a man could become an ant, he could live among them and communicate with them.
Incarnation is always necessary when a higher form of life desires to communicate with a lower form.
Christ revealed God by what He was, by what He did, and by what He said. From the cradle to the grave, every moment of His life was a revelation of God. We must go to Him then for our knowledge of God. We must refuse to believe anything concerning God that is not revealed to us in Christ. All other revelations are partial and therefore not wholly true. Only in Christ do we see God
as He is, for Christ is declared to be the express image of God. (See Hebrews 1:3) Christ said and did exactly what God would have under the same circumstances.
**I can of mine own self do nothing" 0ohn 5:30) was His continual assertion.
**I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works"
(John 14:10).
**I and my Father are one"
(John 10:30).
**He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" 0ohn 14:9).
The Bible tells us plainly that in order to know God, we have to look at Christ. We must receive the testimony of Christ.
We are assured that God and Christ are one.
When the Jews came to Christ as He was walking in the porch of Solomon's temple and asked Him to tell them plainly who He was, He answered,
**I and my Father are one" (John 10:30).
At His last supper with His disciples. He said in answer to their questions, *'If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." But Philip could not understand this and said, **Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." And then Jesus repeated His former statement even more strongly, **Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" 0ohn 14:7-9).
Nothing is more emphatically stated in the New Testament than that we are to behold the ** light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). We can behold it fully nowhere else.
If we would know the length and breadth and height and depth of what God meant when He gave to Moses that apparently unfinished name of *'I AM," we will find it revealed in Christ. He alone is the translation and the image of the invisible God.
It is evident, therefore, that we must never accept any conception of God that is contrary to what we see in Christ. We must reject any view of His character or of His acts or any statement of His relationship with us, no matter how strongly upheld, which diflfers with what Christ has revealed.
We are all aware that the Old Testament revelation of God sometimes seems to contradict the revelation in Christ. The question arises as to which we are to receive as the truth. God Himself tells us that in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, who is the ^'brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person" (Hebrews
1:3). We dare not reject Christ's testimony. But we must look upon the Old Testament revelation, where it differs from the revelation in Christ, as partial and imperfect. We must accept as a true representation of God only that which we find in Christ.
Christ alone tells us the true and genuine name of God. In His last wonderful prayer He says,
*'I
have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.
. .they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me" (John 17:6-8). Could we ask for greater authority than this?
Perfect Expression Of God In the life of Christ, nothing is plainer or more emphatic than His claim that He is a full and complete manifestation of God. In John 14:10, Jesus assures His disciples **the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." He said only what the Father told Him to say.
The apostle Paul declares that it pleased the Father that **in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily"
(Colossians 2:9). We may not understand all that this means theologically. But we at least can see that if we want to know God, we need only to become acquainted with Christ's ways and Christ's character. **He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"
(John 14:9). He declares * 'neither knoweth any man the Father, save that the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" (Matthew 11:27).
This settles it beyond the possibility of argument. We may, and we do, have all sorts of
thoughts of God. We may conjecture this or imagine that, but we are wasting our energy. We simply cannot know Him, no man can, except through the revelation of Christ.
We may know many things about Him, but that is very different from knowing Him as He truly is in nature and character. Witnesses have told us of His visible acts, but from these we often get very wrong impressions of His true character. No other witness but Christ can tell us the real secrets of God's heart.
Christ is ''the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18).
It will make all the difference between comfort and discomfort in our Christian lives if we believe this to be true.
If we do believe, then the stern Judge and hard Taskmaster whom we have feared will disappear. His place will be taken by the God of love who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. He is the God who cares for us as He cares for the sparrows and for the flowers of the field. He even numbers the hairs of our head. No human being could be afraid of a God like this.
If we have been accustomed to approach God with any mistrust of the kindness of His feelings toward us; if our faith has been poisoned by fear; if unworthy thoughts of His character and will have filled our hearts with suspicion of His goodness; if we have pictured Him as an unjust despot or a selfseeking tyrant; if, in short, we have imagined Him in ways other than that which have been revealed
to us in Jesus Christ, then we must go back in all simplicity of heart to the records of that lovely life lived in human flesh among men. We must bring our conceptions of God into perfect harmony with the character and ways of Him who declares that He came to manifest the name of God to men.
In reply to the question, **What is His name?"
I have only one thing to say:
**Ask Christ." We are told He was God manifest in the flesh and that whoever sees Him sees the God who sent Him.
It is obvious that, if we want to know the name, we have only to read the manifestation.
This means that we must study the life and words and ways of Christ. We must realize that he that sees Christ sees God. Christ was on eanh what
God is in heaven. All the darkness that hides the character of God will vanish if we accept the light
Christ has shed on the matter. We must believe the manifestation of His name that Christ has given us and refuse to believe anything else.
Heavenly Things Revealed Nicodemus came to Jesus one night to ask Him how the things He was saying could possibly be true. Jesus told him that whether he understood them or not, they still were true. Jesus then said,
**Verily, verily, I say unto thee. We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen"
(John 3:11).
No one who believes in Christ can doubt that He knew God; and no one can question whether or
not we should receive His testimony. He knew what He was talking about. What He said is to be received as the absolute truth. He had come down from heaven, and therefore knew about heavenly things.
None of us would dare openly question the truth of this. Yet, a great many of God's children ignore Christ's testimony and choose instead to listen to the testimony of their own doubting hearts. Their heartstell them that it is impossible for God to be as loving in His care for us or as tender toward our weakness and foolishness or as ready to forgive our sins, as Christ has revealed Him to be.
It must be emphasized that the name, or in other words, the character of His Father which Christ gave, must be His real name and character. He declares of Himself that He was a living manifestation of the Father.
In all He said and did, He assures us that it was exactly what the Father would have said and done had He acted directly from His heavenly throne.
In the face of such unqualified assertions from the lips of our Lord Himself, we discover not only our privilege but our duty in Him. We have no choice but to cast out of our conception of God every element that conflicts with the blessed life and character and teaching of Christ. If we want to know the real name of God, we must accept the name Christ has revealed to us. Then we must listen to no other.
The characteristics we see in Christ are the filling out of the **I AM" of God. As we look at the life of Christ and listen to His words, we can hear God saying, '*I am rest for the weary; I am peace for the storm-tossed; I am strength for the exhausted; I am wisdom for the foolish; I am righteousness for the sinful; I am all that the neediest soul on earth can want; I am exceeding abundantly, beyond all you can ask or think, of blessing, help, and care."
The doubter may say, ''Ah yes, this is no doubt all true, but how can I get hold of it?
I am such a poor, unworthy creature that I dare not believe such a fullness of grace can belong to me."
You cannot get hold of it all, but you can let it get hold of you. There is a piece of magnificient good news declared to you in the Bible. You only need to do exactly what you would do when any earthly good news is told you by a reliable source.
If the speaker is trustworthy, you believe what he says and act in accordance. You must do the same here.
If Christ is trustworthy when He tells you that He is the manifestation of God, you must believe what He says and act accordingly.
You must take your stand on His trustworthiness. You must affirm **I am going to believe what Christ says about God. No matter what things seem to be or what my own thoughts and feelings are or what anybody else may say, I know that what Christ says about God must be true.
I am going to believe Him straight through, come what may. He
says that He was one with God, so all that He was, God is.
*'I will never be frightened of God anymore.
I will never again let myself think of Him as a stern Lawgiver who is angry with me because of my sins.
I will not view Him as a hard Taskmaster who demands from me impossible tasks. He is not a faroff, unapproachable Deity who is wrapped up in His own glory and is indifferent to my sorrows and my fears.
All such ideas of God have become impossible to accept now that I know that Christ is the true manifestation of God."
We can take our stand on this: Christ and God are one. Then we will definitely and unwaveringly refuse to cherish any thought of God that varies with what Christ has revealed. Life will be transformed for us.
We may often have to be fiercely determined to hold steadfastly here. Our old doubts and fears will be sure to come back and demand entrance.
But we must turn our backs on them resolutely and declare that we know the name and the character of our God. We know that such things would be impossible to Him. Therefore, we simply refuse to listen for even a moment to any such slander of His character or His ways.
It is unthinkable to suppose that when God told Moses His name was *'I AM," that He meant to say, **I am a stern Lawgiver" or ''I am a hard Taskmaster." He surely did not mean,
**I am a God who is wrapped up in My own glory and am indifferent to
the sorrows or the fears of My people." If we try to fill up the blank check of His *'I AM" with such things as these, all Christians would be horrified.
But do not the doubts and fears of some of these same Christians say exactly these things?
May God grant that we will learn about His true character as we consider the names of God. May our true knowledge of Him make all doubts and fears impossible to us, now and forever.