“I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ . . . Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, 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, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.” (Exodus 3:14-15)
When God reveals His name to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM” at the burning bush, He is not only telling Moses His name, but is also revealing the kind of God He is and how He relates to His creation:
1. He is Holy
In the Bible, consuming fire often represents God’s transcendent holiness (see Exodus 19:18, 23). When Moses draws near, God tells him: “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (3:5). From the outset, God makes clear that He is “holy”, or “set apart”, for He is the only being in the universe who truly stands apart from His own creation.
2. He is Faithful
God then reveals to Moses: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (v. 6). In doing so, He is reminding Moses that He is the same covenant-giving “God of your fathers” (v. 15). This covenant-keeping “I AM” has now come to deliver the Israelites and bring them into the promised land, just as He had promised Moses’ forefather some 645 years earlier.
God proves himself faithful by keeping His promise to Abram. By invoking the names of Moses’ forefathers, He is reminding the Israelite leader of His prophecy, and the promise that He will soon fulfil—to deliver His people from slavery and bring them to the promised land.
3. He is Compassionate
God’s plan has not changed: the 400 years of enslavement are coming to an end, and accordingly, God has come to their rescue. As He declares in Exodus 3:8: “I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land.”
God has not forgotten the Hebrews. As He had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He remains their God, fully aware of their enslavement and maltreatment. He is the compassionate God who will respond to the suffering of His people. “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Israel. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers,” He says in Exodus 3:7, “and I am concerned about their suffering.”
What comfort it must have brought to know that God will now be intimately involved with His people! No other nation is so privileged, to have their god so closely involved with them. Moses will thus remind the Israelites of God’s immanence: “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7).
Jesus is God with Us
Today, God continues to be near us and with us—through His Son Jesus, who is God in the flesh.
The name, “Jesus”, means “the Lord saves”. It reveals the purpose for which He came: “Because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Just as the “I AM” in the Old Testament delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, Jesus has come to free us from sin’s condemnation and death.
To the consternation of the religious leaders and the Jews, Jesus makes definitive claims that He is God. This prompts them to try to stone Him for blasphemy, “because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33).
We witness one of these disputes over Jesus’ identity and deity in John 8:21-58. “Who are you?” His opponents ask Him. To prove that He is just a man and not God, they take a slanderous swipe at Jesus’ parentage, insidiously hinting that He is an illegitimate son of Joseph who had been born out of wedlock, and contrasting this with their sterling spiritual pedigree, saying: “Abraham is our father” (v. 39).
But Jesus replies that even their great ancestor Abraham had seen Him, and He had seen Abraham. Then, He proclaims His eternal pre-existence: “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (v. 58)—thus invoking God’s divine name, the same “I AM” of the burning bush encounter.
We are Set Free
When God tells Moses that the Lord whose name is “I AM” has come to deliver the Israelites from slavery, He makes abundantly clear the reason and purpose for this deliverance: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me” (Exodus 7:16).
In Hebrew, worship is āḇaḏ, which is the same word as “to serve” or “to be a slave”. That’s how the English Standard Version (ESV) translates this verse: “Let my people go, that they may serve me” (emphasis added). To worship God is to serve Him. Having been forced to serve as slaves to the Egyptians, Israel is now set free to serve Yahweh, the great I AM.
As believers in Jesus, we, too, have been delivered and set free from spiritual bondage; we are no longer slaves to sin. But, we do serve a new master. Paul reminds us: “Remember, if you were a slave when the Lord called you, you are now free in the Lord. And if you were free when the Lord called you, you are now a slave of Christ” (1 Corinthians 7:22 NLT).
We have been set free to worship God. We are free to serve our God. How are you serving Christ today?
God, thank You for revealing yourself to us as the great “I AM”, the one and only, holy, faithful, and compassionate God. Thank You for being with us through Your Son Immanuel, through whom we can know You. Thank You for delivering and setting us free from spiritual bondage, that we might no longer be slaves to sin. We want to commit ourselves to serving and worshipping You as our Master.
Excerpted and adapted from When Jesus Says “I Am” by Sim Kay Tee, published by Discovery House Publishing Singapore Pte. Ltd.
Read Also:
When Jesus Says “I Am”
To the Jews, His “I am” declarations were blasphemous. Why were they so incensed? What was Jesus really saying? And what do they mean for us today?
In this book, Sim Kay Tee explores the cultural and historical contexts behind the main “I am” sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John, uncovers new insights into what He says about himself, and helps us discover how we can respond.
Our Daily Bread Ministries in Indonesia is supported by the freewill offering of individuals in Indonesia, who through their gifts enable us to continue to bring the life-changing wisdom of the Bible to many here. We are not funded by any church or organisation.
