“WHAT’S IN A NAME?”
Exodus 3:14
“And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’, and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM as sent me to you’.’”
I don’t know who first asked the question, ‘what’s in a name?’ I don’t remember ever hearing it as a quote from a book or anything.
I’ve just always heard it as a sort of rhetorical question, asked when someone hears a name that might reflect either positively or negatively on the basic character of the name holder, and then they ask, ‘but what’s in a name?’
The implication is that a name is just a name, and a person’s moniker does not determine their moment by moment behavior, and certainly not the course of their life.
Now admittedly, we do see example after example in the scriptures of people’s names having a great deal to do with who they were and what their recorded accomplishments were. Sometimes we wonder which came first; their acts or their names.
Sometimes their names were changed. Abram to Abraham. Jacob to Israel. Pharaoh to ‘mud’. In these cases, by God, who knew the future and named them accordingly. Other times they were named from birth by their mothers, but their lives seemed to act out the meaning of the name. As in, Peleg, meaning ‘the divide’, during whose lifetime the earth was divided (Gen 10:25); and Joshua, who led God’s people into the promised land as a type of the Great Joshua, or Yeshua, or Jesus, who was to come.
Over time and across cultures names have come to bear less significance. You might be named after your grandfather or grandmother, or a favorite uncle or a dear friend of your parents.
When my sister had her first son she named him Jacob. I said, “Oh! Great Bible name!” To which she responded with, “No, just before he was born we went to the movies and saw “Big Jake” with John Wayne, so I decided to name him Jake.”
But we can rejoice today that in the case of God there has been no change and there never will be a change in His name; and the reason is because He does not change.
What I want to look at today, first, is what His name tells us about Him, and then why who He is and what He is means everything to us.
GOD’S NAME IS WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE IS
A few of you will remember a couple of weeks ago in the adult Sunday School class, when I read these words from Tozer:
“So God is what He is in Himself, He does not become what we believe. “I AM WHO I AM”. We are on safe ground only when we know what kind of God He is and adjust our entire being to the holy concept.”
(THAT INCREDIBLE CHRISTIAN – A.W. Tozer Christian Publications ch 6 )
I wrote in the margin of my book next to that paragraph, in quotation marks, ‘I like to think of God as…”
I wrote that as an example of the error Tozer was warning against. As soon as we start to think of God in terms of how we’d like Him to be, we have begun down the road of error. And the fact we need to consider today as Christians, without shaking our heads and clicking our tongues at those outside our circles who are in obvious error in their cavalier approach to God and bible truth, is that we who take some level of pride in our bold stand on the infallibility and inerrancy of God’s word, and our pinpoint doctrine and our careful exegesis of scripture, may be just as guilty as the non-believer or the so-called liberal Christian, of worshipping some idol god of our own making, by virtue of our faulty thinking about Him.
Through the prophet Isaiah God declared “…as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
And we need to understand clearly today with the help of the Holy Spirit, that He wasn’t just sending a message to His enemies when He said that. He was declaring something about Himself that will remain completely true at least until we’re all glorified and transformed completely into His image; that He is not like us, and He will not become what is comfortable and convenient for us.
Because of the fallen nature our independent thinking about God will always be refracted and bound to error, and it will only be the enlightening of the Spirit of God to our understanding, of that which is revealed about Him in His holy word, that will keep us anywhere near the straight and narrow as concerns our understanding of Him.
The only hope we can have of any clear and helpful thinking about God, and any accurate and useful knowledge about Him at all, is to begin with this foundation, ‘He is who He is’ and then ‘adjust our entire being to the holy concept’.
I titled this section “GOD’S NAME IS WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE IS”. The reason I put it that way, is because in all the numerous names we are given of God throughout scripture we are given definitions of who and what God is. None are complete. There is no word or plethora of words in any human language that can exhaust who and what God is. They are glimpses. Fragments for our understanding.
We learn about God and His relationship to us by these names. He is our healer. Our provider. Our champion and so on. He is judge. He is King of Kings. He is creator. He is sustainer. The list is long and ultimately incomplete.
But fundamentally, and all inclusive of the rest, is His own simple declaration to Moses. “I AM WHO I AM”.
By this we understand that who and what God is was never dependent on any influence outside of Himself. He is. “I AM”.
Furthermore, He is not referred to in the past or future tense concerning His existence. He is. “I AM”. He is the eternal, ever-present now.
It is therefore the very zenith of evil to assume and assert that God has changed. That what He once called evil He now calls good. That what He once called an abomination He now calls acceptable.
That what He once demanded He no longer requires. That once He promised He will no longer provide.
Although I am confident he was neither the first nor the last to say so, I remember in my youth hearing Billy Graham refer to God as ‘the one constant of the universe’.
That is true, and it is always good news for mankind.
Now someone might say, ‘but isn’t that bad news for those who don’t know Him…those who reject Him?’
No. The bad news for them is their rejection of Him. Although they don’t know and may never know or understand, His immutability is good news for them also. Because as long as they draw breath today is the day of salvation. Now is the acceptable time.
Ok, we’ve laid a foundation. God is. God does not change. He is ‘I AM’.
With that knowledge we can go forward and learn what that means for us with no anxiety that these truths will somehow change because He has a bad mood one day, or some outside force or some new bit of information about us can change Him or change His mind toward us.
“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” Numbers 23:19
BECAUSE OF WHO AND WHAT HE IS:
He is bound by righteousness and justice
Now by the word ‘bound’ we don’t mean that God is bound to or from something in the way that you or I could or might be bound; as in tied up with rope or placed under a judicial order of restraint to or from something.
In the case of His holiness, for example ~ perhaps as prime example ~ Thiessen writes: “It denotes the perfection of God in all that He is”. In other words, the holiness of God is a regulative principle, regulating or governing everything that God is or does.
Since He is ‘Holiness’ Himself, He cannot act contrary to holiness. He is ‘bound’ only in the sense that He cannot act or be other than what He is. He cannot be less than perfectly holy, and by virtue of His absolute perfection He cannot be more holy.
Now we listed only three moral attributes of God here; holiness, righteousness and justice.
We don’t want to go into a long and tedious examination of systematic theology here, but I have to give you just a brief glimpse of what is meant by these things, so you can get a fuller picture of their direct benefit and consequences for us as we go on.
When we talk about the righteousness of God, we must also mention His justice.
Out of the holiness of God spring righteousness and justice. If God was any less than perfect righteousness He could not be holy. In fact, a deity that could choose to be unrighteous to any degree, or hold back justice to any degree, would be the worst kind of evil. Being a god he would be irresistible, and his ability to exercise unrighteousness and violate justice would make all of creation a cruel, unfair, unfunny joke.
We could depend on nothing. If such a god could act arbitrarily and unbound by character, then from moment to moment we would have to fear total annihilation, and no promise of eternal bliss could be reckoned as anything but a carrot on a stick.
Christians, we can face the unrighteousness and injustices of this life with hope and assurance because God is righteousness and justice, and we know that no matter what happens here, there will be vindication; there will be a reckoning, there will be reward.
Job in the midst of his torment declared, “And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another.” Job 19:25-27
Why could he make such a bold claim even while sitting in ashes and rags, covered with boils, grieving the loss of his children and enduring the scorn of his friends?
Because he knew that God is righteousness and justice, and he knew that righteousness and justice would bring a Redeemer to stand in his place.
BECAUSE OF WHO AND WHAT HE IS:
There was never a doubt that He would provide salvation for us.
I said there was never a doubt that He would provide salvation for us.
Does that sound presumptuous? Pompous? It certainly would be if said purely from my own twisted self-serving philosophy of life; that God had no choice than to provide salvation for me.
And that attitude would certainly be in line with the presumptions of our present day society, wouldn’t it? Like Violet Beauregard from Willy Wonka, eating the untested gumball against the cautions of her father and Wonka himself, and ultimately turning into a big purple round thing resembling a gumball herself and having to be rolled from the room.
Or Veluca Salt, wanting one of the big golden goose eggs for herself, declaring “Don’t care how, I want it now!’ and falling down from the goose nest through a rejection hatch and being pronounced a ‘bad egg’ by Wonka.
We laugh at the antics of characters in a child’s story, but the author was simply parodying the song of our modern society that says what is most important is what I want, and because I want it that means I deserve it and because I deserve it, it better be forthcoming, forthwith.
So in the end, when confronted with the idea of a God who is to be reckoned with, the modern day mind cannot fathom having to approach Him on any terms other than the self-important self-serving attitude of Violet and Veluca.
And since that world view cannot conceive a God of righteousness and justice, it must create for itself, (I like to think of God as…”) a god who would never send anyone to Hell, if indeed he is a loving god at all.
But that is not at all what I mean, when I say that there was never a doubt that He would provide salvation for us.
I am approaching that claim, not from man’s standpoint; who deserves only rejection from God and eternity without God and without hope; but from God’s economy, Who, being holiness and righteousness and justice could not allow sin and its consequences to go unchecked and unpunished.
And because of His love and mercy, stemming from His goodness, He made a way to preserve righteousness and uphold justice, while redeeming us, the ruin of sin, back to Himself.
Now we have to be careful in using analogies from the physical realm to illustrate spiritual truth, that we don’t carry it too far and violate the spiritual principle.
The bible makes clear that man is responsible for sin, and that every man will be held accountable. All have sinned. The wages of sin is death. There is no one righteous, not even one.
But the idea of reclamation and redemption bears with it the claiming back, or the buying back of that which was precious to the owner, and was lost.
So while we do not merit redemption, and there is nothing in our flesh to reclaim, yet from God’s economy we are precious to Him, and because of who He is and what He is, perfect righteousness, justice, love and mercy combined to condemn sin and redeem the sinner.
It was determined in the divine counsel before the foundation of the world that this would be so, because who and what God is would allow no other plan.
Not because we deserved Him, but because He desired us.
BECAUSE OF WHO AND WHAT HE IS:
His determination to preserve us to Himself cannot be shaken.
There is so much in scripture to be drawn from to establish the security of the believer and God’s preservation of us that it’s difficult to know where to start.
Remember the things we’ve been saying about God’s name for Himself, “I AM”, and His character and moral attributes that do not change, and hear these verses from Psalm 89 in that light.
“My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. His descendants shall endure forever,…” (vs 34-36a)
In no way do I want to come across as putting God in a box today. I think all of you here know about me that I would be loathe to do that, or to sound as though to presume upon His grace.
Just please keep in mind as I go on, that I do not say these things as from any imagination from man about God, or that He is this because it is how I want Him to be. This is what God has revealed of Himself in scripture through the Holy Spirit, and He says it of Himself without any human help or addition.
He is who He is, and all that He is assures us eternally that once we have appropriated to ourselves by faith that which He has provided; that being propitiation for sin and glorification in His presence through the shed blood and resurrection of Christ, He by His divine character and attributes and His eternal word and power will preserve us to Himself…and that cannot change.
He has determined it to be so, He has made the provision.
“...whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, … and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” (Rom 8:29,30)
His determination to preserve us to Himself cannot be shaken, because since He does not exist in time and cannot change, the work He has done is complete and cannot be undone.
The bible says those He foreknew He called, and if you are one who has placed your faith in the shed blood of Christ and His resurrection, then you are one who has responded to that call and been justified. Declared right with God.
And if you are one of those, according to Romans 8:30, you are also glorified. Past tense. Done deal. That cannot change, by virtue of who He is and what He is.
You say, “But I don’t look glorified. I don’t feel glorified”
That’s because you look with eyes of flesh. It’s not your assessment that counts. It’s His. And He declares you glorified. You’ll see it. One day you’ll wake up face to face with Jesus, and you’ll see what He has known to be true about you from eternity past.
“I AM”. It’s in the name.
BECAUSE OF WHO AND WHAT HE IS:
Our future in glory is established as though we are already there.
One last point. And I’ve already touched on it by talking about our justification and glorification.
I’ve always wanted to see Ireland. Actually, I’d love to travel and see several places I’ve read about and seen pictures of but never been. I’d love to see New Zealand, I’d love to visit England, and Scotland, and I’d love someday to see the beauty of Russia; the architecture of Moscow and St Petersburg, the blue northern sky against a brilliant white winter horizon.
But let’s just keep it simple for now and pick out Ireland as my dream destination.
I think a lot of Christians, perhaps all of us at times, think of going to Heaven like I think of Ireland. We have some pictures in our head. We visualize those fleeting snapshots and heave a sigh, and then shake our heads and get back to the traps and trappings of this present world.
I do that because I don’t expect I’ll ever go to Ireland. I’d have to become very wealthy or have some wealthy benefactor buy me tickets and pay my accommodations; because in my present state, if I suddenly had just enough money and free time to go there, I wouldn’t because I’d think of so many other places the money should go.
Now I’m getting a little carried away, because I don’t think Christians doubt they’ll go to Heaven because there are other things to be done. I just mean I think that often Heaven is as real to them in their own subconscious mind as Ireland is to me in my mind. It’s out there, somewhere, someday.
But a person’s thinking of his destination changes completely, when the tickets are in his pocket, and he is on the plane or on the luxury liner, and the pilot has his instruments set for that other shore, and he knows that at that predetermined time and date he is going to be grabbing his carryon bag and walking down that ramp, and there he’s going to be. Greeted by the natives, welcomed in, shown to his own place of residence, made to feel at home.
Ireland and the prospect of strolling her green meadows, listening to the delightful lilt of her people’s tongue, sitting down in a three hundred year old Irish pub and laughing at their songs and their tall tales, looking for shamrocks along the cobblestone walkways, would all be suddenly much more real and certain to me if I was on that ship instead of dreaming on my sofa in Montrose, Colorado.
What I want you to understand and get into your thinking today if you are a believer in Christ, is that this is no dream. You’re on board. Your ticket was purchased by your Benefactor who paid the price for you in full and called you to come along to the other shore. He has said, let’s go over to the other side, and since He knows eternity from eternity, He knows your arrival at your destination is certain.
But this isn’t just some two week vacation to a faraway country. This is the trip home, and the adventure only begins there.
He has promised that He was going there to prepare a place for you and He has done that. The place is prepared. There’s nothing left to do there but welcome you as you come in, show you to your residence, make you feel at home.
And if you can release the shackles on your imagination for just a moment today and let it take flight, try to imagine this. Whatever work He sets you to, wherever your travels may take you in your glorified state to worlds your finite mind cannot even begin to conceive, whatever there is in store for you in the eons of eternity, the one thing that will never change is that you will go, you will be, you will do, in the name of ‘I AM’.
What’s in that name? For you, everything. Forever.
