Image: The light shined into the darkness…

In Chapter 1, Hannah Whitall Smith explained that she believes Christians do not experience comfort from God because they do not know enough about Him. So in Chapter 2, she teaches us about the name of God. The chapter is entitled, “What is His Name?”

In Exodus 3, we read about the call of Moses at the burning bush. God tells Moses that He has heard the cries of His people in Egypt. And in verse 10, He says to Moses “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Moses says 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?” (Ex 3:13 NIV)

It is important to know that in the Bible, a person’s name was descriptive of their character. Smith explains that “names are not given arbitrarily there, as with us, but are always given with reference to the character or work of the person named. Creden in his Concordance says that the names of God signify that which He really is, and are used throughout the Bible to express His attributes, and His purposes, His glory, His grace, His mercy, and His love, His wisdom, and power, and goodness. A careful study of His names will make this plain.”

So when the children of Israel asked what God’s name was, they were really asking, “Who and what is this God of whom you speak? What is His character; what are His attributes; what does He do? In short, what sort of a being is He?”

God’s answer about His name was going to be very important because it was going to describe who He is. Smith explains that “the true ground for peace and comfort is only to be found in the sort of God we have.” If He is a good God, we can trust that He will love and care for us. If He is not a good God, then we would have reason to be afraid of how He would treat us.

In Exodus 3:14, God Himself answers the question and tells Moses His name.

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.^[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,^[b] 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 NIV)

Footnotes

1. Exodus 3:14 Or I will be what I will be
2. Exodus 3:15 The Hebrew for Lord sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for I am in verse 14.

What does the name I AM THAT I AM mean? Ellicott’s Commentary on v.14 explains:

(v.14) I AM THAT I AM.–It is generally assumed that this is given to Moses as the full name of God. But perhaps it is rather a deep and mysterious statement of His nature. “I am that which I am.” My nature, i.e., cannot be declared in words, cannot be conceived of by human thought. I exist in such sort that my whole inscrutable nature is implied in my existence. I exist, as nothing else does–necessarily, eternally, really. If I am to give myself a name expressive of my nature, so far as language can be, let me be called “I AM.”

Matthew Henry lists 4 points in his commentary on this verse. He says the name I AM THAT I AM explains his name Jehovah, and signifies that

1. God is self-existent: he has his being of himself.

This means that no one created God. God is also self-sufficient, which means that He has everything He needs within Himself. He does not derive His being or any resources from other beings. But all other beings are entirely dependent upon Him for existence. He created all other beings and sustains their life by His power. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.”

2. God is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

Eternal means that God has always existed. He had no beginning and will have no ending. God always existed, He exists now in the present moment, and He will always exist. We are referencing God’s eternal nature in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” when we sing praises to God “who was, and is, and is to come.”

And not only has God always existed, but He also has never and will never change. We are referencing God’s unchangeableness in “Great is Thy Faithfulness” when we sing:

“Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not, As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

3. He is incomprehensible; we cannot by searching find him out: this name checks all bold and curious inquiries concerning God.

4. He is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word as well as in his nature; let Israel know this, I AM hath sent me unto you. I am, and there is none else besides me.

Matthew Poole says “the sense is, I am the same that ever I was; the same who made the promises to Abraham, &c., and am now come to perform them; who, as I can do what I please, so I will do what I have said.”

Matthew Poole goes on in his commentary to explain that the Hebrew uses the future tense of God’s name, I shall be what I shall be. Poole says the future tense is used “to intimate, though darkly, according to that state and age of the church, the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. I shall be what I shall be, i.e. God-man; and I who now come in an invisible, though glorious, manner to deliver you from this temporal bondage, shall in due time come visibly, and by incarnation, to save you and all my people from a far worse slavery and misery, even from your sins, and from wrath to come. Of this name of God, see Revelation 1:4,8 16:5.”

Poole’s explanation helps lead us into the next section of Chapter 2 where Hannah Whitall Smith asks: now that we know God’s name, how can we become acquainted with Him?

Smith says that first, God must reveal Himself to us. And, second, we must accept His revelation. She goes on to explain that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. “We have none of us seen God, and we never can see Him in this present stage of our existence, for we have not the faculties that would make it possible. But He has incarnated Himself in Christ, and we can see Christ, since He was a man like one of us.”

Smith explains that in John 8:58, Christ adopts this name of “I am” as His own. When the Jews were questioning Him as to His authority, He said unto them: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was I am.” And 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.”

When Christ came to earth, the invisible God took on a visible form. Those who were alive at the time of His incarnation could see and hear Christ speaking. And when they heard His voice, they heard the voice of God. Christ was a living manifestation of the Father. Smith explains that everything Christ said and did was exactly what the Father would have said and done “had he acted directly out of heaven, and from off his heavenly throne.” In John 14:10 (KJV) Jesus says, “The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” And in John 8:26 (KJV) Jesus says, “I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.” Smith explains that Jesus asserts over and over again that He says only what the Father tells Him to say. And, therefore, Christ revealed God by what Christ was, by what He did, and by what He said. Hebrews 1:3 (KJV) says that Jesus is “the brightness of [God’s] glory, and the express image of his person.” And in John 14:9 (KJV), Jesus says, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” In John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” And in Jesus’ last prayer, He says, “I have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world, and 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 KJV)

So, God’s name reveals His character – His goodness, kindness, love, righteousness, holiness, etc. And Jesus Christ was a manifestation of that name. What this means is that the attributes that are described in God’s name were lived out in the life of Christ, or made manifest in Him. You see the character of God demonstrated and displayed in the life of Christ – His gentleness, His healing of the sick, the authority that accompanied His teachings. And everything that Christ said, was exactly what God the Father would have said if He had spoken directly to earth from His throne. So when people heard Jesus speak, they heard the voice of God. Smith explains that what Christ was on earth, God is in heaven. She says that “all the darkness that enshrouds the character of God will vanish if we will but accept the light Christ has shed on the matter, and believe the ‘manifestation of His name’ that Christ has given us, and will utterly refuse to believe anything else.”

Smith says we should say to ourselves, “I am going to believe what Christ says about God. No matter what the seemings may be, nor what my own thoughts and feelings are, nor what anybody else may say, I know that what Christ says about God must be true, for He knew, and nobody else does, and I am going to believe Him right straight through, come what may. He says that He was one with God, so all that He was God is, and I will never be frightened of God any more. I will never again let myself think of Him as a stern Lawgiver who is angry with me because of my sins, nor as a hard Taskmaster who demands from me impossible tasks, nor as a far-off 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, now that I know that Christ was the true manifestation of God.”

And she closes by quoting the hymn “Jesus is God”:

Jesus is God! Oh, could I now
But compass land and sea,
To teach and tell this single truth,
How happy I should be!
Oh, had I but an angel’s voice,
I would proclaim so loud—
Jesus, the good, the beautiful,
Is the image of our God!

Here is a link to an audio recording of that hymn. As you sing through it, take time to reflect on the character of God revealed in His name. And then also reflect on the manifestation of that name in the life of Christ.