If 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?’ what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO IAM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.” Exodus: 13-14, 15b
1,300 years later, when asked by the Israelites “Who are you?,” Jesus identified himself as I AM, a member of the Creation Trinity. God in human form:
- I AM the Bread of Life.
- I AM the Light of the World.
- I AM the Gate.
- I AM the Good Shepherd.
- I AM the Resurrection and the Life.
- I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life.
- I AM the True Vine.
If your first (or second) inclination at hearing Jesus’s I AM claims is to dismiss them, or to throw metaphorical stones at them, know two things:
- Nothing has changed in the nature of man in 2,000 years: “So the Jews picked up stones to throw at him.” John 8:58; and
- The I AM message requires ‘ears to hear’: “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” Jesus, John 8:47
We will explore being ‘of God’ tomorrow.