I’d like to begin with a question this morning: what was God doing before He created the world? This is a question every Christian eventually asks. One way to answer this is to say that before God made the world He was lonely, feeling a lack, and desired to fill an emptiness within Him, leading Him to make the world and all in it. And now that the world is here and we ourselves are here, God isn’t lonely anymore but feels fulfilled and whole.[1] If you took a survey of Christians from all over, asking them this question, I think you’d hear something like this answer quite often.
This morning I’d like to propose a different answer to the question. What was God doing before He created the world? I don’t think He was lonely, feeling empty, or just twiddling His thumbs, no, I think God was just fine. More than fine in fact. I think before God created the world He was infinitely content and happy in Himself. Why do I say this? Because the God of Scripture is a God who has no needs, is fully independent, and fully self-sufficient.
And Church, I think this is very good news for us.
Last week we arrived at one of the most foundational moments in the whole Bible, the moment where God appears to Moses at the burning bush. We took a big look last week at all of chapter 3, and when we came to v14 where God tells Moses His name I said we’d spend our entire time together this week on that very reality. Well Church, here we are.
Open your Bibles to Exodus 3. Again the single verse before us today is Exodus 3:14 which says this, “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
All kinds of books covering all kinds of things have been written on this single verse. That alone ought to let us know that this is so significant a verse that it demands at least one entire sermon. To simplify this, I’ve decided to focus on two major realities this verse teaches us. First, the God not like us. And second, the God who became like us.
The God Not Like Us
In the context of Exodus 3 we must firstly say that this verse is God’s gracious response to Moses’ fearful questioning. There he expressed great doubt and fear. God had commanded him in v10 to go back into Egypt, to Pharaoh himself, to demand that he let Israel go. We saw last week how this terrified Moses in v11. He expresses his fear to God, and God responded to Moses’ fear by making a great promise v12. He promised Moses that His very presence would be with him as he went before Pharaoh. Yet Moses’ fear and doubt remained, prompting him to ask God a new question in v13. This time he asked God what he should do if one of the Israelites ever asks about God’s name. And then we see it. In v14 we see God’s gracious response to Moses’ fear and doubt as God reveals His divine name.
While v14 is certainly God’s response to Moses’ questions, it is far more than a response to Moses. Here God is making an assertion of authority, a confession of eternal and essential reality.[2] When God says His name is “I AM WHO I AM”, and that Moses should say “I AM” has sent him, the name actually given here is only four Hebrew letters, YHWH. These four letters are the imperfect tense of the Hebrew verb to be, meaning ‘I am’ or “I will be.” This name is sometimes called the tetragrammaton because it only contains four Hebrew consonants. If we supply the vowels needed it becomes something like Yahweh. Now, Jews of old believed this name was so holy and so revered that you should never utter it for fear of taking it in vain. This is reflected in our English translations. When the divine name shows up it's usually translated with the word LORD, in all caps. The KJV does a bit more, adding more vowels to the divine name, ending up with the name Jehovah.
In this name we learn much. We learn that God is not like us. Why? Because He’s the I AM. Meaning He is self-existent, He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. He is utterly separate and unique and independent over and above all things. Moses asked a question and God responded, yes. But God’s response isn’t so much an answer as it is an entire theology.[3]
Church, almost all of what is revealed to us here in v14 can be boiled down to one attribute of God, His aseity. Have any of you ever heard that word before? The word aseity comes from two Latin words, a meaning ‘from’ and se meaning ‘self.’ God is thus ‘from Himself.’
Aseity is the first attribute of God we encounter in the Bible.[4] Think back to how Genesis begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In this opening chapter to the Bible we see many beginnings. The beginning of the heavens, the beginning of the earth, the skies, the sea, the land, birds, fish, creatures, and mankind. Many beginnings indeed. But don’t miss that in Genesis 1:1 we also are introduced to the God who was there before the beginning, the God who never had a beginning.
It makes perfect sense then, that when God reveals His name to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3, He reveals it as “I AM.”
That God is the I AM, that He has aseity, leads us to think of the great difference between God and us. We are born into this world as dependent finite beings. Our existence comes from our mother and father. We are because they had us. More so, the whole of our lives, from conception to death, must be upheld and sustained by God, making us dependent not only on our mother and father, but above all on God. In other words, the whole of our life comes from God the author and source and fountain of life.
Church, God is not like this. His nature isn’t like our nature. Unlike ourselves and unlike everything in this world, His existence doesn’t come from someone or something else. No one brought him into being and He isn’t dependent on another to be sustained in His existence. We can be measured, God is immeasurable. We are contingent beings, God is not contingent on anything else. Our entire existent is grounded in Him, God’s existence is grounded in Himself alone. We are because of others, we continue because of another. God simply is. He is the I AM.
St. Anselm of Canterbury described this long ago saying God “…has of Himself all that He has, while other things have nothing of themselves. And other things, having nothing of themselves, have their only reality from Him.”[5] So while our nature is that of a derived being, having our source in God, God’s nature and essence is pure being.
What does this mean? It means that God isn’t like us. He and ourselves are different types of beings. While we are needy, weak, dependent creatures, God is an eternally and perfectly independent being. All this comes from the fact that God has aseity, that He is the I AM.
This is weighty stuff I know. So perhaps an illustration will help. On occasion Holly and I will hear our kids get into arguments with each other making big statements of ownership. For example we will sometimes hear them say to each other, “You messed up my room.” Or, “Don’t move my stuff.” Or, “You knocked over my Legos.” This is pretty normal for kids to talk like this, it’s actually pretty normal for us too. When our kids get a bit too intense in moments like this we come in, try to assess the situation, de-escalate tempers, dole out the appropriate correction/discipline, and remind them that they don’t own anything. Everything they have was given to them by us as a gift. It is good parenting to remind our kids of this truth. And if it’s good for our kids to be reminded of this, it’s also good for ourselves to be reminded of this truth too. That all we are, all we have, all of us…meaning all our needs that are met, all our weaknesses that are strengthened, all our lack that is filled comes from the God who has no needs, no weakness, and no lack in Himself.
Let’s ask a further question then. Why does God give anything to us at all? Or perhaps a bigger question is better. Since God has eternally been fully content and sufficient in Himself, why did God create anything in the first place? Well, it certainly wasn’t to fill a lack in Himself, no. He created and sustains and gives and blesses because He is gracious. And as an eternally full being, like a fountain, God cannot help but overflow. This truth has a massive effect on our worship.
In Psalm 50 this comes out so clearly. There God has been stirred to anger because of His people’s sin, and they think in all their sin they can worship with no problems. God rebukes them for this saying in Psalm 50:7-15, “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are Mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Then in an astounding statement, a few verses later God rebukes us for thinking He was like us. In Psalm 50:21 God says, “…you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.”
Our worship of God, then, is not intended to meet the needs of God, as if He were insecure and our worship of Him gave Him security. No, He’s the I AM. The essence of our worship is fueled by who God is and what God has done. At His holiness, righteousness, greatness, and wisdom. And this great God has done great things, for us…so we worship Him as a being utterly above us in every way possible.
Church, this grand reality is the very thing Moses is hearing on the mountain in Exodus 3:14. The God Moses encountered in the burning bush was the God of absolute and infinite being, different from himself in every way possible.
I hope you can now see a little bit of why Exodus 3:14 is absolutely foundational for how we view God, how we approach God, what we think of God, and the words we use to describe God. Only aseity belongs to Him, only He is the I AM. In this it is crystal clear, God is not like us.
The God Who Became Like Us
We’ve seen how foundational the I AM moment is, and we’ve seen how different God is from us. But as time would unfold God did something we would never believe unless the Bible told us. This God, the God who has aseity, the great I AM, became like us. Into all our sin, all our darkness, all our fears, concerns, worries, doubts, and weaknesses. Into all that we are not, God descended. How did He do this? In the person of His Son.
When Jesus came, He came not just in the name of God as a prophet or a messenger, He came as God Himself. And again and again He attributed the name of God to Himself. Meaning, He took God’s own name, “I AM”, as His own. In John 6 the disciples were scared in a boat as a great storm raged around them. They looked up and through the wind and waves and miraculously they saw Jesus walking on the sea directly toward them. At this they didn’t shout for joy, or feel a great sense of relief. They knew storms. They knew no mere man could do what Jesus was doing at that moment and so John 6:19 says they were afraid.
What did Jesus say as He drew near the boat? John 6:20, “It is I, do not be afraid.” When Jesus says ‘do not be afraid’ we understand that. God often told that to people in the OT. Angels would even say this first to anyone God sent them to, and for the fearful disciples to hear ‘do not be afraid’ from Jesus in the midst of the storm had to be an encouraging moment for them. But He said more than just ‘do not be afraid.’ He said, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Do know what the phrase “It is I” in v20 is in the original Greek? Ego eimi. Do you know what that literally translates as? “I AM.” Therefore, when Jesus comes to the frightened disciples walking on the water He literally says “I AM, do not be afraid” They would’ve understood the weight of His words. They would’ve understood the reason Jesus was giving them to not be afraid. Why should they not fear? Because Jesus is the great I AM, God Himself. No storm can defeat a God as great as this.
Later on in a heated exchange with the Pharisees Jesus makes a similarly staggering claim. In John 8:56 he says to a group of angry Pharisees, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad.” They responded in the next verse saying, “You are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?” To which Jesus famously replies in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Using the divine name of God revealed to Moses on the mountain in reference to Himself was a clear claim to deity. It cannot be taken any other way. He did not say ‘I was’ to teach simply old age and long years, he said ‘I AM’ to teach of His aseity and divine nature.
Jesus would of course do this many more times, using the I AM name to attribute deity to Himself.
“I AM the bread of life.”
“I AM the light of the world.”
“I AM the door of the sheep.”
“I AM the good shepherd.”
“I AM the resurrection and the life.”
“I AM the way, the truth, the life.”
“I AM the true vine.”
Then wonder upon wonder, there is a greater glory to behold. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the I AM, the God who has aseity…willingly died for sinners. This is staggering. The more we see of His greatness and glory in Exodus 3, the more we’ll come to see how low He truly came to save His own. The same I AM who burned in the bush, who struck Egypt with plague after plague, who thundered on Mt. Sinai, would one day cry in the manger, and ultimately would embrace death on the cross for all who would ever believe. No wonder the grave couldn’t hold Him down, He’s the I AM. He’s the eternally perfect infinite fountain full of life and beauty and majesty in Himself. Death fled from His presence as He walked out of the tomb that Sunday morning.
Conclusion:
Church, throughout history every culture has searched for something that is ‘a se.’ They’ve searched for some kind of ultimate being, or ultimate standard of truth. People have tried to say it’s Mother Nature, this god or that god, human knowledge or human experience, reason, logic, or some type of combination of these things. Philosophers for ages have sought after the concept of ‘the Absolute’ because they know if such a being exists that being would be the origin and source from which all other life flowed forth.
But the world has refused to see Jesus Christ as ultimate in any way. Thus, the soul’s search for the ultimate ‘a se’ being has been frustratingly empty because though they’ve never found it, He is directly before their eyes. The result of this frustration is that many give up the search and choose to embrace the dark idea of chaos or meaninglessness as the ultimate reason or answer for existence.
Contrasting this is Exodus 3:14, which is bright with hope. Only this God, of the Bible can give meaning to human experience and reason. So don’t think divine aseity or the independence of God is something that is only abstract, or a theory to be known or taught in classrooms. The bottom line is this: if God were not a se, and fully independent, if He depended on anything else for His being, He would cease to be God.
This makes us thankful for who He is. There is no one like Him, and there is no god but Him. Praise God that He would willingly and gladly desire not only to create us and to reveal Himself to us, but to redeem us in Christ as well.
[1] Matthew Barrett, None Greater (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2019) 55-56.
[2] John I. Durham, Exodus - WBC (Waco TX: Word Books, 1987) 38.
[3] Goldingay, quoted in Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2023) 66.
[4] Kevin DeYoung, Daily Doctrine (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024) 49.
[5] Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil 1, quoted in Barrett, None Greater, 57.
