Part V: Proclaiming Himself

Chapter 16: In His Own Words

His Name

In the previous chapters we have seen how the Lord God revealed His character and His attributes through His creation—from His manifestation as the Word, to the making of heaven and the spiritual beings, to the physical world, and to the creation of man. And we have seen how He desires fellowship with man as one of the ways He reveals Himself, as a loving Father. When Adam and Eve sinned, God had already prepared the plan for their redemption through the seed of a woman, to come in the appointed time. Throughout the Old Testament, story after story, and structure after structure built by His command, all pointed toward that plan: to redeem man through one perfect Man.

It is through that perfect Redeemer that the deepest attributes of God would be revealed, and it is on the name of that Redeemer that mankind would come to rest its trust. But already in the Old Testament, God proclaimed His own name and His own attributes—and it is striking that whenever He named Himself, He added the language of relationship. He did not merely say, “I am God.” He said, “I am the God of your father,” or “the God of Bethel, where you made your vow”—reminding the hearer of an encounter, a place, a shared history. In naming Himself, He was saying: I am a God of relationship, a God of encounters, a God who loves to have fellowship.

Notice the very first time (that we have on record) God introduces Himself by name—“I am the Almighty God” (Genesis 17:1); we do not know how He first spoke of Himself to Adam. And then, again and again, He ties His name to relationship. The first time He introduces Himself to Isaac, He says, “I am the God of Abraham thy father.” He names Himself in relation to people He loves, and in relation to the very places where covenants were made and vows were spoken. His name is bound up with love and with family; He is a God of relationship.205

In the Old Testament, the Lord God was known by many names, each unveiling a facet of His character or marking a moment of His dealing with His people. (In the New Testament this gives way to one name given above every name.) Among the Old Testament names are these:

Each name is a window into who He is; no single one exhausts Him. He is El Shaddai when we are weak, Jehovah-Jireh when we are in need, Jehovah-Shalom when we are troubled, Jehovah-Rapha when we are sick. And all of these many names would one day be gathered up in a single saving name: Jesus—Yeshua, “Yahweh saves”—the name above every name, at which every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:9–11).206

Gracious God

One of the most beautiful passages in all the Old Testament is the one in which God proclaims Himself—telling, in His own words, who He truly is. It came at a moment when Israel least deserved it, just after the sin of the golden calf; and it would be understood most fully only centuries later, when His plan to redeem and reconcile man was accomplished in Christ. Here is what the Lord said to Moses:

And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:5–7).

This is the passage most often quoted within the Old Testament itself—echoed by Nehemiah, the Psalms, Joel, Jonah, and Nahum—as if Israel returned to it again and again to remember who their God was. And look how the words pile up, each one heaping mercy upon mercy: merciful (tender as a parent), gracious, longsuffering (literally “slow to anger”), abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. This is God’s own portrait of His heart.208

And yet the same breath adds, “and that will by no means clear the guilty.” Here is the mystery that only the cross would resolve: God is boundlessly merciful, and perfectly just. He will not sweep sin under the rug. How can He forgive the guilty and yet not clear the guilty? At Calvary the answer is given, for there God is shown to be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). The guilt was cleared—but not ignored; it was borne. The gracious God of Exodus 34 is the God of the gospel.209

Then, in the same chapter, God tells Moses another of His names, and it is a startling one: “Thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14). His name is Jealous. This is not the petty envy of a small heart; it is the burning, exclusive love of a husband for his bride, who will not share her with a rival. He is a jealous God—so let us worship no other. Do not bow to money, to idols, to fame, to other people, to animals, to the sun or moon or stars, or to anything else—worship the LORD alone. Let God have His rightful place in our hearts; let us not mix Him with other loves. Let God be God, and the Lord of our lives.210

Notes

  1. 205. When God reveals His personal name at the burning bush—“I AM THAT I AM” (Exod. 3:14)—He unveils His self-existence and eternal, unchanging presence. The name YHWH (“the LORD,” the Tetragrammaton) derives from the Hebrew verb “to be”; devout Jews came to regard it as too holy to pronounce, substituting Adonai (“Lord”). See the discussion in Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2006), 119–126. ↩
  2. 206. Philippians 2:9–11: God “hath… given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” The name “Jesus” (Yeshua, “Yahweh saves”) gathers up the meaning of all the Old Testament names of God, for in Him the God of many names has drawn near to save. See Acts 4:12. ↩
  3. 208. Exodus 34:6–7 is widely regarded as the single most quoted and echoed passage within the Old Testament itself (see Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3). The Hebrew heaps up terms of mercy: rakhum (compassionate, like a parent’s tenderness), khannun (gracious), erek appayim (slow to anger, literally “long of nose/breath”), and rab khesed (abounding in steadfast covenant love). See the discussion in Stuart, Exodus, 715–718. ↩
  4. 209. Exodus 34:7 holds together mercy and justice: God forgives “iniquity and transgression and sin,” yet “will by no means clear the guilty.” Both are fully satisfied at the cross, where God is shown to be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). The self-revelation of Exodus 34 finds its deepest meaning in the gospel, where grace and justice meet. ↩
  5. 210. The name “Jealous” (Qanna) appears in Exodus 34:14: “for thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” The imagery is of the exclusive love of the marriage covenant: God rightly claims the whole devotion of His people (cf. Exod. 20:5; Deut. 4:24). This is not petty envy but the holy love of a husband for his bride. ↩
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