Yahweh

Exodus 3, John 8:48-58

What is a name? Is it not what identifies us? I am ____. John. Grace. Madison. Charlie. The thing we are called, the thing we are known by. Our name. What is God’s name? We often call him God, Father, Savior, King. 

What does God call himself….YAHWEH. We see that in Exodus 3 God identifies himself and as he does so he says I AM. Yahweh is his covenant name that reveals God’s power and authority. We see this 6800 times in the Bible. We see Jesus claim this in John. In Revelation we know that Jesus says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13). Yahweh is not just a name, but the very indicator of God’s holiness, his set apartness. A.W. Tozer says it like this:

AW Tozer, “In determining relationships, we must begging somewhere. There must be somewhere a fixed center against which everything else is measured, where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say “is” and make no allowances. Such a center is God. When God would make His name known to mankind, he could find no better words than “I AM.” When He speaks in the first person He says, “I AM”; when we speak of him we say, “he is”; when we speak to him we say, “thou art.” Everyone and everything else measures from that fixed point. I AM THAT I AM, says God. I the LORD, do not change.” (The Pursuit of God, 82). 

God’s name doesn’t exist for us to call to get his attention, it defines him to be the very thing that sets him apart. That he is God, that he is the One in which all life and creation is founded on. It shows his divinity, his authority, his holiness, his power, and his character. God’s names throughout the Bible are revealing of who God is. All of his names help us to relate to God as his people so as we study many of the names of God over the next few weeks, let those names lead us to the throne in reverence, awe and worship at our big, holy God.