by J. Preston Eby

Long centuries ago Moses stood in the burning sands of the Sinai desert  with bowed head, bare feet, and a trembling heart  beholding the God of the burning bush. The impetuousness and self-confidence of his youth had waned and he was content with his flock of sheep and solitary thoughts in the wilderness silence. This, however, was not to last, for God was speaking to the aged man of a stupendous work he was yet to perform beyond the confines of his chosen world. He must return to his enslaved brethren in Egypt and marshal them into the greatest exodus of any people on earth. Moses had no desire for this mission, and we can scarcely blame him, but when finally he consented to obey the call of the Voice out of the bush, he hesitantly asked, "Who shall I say has sent me?" And Yahweh replied, in the words of the King James Bible, "I AM that I AM. Tell your brethren that I AM has sent you." It seemed a strange name, yet the magnificent truth contained in those words wrought their emancipation from the slavery of Egypt, formed them into a nation, and led them into the security of their own land. Nearly all Hebrew scholars agree that these words could be rendered, "I will be that I will be" or "I will become what I will become." In the Old Testament, the principal revelation of God's name is the word Yahweh or I AM. The word is really three separate phrases joined together in the same manner as in our modern custom of combining the initials of a firm or the syllables from the names of different men to form a company or patent name for a product. The three phrases in the word Yahweh are the three tenses of the verb to be: I was, I am, I shall be. A part of each of these words is combined in Hebrew to form the name Yahweh. It is God's memorial name to all generations. It shows God's intimate relationship with all that is past, His independent, unchangeable existence in the now, and His eternal connection with all that is in the future. What an adequate name for God!

Since divine resources are infinite, God is pleased to become to His people what is best for them and what is needed at the time. This name is at once a revelation and a promise! God was saying to Moses, "Whatever my people need me to be for them, I WILL BE." I will become what I will become. In fulfillment of this promise-name, Yahweh became for the children of Israel a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He became water out of flinty rock and bread from heaven. God became Miracle Worker, Deliverer, Provider, Sustainer, Healer, Counselor, Law Giver, Military Leader, and many other things on their journey from the servitude of Egypt to the glory of the Promised Land.

The further truth is, however, that "I will become what I will become" is an in-part, out-dated, Old Testament revelation! It is, in fact, but a prophecy. You will understand a great truth when you see that the prophecy is now fully fulfilled. Its fulfillment is in Jesus Christ! Almost two millenniums ago Jesus Christ stepped upon the stage of history, the firstborn Son of God, God (Yahweh) manifested in the flesh. "No man has ever seen God at any time; the only unique Son, the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him; He has revealed Him, brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him, and has made Him known" (Jn. 1: 18, Ampl.). When God came in Jesus Christ, He did not say, "I will become what I will become." For you see, beloved, Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy. He is, within Himself, all that God has promised to become. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9). These words suggest that Jesus is alone sufficient, for the fullness is in Him; always sufficient, for the fullness abides in Him; all-sufficient, because He is all the fullness; absolutely sufficient, because the fullness resides in Him bodily. In Him are summed up all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). He is the sum and substance of wisdom, the center and circumference of knowledge. All power in heaven and in earth is given unto Him (Mat. 28:18). He is the source and the sovereignty of power. He is the righteousness of God revealed from heaven (I Cor. 1 :30). All the nature, love, and glory of God are expressed in the Son. All judgment is committed into the hands of God's Christ. (In. 5:22). He is the salvation of Yahweh in human flesh. Our Lord and our Christ is the verity of Yahweh's truth; the surety of Yahweh's promise; the majesty of Yahweh's power; the authority of Yahweh's throne; the compassion of Yahweh's heart; the repository of Yahweh's fullness; and the legacy of Yahweh' s will. Could any imagery ever exhaust our Lord's boundless worth?

In Christ God has become ALL THAT HE WOULD BECOME. When God came in Jesus Christ, He did not speak as He spoke to Moses. He did not say, "I will become.. ." Oh, how my heart leaps within me today as I hear the lovely Christ of God proclaiming, "I AM!" "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the resurrection and the life." "1 am the door, 1 am the bread that has come down from heaven, 1 am the good shepherd." "I AM!" "I AM!" "I AM!"

What would you think of a preacher who, every Sunday, stood up and preached about himself? Nearly all of those in the church systems would soon get another preacher! Yet Jesus did this persistently and consistently! The apostle Paul said that we preach not ourselves, and so it is. Yet, wonder of wonders, Jesus preached Himself. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me shall never die." "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers but. . .I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep." "For without me, you can do nothing." "I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abides in me... brings forth much fruit." "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." "Before Abraham was, I am." On and on it goes. Throughout all His ministry Jesus Christ preached Himself He would indeed be an egomaniac were He not truly the firstborn Son of the living God!

When Jesus says I AM, He reveals within Himself the very nature and power of God. God IS. God is constant. That's why He is eternal, because nothing that changes can be eternal. Everything that is eternal is unchangeable, unvarying, unaffected, without fluctuation. The constancy of God's nature - that is eternity. When you know God as He is, you have touched eternity! You have transcended time, space, and matter into a realm where you can see time from beginning to end. There you see all things as they really are, and you transcend into the realm where as He is, so are you in this world. The I AM of Christ IS the "Day of the Lord." It is the unveiling of Himself in all that He is. Unchangeably, unvaryingly, constantly, eternally, incorruptibly, immortally - I AM. That is the nature of God. That is what Jesus came into this world to demonstrate and reveal. And He . . . [has brought] us into union with Himself in the I AM. That is manifest sonship.

Let me put it this way. God dwells in the ever-present NOW. Now is common to every time and place. There is no time, no place - there never has been and there never will be - that did not exist in NOW. To live in God's now, is thus to be everywhere and in all times at the same time. On earth we have seconds, minutes, hours, day and night. We may work all day and sleep at night. For us the day is past, and the night is present. At the same time the Chinese are working in the day while we sleep at night. For them the night is past, and the day is present. But an astronaut high above the earth, circling the planet every ninety minutes, sees both at the same time and for him both day and night are now, the present. God, my friend, is high enough that for Him everything that ever has been, or ever will be, is NOW. In the eternal nature of God there is no past, no present, there is only the eternal now. Therefore, now is common to every time and every place. To live in now is to be everywhere and in every time I AM THAT I AM.

Let me give you an illustration. Albert Einstein believed that, according to his theory of relativity, it would be possible to do time travel, to travel forward or backward in time. Now hear me well. If I were to step into a time machine . . . my first request would be to go backward in time. I would like to go back to the time of David and Solomon . . . [because] the era of David and Solomon has always held a special fascination for me. Now, let's suppose the date is February 13, 2003. We climb into our time machine and travel back to the years of David and Solomon. We're not going to make it a quick weekend trip, take a hasty look, jump back into our time machine and return. Oh, no! We're going to stay a while. So we spend twenty years caught up in the events of that period in Israel. We find a residence there, learn the language and culture, make friends, and become involved with what is happening. We walk it out, experience and relish every minute of it for two long decades! Finally, we get back into our time machine and journey back to the twenty-first century. Guess what the date is when we arrive home? We get back on February 13, 2003! That's right; we get back exactly when we left. Now if you do not understand time and eternity that will blow your mind! What did Einstein discover? He discovered that there is no past, and there is no future, there is only NOW. That is not a metaphysical or new age concept; that is a scientific fact. Everything that ever happened and everything that ever will happen is now. What a mystery! But it is the mystery of life. It is the mystery of immortality. It is the mystery of the spirit. It is the mystery of God. It is the mystery of eternity. It is the mystery of manifest sonship. It is the mystery of that realm, that dimension of life and reality which transcends time and mortal consciousness. And it is out of that realm of reality that Jesus spoke when He declared, "I AM." John was "in the spirit on the Lord's day," and do you know what he saw? He saw the beginning and the end, and all the processing in between . . . He saw the glorious One who spoke and said, "I AM Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." The beginning and the end, time and all its works, are contained in the I AM of God's Christ! From our earthly perspective there is a beginning and an end. But Jesus says, "I AM that beginning and that end!"

For Jesus Christ there is no past or future. He lives in a continual present. Therefore, He sees the whole history of mankind in one sighting. It all IS to Him! He knows what will happen a million years from now and shows it to you as something that happened a thousand years ago. That is why there are prophecies in the scriptures, not because God guesses or because He is a divinator; and it is not simply because He knows all things. Rather, it is because all things are for Him. For Him the future is as the present, or as the past is for us. Everything IS in God's eternal day, in God's timeless state of being. That is why His name is I AM. Sometimes it appears that God makes grammatical mistakes. Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, 1 AM." We might think Jesus should have said ". . . I was." But no, "I AM!" He also mixes the future. He said, "Lo, I AM with you till the end of the ages." Perhaps we think He should have said ". . . I will be with you. . ." "No, you don't understand," Jesus says, "I AM with you."

Jesus never directly said He was God, but twenty-one times in the Greek text of John's gospel He spoke the words, "I am." We all use the words "I am" in normal speech all the time. If I say, "I am thirsty," or "I am an American," I am not implying that I am God! But we must understand Jesus' unique use of these words. On one occasion He said to the Jews, "If you do not believe that 1 AM, you will die in your sins" (In. 8:24). It was later in the same discussion that He declared, "Before Abraham was, 1 AM!" How did the Jews regard His statement? "They took up stones to cast at Him" (In. 8:58). To them He was claiming to be God. For you see, "I AM" was the name YAHWEH; they understood precisely the inference. Therefore, in their view, He was breaking the third commandment, and the penalty for this under the law was death by stoning. No name known to human tongue can describe the firstborn Son of God like this name. No sentence ever uttered by eloquent orator, no phrase ever penned by sage or scribe, no song ever sung by angelic choir can describe in such all-inclusive excellence the almighty magnitude of what He really is. "Lord, we do know not where You are going, and how can we know the way," complained Thomas. "I am the way," Jesus replied, "I am the truth, I am the life." "I am the door. I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd. I am the bread of life." "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day," sobbed Mary sadly of her dead brother. "I am the resurrection," Jesus answered, "and I am the life." "I am Alpha. I am Omega. I am the first. I am the last. I am the beginning. I am the ending. I am your redeemer. I am your strength. I am He that lives. I am He that is alive forevermore. I am He that shuts and no man opens and opens and no man shuts. I am the root and the offspring of David. I am the bright and morning star." There is no end to what He is, for He is everything! He is the Christ. He is the Lord. He is the Creator and Redeemer of the entire universe. And all He is He always is - He changes not. He is the I AM. . .

What is there throughout all the galactic spheres that He isn't! He is "the Lord our righteousness." He has "become our salvation." He is made unto us "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption." All that the Father has is His. He and the Father are one. If we have seen Him we have seen the Father. All that the Father gave Him, He became. He didn't come saying, "I have," but "I AM." He didn't say, "I have brought you life; I have brought you truth; I have brought you salvation; I have brought you righteousness; I have come to show you the way." No! "I AM!" The Lord Jesus became the personification of all that the Father showed Him. And we are . . . [as He is]! Those called to sonship are filled with His Spirit, and ["He that is joined to the Lord is ONE spirit. . ."] (I Cor. 6:17). All that is true of Jesus is NOW . . . true of us! We are COMPLETE in Him (Col. 2:9,10). We are His body, the FULLNESS of Him (Eph. 1:22,23). He first said, "I AM the light of the world." Later He said to His own, "YOU ARE the light of the world." He first said, "I AM the bread that is come down from heaven." Later, Paul wrote: "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are ONE BREAD, and one body: for we are alt partakers of that one bread" (I Cor. 10:16-17).

He was first made unto us righteousness; but now "WE ARE the righteousness of God in Him." Sons are coming to the place where they no longer say, "I have received, I have been given, I possess, I have," but say instead, "I AM!" We once prophesied, "Thus saith the Lord. . .," but now we must say, as Jesus said, "I say unto you..." We are no longer something apart from Him, for we are bone of His bones, flesh of His flesh, life of His life, mind of His mind, spirit of His spirit, nature of His nature, word of His word, united with Him, made one in Him. It is one thing to go out and tell the world that the light of the world is Jesus. It is a greater thing to say, "Arise, shine; for the light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you" (Isa. 60: 1). Then it is that "the nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising" (Isa. 60:3).

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Resurrection Life

The Feasts

Alpha and Omega

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