Invocavit
KJV Exodus 3 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his
father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of
the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. 2 And the angel of
the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and
he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed. 3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight,
why the bush is not burnt. 4 And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,
God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And
he said, Here am I. 5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. 6 Moreover he
said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
7 And the Lord said, I have surely seen the
affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason
of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; 8 And I am come down to deliver
them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land
unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the
place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the
Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 Now therefore, behold, the
cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the
oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now therefore, and I
will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the
children of Israel out of Egypt. 11 And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I
should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel
out of Egypt? 12 And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be
a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the
people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. 13 And Moses said
unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto
them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me,
What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14 And God said unto Moses, I Am
That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am
hath sent me unto you. 15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name
for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
The
name of the LORD is unique and remains mysterious. The four Hebrew letters are
called the Tetragrammaton (meaning four letters). The vowel pointing is not
intended to fill out the Name, but indicate instead that the sacred Name is not
to be used and abused for many reasons – sacrilege, holiness, and withholding it
from those who want its power, to abuse it.
When
Job’s wife said, “Curse God and die!” the Hebrew is written “Bless God and die”
because it was not proper to “curse God.” Believing Jews today will say “The
Name” in Hebrew rather than using the formal name.
The
name Jehovah is used in the King James (though rarely). Another version uses it
frequently and that one is loved by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Yawweh
was claimed by the modernists who assumed that they knew the real Name of God,
but that was only another example of their hubris (Greek for overweening
pride).
This
Exodus 3 passage is well known and yet not given the significance it deserves
in unifying the Old and New Testaments’ message of faith in Jesus Christ. The
Old Testament is not a history book we skip through to read the familiar
stories or comforting Psalms. The Old Testament is the proclamation of the
Gospel before His incarnation to serve as the foundation and fulfilling of His
work. Modernists separate the Testaments, as if they are accidentally put
together. Those raised in Judaism are shocked and exhilarated by the knowledge
that they were reading the Gospel all along, though their eyes were closed to
it (see Emmaus, KJV Luke 24:31).
The
concentration of spiritual wisdom in the Testaments is shown by how much is
revealed in such few words in Genesis 3.
KJV
Exodus 3:2 And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out
of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire,
and the bush was not consumed.
Lutherans have taught
the Burning Bush represents the Two Natures in Christ, human and divine, united
by the Incarnation and united ever since.
This event, vision, or miracle is similar. The Bush burns but it is never
consumed, so its herbal nature remains while it continues to burn.
The Angel of the Lord appeared, but look at the identity
of this Angel. In many places, the Angel of the Lord is the Son of God before
His Incarnation. Jacob wrestled with the Angel, but referred to Him as God.
KJV
Genesis 32: 30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel:
for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
The Speaker is the Lord
(not all caps) and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – an indication of the
Trinity.
KJV
Exodus 3:13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of
Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you;
and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14 And
God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you. 15 And God said moreover unto
Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent
me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all
generations.
I AM – the Tetragrammaton
– is the unique Name of God, though many other names are used in the Bible.
The Tuebingen School promoted the idea of the Fourth Gospel
centuries later and Gnostic, so the Gospel of John has been neglected and ignored.
We know that Jesus was deliberately using the Name of God in John 8, where we
find this taught and strengthened by the additional points of doctrine.
KJV
John 8: 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was
glad. 57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and
hast thou seen Abraham?
58
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
59
Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of
the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
1.
The point is Jesus proclaiming His
Messianic title and His divinity because He was talking about the distant past
and the present at the same time. Only God can exist that way, which the Pharisees
quickly saw and opposed. In fact, in John, that was their final accusation against
Jesus – He claimed to be God.
2.
The second point is that Jesus openly
declares His existence in the past and now, more significantly, He calls Himself
– I AM. No Jewish leader would miss that explosive statement.
3.
Finally, that claims spurs the opponents
to pick up rocks to kill Him, yet He revealed His Two Natures by passing through
this angry mob without being harmed, unlike the martyr Stephen in Acts.
Readers and listeners
should count the number of times Abraham is named in this one chapter, emphasizing
Abraham as the Father of Faith in Jesus, not Moses the Law-giver. One of Luther’s
great insights was that people made Jesus into Moses the Law-giver, and Moses
into the Savior.
This use of I AM in the Gospel of John binds the Fourth
Gospel to the Books of Moses, showing how the glimmer of gold in the Torah was
so much a part of teaching the divinity of Jesus for the future:
1.
The sacrificial Lamb.
2.
The water from the rock. John 4.
3.
The bread from heaven. John 6.
4.
Most of all the bronze serpent used to
heal. John 3:15-16. Numbers 21.
The Fourth Gospel is
the ultimate book about Jesus because it was written by His beloved disciple
and written, through the Spirit, with the thought of us already knowing
Matthew, Mark, and Luke fairly well. So we see two major emphases in the Fourth
Gospel. One is detailing with sermons what the prose narratives taught in
Matthew-Mark-Luke. Another is teaching about future errors, correcting them in
advance – such as Mariolatry.
