The lives of everyone we know can be summed up in the words: “I was, I am and I will be.” We have a past, a present and a future. There is a sense in which Jesus, because of His life, death and resurrection, can be considered in this way (Rev. 1:8). However, when we think about God, we must never forget that the Omniscient, Omnipotent One is also Omnipresent and inhabits ever moment from the eternal past to the eternal future (Psa. 90:2-4).
This concept is emphasized when Moses spoke to God at the burning bush. He asked God what he should say to the Jews in Egypt when they asked what God’s name was. Our God answered, “I Am who I Am…thus say to the children of Israel, ’I Am has sent me to you.’” Jehovah God said that His name is “I Am.”
The name Jehovah is derived from the same root word in the Hebrew language that was used at that bush when God said, “I Am.” Before Moses ascended Mt. Sinai the second time to receive the tablets of stone, God told the prophet that when Moses came to the mountain he would not see His face but would see His glory. There is no description of what Moses physically saw, but God promised him that He would proclaim His name to Moses (Ex. 34:19).
What did Moses see when God proclaimed His name and showed Moses His glory? “The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord” (Ex. 34:5). What did God say when He proclaimed His name? “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing those guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6-7).
Who is the I Am? He is what He is. His attributes, many of them listed above, explain what the name Jehovah means. His name affirms that He is who He is. Not a mute idol made of wood or stone; not one limited by possessing a physical body for He is a Spirit, but a living God who proclaims that His name stands for all that He is!
God’s attributes were not just shown at Mt. Sinai, for they are shown on every page of the Bible and in every moment of any time He has dealt with man. His name never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). The “shadow of God” is the same every time it is seen, there is no variation (Jas. 1:17).
God is and always has been the same. There is no variation. He is who He is. He is what He is. His name proclaims His eternal, unchanging nature!