God has spoken

Only God can speak properly of God. So where has he spoken? Here we are at a key moment in our journey. Over 1,000 years before Christ, Moses was intrigued to see a bush on fire but which was not consumed. He approached. Then God spoke to him out of the bush. This vital moment of divine communication, where God took the initiative and spoke into our world, is recounted in the Book of Exodus, chapter 3.

This was not the first time God had spoken, but it has particular significance because God was speaking about God! God told Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. What was God saying about himself here? That he had already been in touch with Abraham, the great progenitor of the Jewish people; indeed he had given promises to Abraham which actually were fulfilled – giving an extra weight to the truth he spoke.

And when Moses asked God who exactly he was, what his name was, God gave an astounding reply. Here is God, explaining who he was: “I am who I am”. Now that seems to us to be a strange way of defining God, but that reminds us that we are dealing with an entity unlike any other. God repeats his name to Moses, shortening it to “I AM”. By this he means something we are able only with difficulty to take on board – that God has existence in himself; he is the eternal one; he is there – he has always been, and ever is, present. In other words, God, speaking well of God, tells us he exists; indeed, he has always existed! Wow! This could prove to be a first key that we puny ignorant humans need, for gaining access to real truth – truth first of all about God, but then, by listening to what God says, truth about ourselves, his creatures.  Well – this is only the beginning. We still need to check whether this is actually true. There is more to be said to back this up, as we shall see.

Clive Every-Clayton