"I AM hath sent me into you."--EXODUS iii. 10.
Every day I find it more and more true, that the Bible is full of good
news from beginning to end. The _Gospel_--that is good news--and the
best of all good news, is to be found in every book of it; perhaps if we
knew how to search the Scriptures, in every chapter and verse of it, from
beginning to end. For from beginning to end, from Genesis to
Malachi--from the Gospel of St. Matthew to the end of the Revelation--what
our Lord said of the Bible stands true: "They (the Scriptures) are they
which testify of ME" (John v. 39). The whole Bible testifies, bears
witness of Him, the One Unchangeable Christ, who said to Moses, "Say unto
the people, I AM hath sent me unto you."
Now let us think a while what that text means; for it has not to do with
Moses only, but with all God's prophets, evangelists, preachers. David
might have said the same to the Jews in his time, "I AM hath sent me unto
you." Elijah, Isaiah, St. Matthew, St. John, St. Paul, might have said
the same. And so may God's ministers now. And I, however sinful, or
ignorant, or unfaithful to my duty I may be, have still a right to say,
as I do now say solemnly and earnestly to you, "I AM hath sent me unto
you" this day.
But what do I mean by that? That ought to depend on what Moses meant by
it. Moses meant what God meant, and unless I mean the same thing I must
mean something wrong. And this is what I think it does mean:
First. I AM--the Lord Jesus Christ told Moses that his name was I AM.
Now you perhaps think that this is but a very common place name, for
every one can say of himself--I am--and it may seem strange that God
should have chosen for His own especial name, words which you and I might
have chosen for ourselves just as well. I daresay you think that you may
fairly say "_you are_," and that I can say fairly that "I am."
And yet it is not so. If I say "I am," I say what is not true of me. I
must say "I am something--I am a man, I am bad, or I am good, or I am an
Englishman, I am a soldier, I am a sailor, I am a clergyman"--and then I
shall say what is true of me. But God alone can say "I AM" without
saying anything more.
And why? Because God alone _is_. Everybody and everything else in the
world _becomes_: but God _is_. We are all becoming something from our
birth to our death--changing continually and becoming something different
from what we were a minute before; first of all we were created and made,
_and so became men_; and since that we have been every moment changing,
becoming older, becoming wiser, or alas! foolisher; becoming stronger or
weaker; becoming better or worse. Even our bodies are changing and
becoming different day by day.
But God never changes or becomes anything different from what He is now.
What He is, that He was, and ever will be. God does not even become
older. This may seem very strange, but it is true: for God made Time,
God made the years; and once there were no years to count by, no years at
all. Remember how long had God Himself been, before He made Time, when
there was no Time to pass over? Remember always that God must have
created Time. If God did not create Time, no one else did; for there is,
as the Athanasian Creed says, "One uncreated and One eternal," even God
who made Time as well as all things else.
Am I puzzling you? What I want to do is to make you understand that
God's life is quite utterly different from our life, or any way of living
and being which we can fancy or think of; lest you make to yourselves the
likeness of anything in heaven above or of the earth beneath, and think
that God is like that and so worship it, and have other gods beside the
true God, and so break the first and second commandments, as thousands do
who fancy themselves good Protestants, and hate Popery and idolatry, and
yet worship a very different sort of god from the "I AM," who sent Moses
to the children of Israel. Remember then this at least, that God was
before all things, and all worlds, and all Time; so that there was a time
when there were no worlds, and a time when there was no Time--nothing but
God alone, absolute, eternal, neither made nor created, the same that He
is now and will be for ever.
When I say "God is," that is a very different thing from God Himself
saying, "I AM." A different thing? Oh! my friends, here is the root of
the whole Gospel, the root of all our hope for this world and for the
world to come--for ourselves, for our own future, and the future of all
the world. Do you not see how? Then I will try to explain.
Many heathen men have known that there was one eternal God, and that _God
is_. But they did not know that God Himself had said so; and that made
them anxious, puzzled, almost desperate, so that the wiser they were, the
unhappier they were. For what use is it merely knowing that "_God is_"?
The question for poor human creatures is, "But what sort of a being is
God? Is He far off? Millions of miles from this earth? Does He care
nothing about us? Does He let the world go its own way right or wrong?
Is He proud and careless? A self-glorifying Deity whose mercy is _not_
over all His works, or even over any of them? Or does He care for us?
Does He see us? Will He speak to us? Has He ever spoken to any one? Has
He ever told any one about Himself?" _There is the question_--the
question of all questions. And if a man once begins thinking about his
own soul, and this world, and God,--till he gets that question answered,
he can have no comfort about himself or the world, or anything--till in
fact he knows whether God has ever spoken to men or not.
And the glory of the Bible, the power of God revealed in the Bible, is,
that it answers the question, and says, "God _does_ care for men, God
_does_ see men, God is not far off from any one of us." Ay, God speaks
to men--God spoke to Moses and said, not "God is" but "I AM." God in
sundry times and in divers manners _spoke_ to our fathers by the Prophets
and said "I AM."
But more--Moses said, "I AM hath sent me." God does not merely love us,
and yet leave us to ourselves. He sends after us. He sends to us. In
old times He sent prophets and wise men one after the other to preach
repentance and righteousness, and to teach men all that was good for
them; and when men would not listen to them, but shut their ears to them
and drove them out, killing some and beating some, God was so determined
to send to men, so unwearied, so patient, so earnest, so loving still,
that He said, "I will send now my own Son, surely they will hear Him."
Yes, my friends, this is the I AM. This is God--this is our God--this is
our Heavenly Father; not a proud and selfish Being, who looks down
haughtily from afar off on all the misery and ignorance of the world, but
as a wise man of old said, "A most merciful God, a revealer of secrets,
who showeth to man the things which he knew not." This is our God--not a
tyrant, but a Deliverer--not a condemning God, but a saving God, who
wills that none should perish, who sends to seek and to save those who
are lost, who sends His sun to shine on the just and the unjust, and is
good to the unthankful and the evil. A God who so loved the world which
He had made, in spite of all its sin and follies, that He spared not His
only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it. A God who sits on His
throne for ever judging right, and ministering true judgment among the
people, who from His throne beholds all those who dwell upon the earth,
and fashions the hearts of them, and understandeth all their works. A
God who comes out of His place to visit the wrong done on the earth, and
be a refuge for the oppressed, and a help in time of trouble, to help the
fatherless and poor unto their right, that the men of this world be no
more exalted against them.
This is _our God_. This is our Father--always condescending, always
patient, always loving, always just. And always active, always working
to _do good_ to all his creatures, like that exact pattern and copy of
Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work." (John v. 17).