Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
When Moses saw a bush on Mt. Horeb covered with flames, and that the bush was not being burned up, he went to take a closer look.
"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.' . . . 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. . . . And the LORD said . . . 'Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt.'"
"And Moses said unto God, 'Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, "The God of your fathers has sent me unto you", and they shall say unto me, "What is His name?", what shall I say unto them?'"
"And God said to Moses, 'I Am that I Am.'"
Fill in the blank. Who met with Moses at the burning bush? ________________.
If you filled in the blank with "God", you are correct, but only in a narrow sense, for God was there in that burning bush only in spirit, not in person. Had God Almighty been there in person, the whole mountain would have been set on fire, not just a bush. He remained seated on His throne in heaven throughout this entire scene. During the young man Stephen's sermon in the book of Acts, just before he was stoned to death for the faith, he mentioned this event on Mount Sinai and said that Moses met with an angel, not with God Himself. Stephen said that an angel spoke with Moses on Mt. Sinai (Acts 7:38). Years ago, when I first noticed this, Stephen's statement struck me as significant, and I turned to Exodus, Chapter 3 to look at the story again. And there it was, as plainly stated as can be, at the very beginning of the story. When Moses first approached the mountain, before he even saw the bush, we are told, "And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. . ."
The word "angel" means "messenger" in both the Hebrew and Greek languages. When men are referred to as messengers of God, the same word for "messenger" is used as is used for "angels". Such men are often called by other names as well, such as "prophet" or "preacher". But heavenly messengers are almost always called in translations of the Bible "angels". This messenger from heaven, this angel on Mt. Sinai, had been sent to speak to Moses the word of God.
Notice now that in speaking to Moses, the angel said exactly what God had given him to speak, no less and no more. He said, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He did not preface his remarks to Moses by saying, "I am not really God Himself. I am just telling you what He said." No, he uttered the precise words he was sent to utter, and no more. Moreover, he responded to Moses' questions there on the mount only with what words God gave him at that moment to speak.
So, the truth that Stephen spoke to the elders of Israel who were about to kill him was this: God Himself was not in the burning bush talking to Moses, but His personal messenger was there, the "angel of the Lord".
Every one of God's prophets spoke the same way the angel on Mt. Sinai did. One moment, they would speak of God in the third person, as if He were far away in heaven, and the next moment God would be using their bodies to speak directly through them to Israel, saying "I say to you . . ." It is not a strange thing. It is the way God has chosen to work through men and angels.
In Peter's letter to the saints, he wrote that if any man speaks in the congregation, he should follow the example of God's messenger at Mt. Sinai and "speak as of the oracles of God" (1Pet. 4:11). In other words, my brother, say what God will have you to say (if He will have you to say anything), then glorify God with your silence. Everything beyond the will of God is sin.
In Hebrews, Chapter 1 (verses 1-2), we are told that God "at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets", but now, the writer goes on to say, God "hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son."
If the angel of the Lord had authority to repeat God's words, "I am that I am", should not the Son of God much more have that privilege, Jesus being not merely a messenger from heaven but also "the brightness of [God's] glory, and the express image of His person"?
Straining again to make something out of nothing, men who teach a Trinitarian philosophy of God stretch Jesus' statement beyond the snapping point. Jesus was only echoing to men the words of his heavenly Father. Jesus was, and is, a living echo of God's voice, a living reflection of His Father's person. Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn. 14:9), and "If ye had known me, ye should have known the Father also" (Jn. 14:7). But by such statements, was Jesus claiming to be his own Father? Of course not.
On other occasions, he would say things such as, "The Father is greater than I" (Jn. 14:28), and "I can of my own self do nothing. As I hear [from the Father], I judge" (Jn. 5:30). And he refused the flattering suggestion that he was good as his Father was good (Mk. 10:18).
Everything Jesus did and everything Jesus said was only by inspiration of God. Jesus said repeatedly that he only did and said what his Father sent him to do and say. In the beginning, the Son was the Father's agent in creating this entire cosmos--but only because his Father wanted the cosmos to be created! If the Father had not wanted the universe to be here, the Son would not have created it. We exist because the Father wanted us, not because the Son had a good idea.
The Son existed in glory with his Father before the foundation of the world (cp. Jn. 17:24). So, it is altogether within the bounds of reason and righteousness for him to say, "Before Abraham was, I am." His meaning was not at all, as Christian teachers say, that Jesus is one third of a nebulous "tri-personal deity". Nor do such statements from Jesus mean that the holy Spirit is a Person, combined with two other Persons to make up one Big Person. Nor do such statements mean that God is more than one Person mixed together, nor any combination of the above. Jesus was there with the Father before the foundation of the world, and by saying, "Before Abraham was, I am", he was merely revealing that truth to men. We need not read into that simple statement any more than what Jesus said.
The Jews desired that day to kill Jesus because they misunderstood his words to mean that he was claiming to be God Himself. What the Jews wrongly thought Jesus was claiming, Christians now have institutionalized with their Trinitarian faith, and throughout the past two thousand years have persecuted and killed many wise children of God for rejecting that heresy.
But the truth is simple. The Father created the Son, and the Son created everything and everybody else. They could both say truthfully, "Before Abraham was, I am."