Just a few exegetical sketches on a couple of oddities I found. This is how the incident at the burning bush is described.
“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? 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. 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” (Ex. 3:13-15).
Moses wants to know who to say sent him. God replies with I AM THAT I AM. Then, in addition to that, God told him to say “The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham . . .” The phrase the God of Abraham is in apposition to the Lord God of your fathers. So mark that.
On one occasion, the phrase I AM THAT I AM is applied by Jesus in a way as to make His listeners want to hurl stones at Him and kill Him for blasphemy.
“Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 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” (John 8:57-58).
Jesus does not say, “Before Abraham was, I was too.” Rather, He is pointing to something about the very nature of Deity. Before Abraham was, I AM. Note how He is messing with our notion of temporal referents.
Before Abraham
was, I AM. Before there were any befores, I AM.
This also comes up in the exchange with the Saducees, and here Christ’s quotation of Exodus is clearly conflated. But how is it conflated?
And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err” (Mk. 12:24-27).
Notice that the word am is italicized here, meaning that it is not in the original. Literally we have “I the God of Abraham . . .” It is certainly legitimate to supply the
am, particularly since Matthew does (with
ego eimi, I am). But we still have the question of what the
am is doing there.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine” (Matt. 22:29-33).
Now here we have a couple of choices. Is Christ saying, “I am [currently being] the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? Given what we have seen thus far, I don’t think so. Or is He saying. “I AM, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? In the original passage in Exodus, a reasonable conflation would be this: “The Lord God of your fathers, I AM THAT I AM, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you.”
But if we take this route, how does this refute the Saducees? Before answering this question, we should note how the present-tense argument doesn’t answer the Saducees. The way this is typically taken, God is saying “I am the God of Abraham, and in order that this use of the present tense might really prove this case, I would only say that in order for me to currently be the God of Abraham, he has to be around here somewhere.” The problem is that when that present tense was used, the resurrection hadn’t happened yet, and Jesus was proving the resurrection, not continued consciousness after death. When God said this to Moses, Abraham was dead in the ground. His spirit was in Sheol. When Jesus quoted it to the Saducees, Abraham was still dead in the ground. In both Mark and Matthew, Jesus is emphatically arguing for the resurrection of the dead, an event still in our future. Mark says, “as touching the dead, that they rise” and Matthew says “as touching the resurrection of the dead.” The use of the present tense at the time of Moses proves nothing about resurrection either way. The fact that God was at that moment in communion with the spirit of Abraham proves the continuation of consciousness after death, and does not prove that the dead will rise from their graves many thousands of years later.
I think Christ’s argument is far more potent than an ineffective appeal to an irrelevant use of the present tense. Before Abraham, I AM. While Abraham, I AM. After Abraham, I AM. He is not arguing, “I am currently being the God of Abraham up here in heaven.” No, he is saying “I AM the God of Abraham.” And how can the I AM THAT I AM God be anything other than the God of the living?
This is cinched, in my view, by the last phrase from the Exodus passage — “this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.” The name of God was a memorial to all generations. What was that name? I AM THAT I AM. This name is for whom? All generations. And it is to function as what? As a memorial. What is this memorial? It is a promise, like the rainbow to Noah. I AM THAT I AM is a promise to us. And it is a promise from God that God, the God of our fathers, I AM THAT I AM, will fulfill all His promises. And He will do it by raising the dead. How could the great I AM do anything else?
The argument does not hinge on the tense. It hinges on the Name of the Eternal Present, the Faithful One, the Memorial for all generations. And that is exactly what this Name has done.
