This calling One is the very God (3:4, 6, 14). The Hebrew word for God is Elohim, which means the mighty One who is faithful in His oath. God is not only mighty, but also faithful to fulfill His covenant. If we would be called by the Lord, we must realize that He is mighty and faithful, mighty to do everything for us and faithful to keep His word.
Verse 6 says, “Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The phrase “the God of thy father” denotes history with God. When God comes to call you, He should not be a stranger to you. If He is a stranger as far as you are concerned, then you are not qualified to be called by Him. To say that God is the God of our father does not mean that He is the God of our father in the flesh, for our natural father may not be a child of God. When we were saved, we gained another genealogy, a spiritual lineage. For this reason Paul told the Corinthians that he begot them in the gospel (1 Cor. 4:15). Paul was not married, and thus he had no children in the flesh. But he had a great many spiritual children. Every believer in Christ has a spiritual father. In the eyes of God, the Lord who calls you is the God of your spiritual father. Moses’ father in the flesh was a godly man. Therefore, when God called Moses, He referred to Himself as the God of “thy father.” This indicates a history with God. When God appeared to Moses and called him, He was not a stranger, for He had been with Moses’ family for generations.
The God of Moses’ father was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. This means that God is the God of every kind of person. We may be a good person like Abraham, a somewhat neutral person like Isaac, or a supplanter like Jacob. But whatever we are, God is our God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the all-inclusive God. Whenever God comes to call you, He is always the all-inclusive One.
God is the God of our father, and He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. These titles of God also indicate the God of the covenant. The covenanting God is for everyone. No matter who you may be, He is your God, and He is qualified to call you.
Now we come to the most wonderful title of God: “I AM THAT I AM” (3:14-15). In verse 14 the Lord instructed Moses, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” The Lord’s name is I Am. In other words, His name is simply the verb “to be.” We are not qualified to say that we are. We are nothing; only He has being. Therefore, He calls Himself, “I AM THAT I AM.” The Chinese version speaks of Him as “the self-existing One and ever-existing One.” “I Am” denotes the One who is self-existing, the One whose being depends on nothing apart from Himself. This One is also the ever-existing One, that is, He exists eternally, having neither beginning nor ending.
In John 8:58 the Lord Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I am.” As the great I Am, the Lord is the eternal, ever-existing God.
We have seen that in 3:14 the Lord told Moses to say to the children of Israel that I Am had sent him. The words “I Am” are not a complete sentence, but function here as a name, even a unique name. This name, as we have seen, is actually the verb “to be.” Only God qualifies to have this verb applied to His being, for only He is self-existent. You and I must realize that we are not self-existent.
As I Am, God is everything we need. To the words “I Am” we can add whatever we may need. Are you tired? The I Am is your rest. Are you hungry? He is your food. Are you dying? He is life. In the New Testament the Lord uses many things to describe Himself: “I am the true vine” (John 15:1), “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), “I am the light” (John 8:12). As I Am, God is everything—heaven, earth, air, water, trees, birds, cattle. This is not pantheism, the religious belief that identifies God with the material universe. I do not say that everything is God, but I do declare that God is the reality of every positive thing. This implies that God must be you, even the reality of your very being. We can say to Him, “Lord, You are me.” If the Lord is not us, then we are nothing, and we have no reality. This great I Am, the all-inclusive One, is the One who has come to call us. It is not heresy to say that our God is the all-inclusive One. It is a truth full of light. Only those who are blind and who are in darkness oppose such truth.
I can testify that for the more than fifty years of my Christian life the I Am has been sustaining me. Because of His sustaining me with what He is, I have never backslidden. Furthermore, I have been able to continue in the ministry for more than forty years. I know the One who called me. I have been called by the I Am. The One who called me sustains me all the time. No human language can adequately express what He is.
Finally, the calling One is “Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews” (3:18, Heb.). The word “Hebrew” means river-crosser. The river-crossers are a separated people, people separated from the world. If we would be called by God, we must see that, as the calling One, God is the God of the river-crossers, the separated people. As such a God, He is not the God of those in Babel nor is He the God of those in Egypt, because they are not separated. If we are not separated from the world, God cannot be our God. He is not the God of the Egyptians, but the God of the Hebrews, of the people who have crossed the river for the fulfillment of His purpose.