"I Am That I Am" # 1

"I Am That I Am" # 1

Exodus 3:14

The believer is called to wayfaring and warfaring struggles. He has to bear a daily cross to fight a daily fight. But in every hour of need a sure support is near. Behold Moses. The ground which he must tread is very slippery. The hill of his difficulties is very steep. A foe opposes every step. But a staff and a sword are provided for him in the name of his guiding and protecting Lord. "I AM THAT I AM." On this he can lean the whole burden of his cares, and fears, and pains. By this he can scatter kings as dust. This support is still the same, ever mighty, ever near. The feeblest pilgrim may grasp it by the hand of faith. And whoever grasps it is "as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abides forever."

"I AM THAT I AM." Such is the voice from the burning bush. The Speaker, then, is hidden in no mask of mystery. It is the angel of the everlasting Covenant. It is the great Redeemer. He would establish His people on the firm rock of comfort. Therefore with trumpet-tongue He thus assures them that all the majesty, all the supremacy, all the glory of absolute and essential Deity, are His inherent right. O my soul, into what a speck must poor man dwindle before such greatness! The limits of the mind cannot scan it. Intellect would desire to fly on eagle's wing around the ever-widening circle. But vain is the effort. Its height is on heaven's summit. What mortal arm can reach it? It is as space which has no bounds. What human line can measure it? Our mortal eyes cannot pierce unlimited expanse. Our scales cannot weigh the mountains. Our vessels cannot measure the ocean's depths. So our faculties are too short to probe the immensities of God. To grasp divine essence requires divine largeness. "I AM THAT I AM" alone can read the volume of that title.

Shall we then repine? What! repine because our God is so great? Where is the subject who frets because he cannot count his prince's treasures? Let us rather bow our heads in pious adoration. Let us rather give thanks that a mine is open in which the very dust is gold! Let us rather humble ourselves, that we are so slow and careless to gather up the manna of rich truth which falls at the door. Let us rather pray the Spirit to illumine more clearly the written page. Let us rather long for the day when every cloud which veils our God shall brighten into perfect light; and when His people 'shall be like Him, for they shall see Him as He is.' Come then, and with such loving teachableness let us take our seat beside this sea of truth, and strive with reverence to touch the spray which sparkles on the shore.

"I AM THAT I AM." Here the first sound is eternity. Jesus, as God, here puts on eternity as His robe. He knows no past. He knows no future. He lives unmoved in one unmoving present. He stretches through all the ages which are gone and which are yet to come. His only bounds are immeasurable boundlessness. Before time was born, He is "I AM THAT I AM." When time shall have expired, He still is "I AM THAT I AM." If there had been the moment when His being dawned, His name would be, I am what I shall not be." But He is, "I AM THAT I AM." Thus He treads first and last beneath His feet. He sits on the unbroken circumference of existence, as He who ever was, and ever is, and ever shall be. Let thought fly back, until in weariness it faint; let it look onward until all vision fail; it ever finds Him the same "I AM."

Reader! look down now from this astounding glory and fix your eye on Bethlehem's manger. A lowly Baby lies in the lowly cradle of a lowly town, the offspring of a lowly mother. Look again. That child is the eternal "I AM." He whose Deity never had birth, is born "the woman's Seed." He, whom no infinitudes can hold, is contained within Infant's age, and Infant's form. He, who never began to be, as God, here beings to be, as man. And can it be, that the great "I AM THAT I AM" shrinks into our flesh, and is little upon our earth, as one newborn of yesterday? It is so! The Lord promised it. Prophets foretold it. Types prefigured it. An angel announces it. Heaven rings with rapture at it. Faith sees it. The redeemed rejoice in it.

But why is this wonder of wonders? Why is eternity's Lord a Child of time? He thus stoops, that He may save poor wretched sinners such as we are. Could He not do so by His will or by His word? Ah! no. He willed, and all things were. He speaks, and all obey. But he must die, as man, that a lost soul may live. To rescue from one stain of sin, the Eternal must take the sinner's place, and bear sin's curse and pay sin's debt, and suffer sin's penalty, and wash out sin's filth, and atone for sin's malignity. "I AM THAT I AM" alone could do this. "I AM THAT I AM" has done it.

What self-denial, what self-abasement, what self-emptying is here! Surely, royalty in rags, angels in cells, is no descent compared to Deity in flesh! But mighty love moves Jesus to despise all shame,and to lie low in misery's lowest mire. Through ages past His delights were with the sons of men. Eternity to come is but a void, unless His people share His glory. Therefore He humbles Himself to earth, that specks of earth may rise to heaven's immortality. Believer, you rejoice in prospect of thus living with Him forever. But why is thee full rapture in the thought? Do not you feel that the crowning ecstasy is in this? Eternity will afford you time to gaze with steady look on a Saviour's glories, to sing with unwearied hymn a Saviour's praise, to bless with perpetual blessing a Saviour's name, and to learn with ever-expanding knowledge a Saviour's worth!

~William Law~

(continued with # 2)