1. God: the perfect being

In the Christian life, all things start with God. Every initiative is his. But who is God?

This is the very question Moses asks in Exodus 3. In one of Scripture’s most pivotal passages, God famously makes himself known to Moses. After God calls out to him from the burning bush on Mt Horeb and tasks him with leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses asks for God’s name. God’s response is simple but profound: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM’.” (Exo 3:14). The Hebrew word is YHWH, which is simply the verb “to be”.

It’s a watershed moment. Though somewhat enigmatic, the name of the Lord becomes the prominent marker of God’s special revelation to his people from that point forward. And while he will be known in other ways (such as the “God of their forefathers” and the “creator of the heavens and the earth”), the name YHWH stands above them all. “To be” is how he is to be known. “To be” is how his people are to understand themselves in relation to him. God simply is. And everything else needs to be understood in that light. Anything God has done or will do stems from the fact that he is. Being before doing.

This is significant because it tells us how God wants us to know him. “I am” implies a perpetual state of existence. It means God always is. He is pre-eminent, eternal, without beginning or end. “I am” teaches us about his absolute uniqueness in all existence. Nothing else exists in and of itself. God alone holds that mantle, which sets him apart as holy above everything. Moreover, “I am” means that everything else derives its own being (and therefore its own meaning and purpose) from him and him alone. Life in its entirety issues from the one who is “I am”.

In this, it’s essential to see that God does not become something through his (or someone else’s) action. His being doesn’t emerge from what he does. Awareness/knowledge of his being may arise from what he does, but his actual being does not. Nor does his being derive from some other external standard. He is singularly independent. Nothing can surpass “I am” in magnitude or perfection. His uniqueness sets the standard against which the quality of all life is measured. And he conforms perfectly to the standard he sets. Any sense of perfection or flawlessness in life must be measured against him. To understand and assess who I am, I must measure myself against the perfection of “I am”. “I am” is where everything starts.