1) Identity and God

Identity and God (click the arrow to listen)

For humans, identity begins with two things: a name and a body. Our name is our first identifier and the body confirms that. I am amused to think what would happen if parents of identical twins gave them both the same name! I also find it remarkable that most people retain the name they were given by their parents. It’s quite a responsibility for parents to choose something appropriate; and potential embarrassment for their children’s future adulthood if they don’t!

Why do I mention this; because when it comes to identifying God, these rules do not apply? God has no body to confirm His identity; and what is His Name? An Old Testament reference provides a cryptic clue:

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM who I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14)

Basically, God is saying that he does not need a name for He is unique in every way: He exists in divine uniqueness.

revelations

This is important because it confirms the basic belief of the Jewish faith: there is only one God. This faith was birthed in Abraham and his offspring when they lived surrounded by cultures which had many gods; and so, each of those gods had to be named to distinguish one from another. This is what made Israel seem so strange to the nations around them. Those nations thought them quite mad and even unenlightened to imagine there was only one God.

Now although God does not need an identity, He has graciously revealed Himself in different ways to help us understand Who He is (I will use male pronouns as is traditional and for ease of understanding; also remembering that God has no gender). This is why there are different names for God in the bible: it is not that He has aliases; rather He is concerned with conveying to us the knowledge of who He is.

privilege

These are some of His titles through which He reveals who He is:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

This shows us that God is Creator; and also that He is Spirit – He has no solid, material form:

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. (Genesis 2:4)

Here we have the extra revelation that as well as being the Spiritual Creator of the universe, He is also the Ruler of the universe – Lord.

There are other names in the Old Testament which describe God such as God Almighty, the Everlasting God, the God of Israel, the Most High God, etc. But there was a special name by which God made Himself known:

God also said to Moses, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. (Exodus 6:2-3)

LORD is also sometimes translated as Jehovah. The significance for us is that God is progressively revealing Himself and that this is the special name with which He chose to reveal Himself to His own special people. It is the name of privilege. They were special because they had been given God’s special Law through Moses. They could know God living among them if they obeyed that Law. Some Jews consider God’s name is so special that they do not use it in its full form but abbreviate it or use a euphemism (such as Heaven).

personal

This brings us on to the New Testament and to Jesus who further revealed more of who God is. In particular, Jesus deepened the personal revelation of God. Here, as a 12-year-old, He makes an astonishing remark:

‘Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he was saying to them. (Luke 2:49-50)

They could not understand at that time that the LORD could be known as personally as one knows a father.

Finally, as Jesus came to complete His earthly ministry, He brought one final breathtaking revelation to His apostles:

Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:18-20)

Jesus states that He now has all authority in the universe which is of course the sovereignty of God. He confirms that God is Spirit. But He also places Himself as Son centrally in this revelation of who God is. To make the point even more powerfully, Father, Son and Holy Spirit have ONE united NAME (it is a singular word). From this, of course, the Christian teaching of God as Trinity, three persons in one identity, derives.

vision

So, to begin with our look into Philippians, Paul wrote this:

for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. (Philippians 1:19)

This rich revelation of God as Trinity began to permeate the thinking and preaching of the first Christians. In this verse we have God, the Spirit and Jesus Christ. In the next chapter, Paul reveals this:

who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; (Philippians 2:6)

‘Who’ refers to Jesus who possesses the very nature of God and was fully equal with Him. And in the final chapter, this God is a personal Father:

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. (Philippians 4:19-20)

God does not need to discover His identity – He is I AM. And he exists in a realm which we cannot possibly understand which this last passage describes as ‘glory’. Glory is the manifestation of a pure, unique, spiritual being. The bible is full of words which attempt to describe God in all this brilliance. But words are limited; and we must never limit God either by our descriptions of his character or limit Him with our human intellect. The one thing we can definitely conclude is that God is not obsessed with a search for identity: ‘I AM who I AM’!