By Jonathan Keller
The LORD passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD.’
Moses, the unlikely leader of a wandering people called Israel, heard these words nestled in a small nook in a mountainside in the middle of the wilderness east of Egypt. The wanderers had just escaped several centuries of slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, led by this leader and this God. To honor this God, they took their golden Egyptian plunder and fashioned themselves a golden calf statue and engaged in much debauchery while Moses ascended this wilderness mountain called Mt. Sinai.
Over the next seven weeks, I want to meditate on the Lord’s speech to Moses here. This is God’s identity statement, an “About Me” page addressed to His people who so quickly cast aside who He is. God’s identity in these words adorns the history and prayers of the Israelites, and this same God came down as the man Jesus to save the world for Himself. These words, for us today, offer a sturdy foundation to live our lives properly under His design.
Who is the Lord?
“The LORD, the LORD” is God’s repetition of His name from Exodus 3:14-15. We render the words as “the LORD” in English with capital letters when this personal name is used, but the word “Lord” comes to us by way of post-exilic tradition rather than the Hebrew text. “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” are attempts to transliterate the Hebrew word, and the sense of Hebrew is that God’s name sounds like the word meaning “to be.” Where other gods may claim limited domains over different aspects of creation, the God of the Bible lays claim to existence itself. The whole of creation finds its origin in God, and the LORD alone is master of all that is because everything that is only is because He always and forever is.
Matter is not matter without the LORD’s being. Energy is not energy without the LORD’s being. Because the LORD is, He always is – yesterday, today, and forever. He alone deserves worship, therefore, because He is not some idol that was once rock or wood and then, by the hands of a craftsman, became to be. He deserves worship because He is not some thought that was conjured as a result of our pernicious attitudes. We are because He is. We think because He is.
And He who is has spoken to Moses and declared that He wants to be in special relationship with His people. He who is and will always be steps down, in love, to make a Creator-creature relationship that stands in contrast to all of creation’s relationship. Eternity Himself wants to be with people who are but rebellious dust. Behold, this is the LORD over all creation! Adore Him who lives forever!