Sinclair Ferguson

And what we have here in Exodus chapter 3 seems to be God's Exodus name, his redeeming name.

But this is not actually the first time the Lord, Yahweh, is used in the Scriptures.

It's used way back in Genesis chapter 2.

In Genesis chapter 12, when we are introduced to Abraham, the first thing that we're told is it was the Lord, L-O-R-D, block capital letters in our modern English translations, indicating this is Yahweh speaking.

So how do we solve this conundrum that God says to Moses, this is the first time anyone has ever known me as Yahweh,

And yet earlier on in Genesis, it's very clear that Yahweh is active.

Yahweh is speaking.

Yahweh is working.

Yahweh is making covenants with his people.

Well, I suppose the simplest way to try and understand it is to use a kind of analogy.

So I might say in 1914, when World War I broke out, President Reagan was three years old.

We understand that he wasn't then president, but he was one and the same person who became president.

He wasn't known as President Reagan, but he was the same person who was President Reagan.

That's a poor analogy, but it is an analogy to the fact that there is no point in time, no point in eternity where God is not the great I Am.

And there are some reasons for us to grasp this, that it's only in the light of the Exodus

that Moses writes Genesis.

I wonder if that's ever crossed your mind.

Moses did not write Genesis before the Exodus, but after the experience of the Exodus.

And so in a sense, what Moses understands is this, that it's encountering God as the redeemer, that he comes better to understand that God is also the creator.

And that carries some very important lessons for us.