Sinclair Ferguson

Perhaps that helps us to understand what is meant later in Exodus 6 when God says to Moses that although he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by my name, the Lord, I am Yahweh.

I did not make myself known to them.

And yet the name Yahweh is used dozens of times already in Genesis.

It's possible, of course, that the people didn't know it at all and had never heard it.

Perhaps Moses wrote Genesis as he did after the Exodus and used Yahweh all the way through.

Or perhaps he simply wanted to indicate that the God of Exodus was the God of creation and covenant and providence in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But perhaps what these words mean is that although they knew the covenant name Yahweh, they couldn't understand its meaning the way Moses and his generation would when they experienced the promises of God coming to pass with mighty power in the events of the Exodus.

Either way, it's clear in Genesis that I Am was already at work.

The Exodus wasn't the first time God had revealed himself to his people.

This wasn't the first covenant he ever made with them.

They weren't the first people he had helped.

The patriarchs knew, I am.

But we might say they didn't yet know just how great he was, as the one the hymn calls Jehovah, great I am.

And that's actually how God's revelation of Himself works in the Bible.

It's progressive and it's cumulative until He fully reveals Himself as the I AM in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the former days, the author of Hebrews says, God revealed Himself to His people at various times and in fragmentary ways.

Abraham didn't know the greatness of I am to the degree that Moses did.

And if the truth were told, neither Abraham nor Moses knew his greatness the way Isaiah did.

And if the truth be told, not even Isaiah knew the meaning of I am the way you and I do.

But there's a lesson for us here.