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| o wn is Greek for "he who is." |
THE LORD IS KNOWN BY HIS
SALVATION.
EXODUS 6:2-8
In
the name + of Jesus.
In this brief section, God gives his
name. Three times, he says, “I am the
LORD” (Exodus 6:2,6,8). When you see that name written in all capital
letters, it refers to a specific name that God gave for himself. It means, “I AM.” That tells us that the Lord is eternal and
unchanging. You and I change over
time—from childhood to adolescence to adulthood to elderly. Eventually, we pass away. But the Lord is without beginning and without
end. He does not change. He is always I AM. The other thing “I AM” tells us about the
Lord is that he is independent of everything.
If we managed to destroy our planet and every living thing on it, God
would not have changed. He does not
depend on us for survival, for approval, or for glory. But the Lord does not merely make himself
known by his qualities. He especially
makes himself known by his deeds. The
Lord is known by his salvation.
When the Lord appeared to Moses at the
burning bush, he told Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,
as God Almighty, but by my name, the LORD, I was
not known to them” (Exodus 6:3). This seems to contradict what the Bible says
back in Genesis. There, we read, “Abram
moved his tent and went to live by the oaks at Mamre, which are at Hebron, and
built an altar there to the LORD” (Genesis 13:18). Elsewhere,
Isaac and Jacob also built altars and called upon the LORD. So, they clearly knew his name. What does it mean that they didn’t know him
as the LORD?
The Lord makes himself known by his
salvation. The Lord told Moses, “I …
established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land
where they were residing as aliens” (Exodus 6:4). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each received a
promise from the Lord, but they never saw its fulfillment. And they certainly did not see God’s
salvation which he was about to bring about through Moses.
The Lord told Moses, “Tell the
Israelites, ‘I am the LORD. I will bring you out from under the forced
labor of the Egyptians. I will deliver
you from being their slaves. I will
redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment” (Exodus
6:6). Moses and the Israelites would see the Lord perform great acts of power
and judgment upon the Egyptians. After
the plagues, the Lord would save the people of Israel through the blood of the
Lamb at the Passover. When the Egyptian
army would pin the people of Israel down on the shores of the Red Sea, the Lord
would divide the waters so that Israel could pass through on dry ground. The Egyptian army would pursue the
Israelites, but the Lord would return the waters to their normal place and
destroy Israel’s enemy. Israel would
witness a great victory—a victory in which they did nothing but watch God’s
deliverance. So, while the people of
Israel knew the name of the LORD, they also witnessed his mighty acts of deliverance. They knew the LORD as the one who delivers
his people from bondage and brings them to the Promised Land. The Lord is known through his salvation.
You also know the Lord by his
salvation. The Lord became a man to
deliver mankind from the bondage to sin and to death. The eternal God entered our time. The God who is independent of all things made
himself dependent on Mary and Joseph. He
willingly accepted the mission for which his Father sent him into the world—to
deliver sinners from their sins and the punishment they have earned, and to
deliver people from their bondage of the grave.
The Lord will finally deliver you from a world of sin and sorrow to his
promised Paradise. The Lord is known by
his salvation
The Lord told Moses, “I will redeem you
with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment” (Exodus 6:6). The Lord’s outstretched arm refers to his
miraculous feats of power which he displayed against the Egyptians. When Jesus performed miracles, he
demonstrated his outstretched arm with power over creation, over illness and
disabilities, and even over the demons.
But when he acted to deliver you from sin, death, and hell, he did not
perform great feats of strength. Nevertheless,
Jesus’ salvation was done with outstretched arms.
Jesus went to the cross for you. To set you free from the bondage to sin,
Jesus bound himself to your sins and suffered the curse for you. He who is worthy of all the majesty of heaven
endured all the torments of hell to set you free. Jesus bound himself to your death and was
laid in a grave. But he destroyed the
bonds of sin and death when he rose from the dead. Jesus did that so that you are no longer shackled
to sin and death. Jesus has won the victory
over your enemies—a victory in which you did nothing but receive his
salvation. This is how God has revealed
his identity to you. The Lord is known
by his salvation. And since you have
been baptized into his name, the Lord gives you your identity: You are the
children of the Most High God.
Sadly, there are many who try to establish
their own identity apart from God’s design and God’s intention. There are men who say they identify as women
and women who say that they identify as men.
For some, this is a serious mental issue, and they need your mercy and
your prayers. For others, it is
rebellion against God who created them male or female.
While people creating their own identity
and taking pride in it seems to be a modern phenomenon, it is nothing new. Consider Adam and Eve back in the Garden of
Eden. God had created them as the crown
of his creation. They were made in the
image of God. They were created to love
God above all things and to love their neighbor as themselves. This is still God’s intention. This is what all people were created to
be. But Adam and Eve were not content
with what God had made them to be. They
were convinced they needed to establish a different identity. They bought into the devil’s lie, “God
knows that the day you eat from (the forbidden fruit), your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Just as Satan was not content to be what God
had created him to be, so he convinced people to do the same.
And is this not the root of all your
jealousy and bitterness? You see that
God has blessed someone differently than you, and you feel cheated. Your health is declining, and you become
bitter. Your job is not as exciting as
someone else’s because you only pay attention to your challenges while you
assume others bask in benefits and rewards.
Your marriage is not a Hollywood story, so you gaze at someone else’s
spouse and think it would be better with him or her. Repent.
This is what the Lord says, “You shall
not covet your neighbor’s house. You
shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male servant, his female servant, his
ox, his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17). To covet is to want something that God has
chosen not to give you. It is not merely
being discontent, it is also telling God, “You should have given me
better. You blessed me according to your
wisdom and love, but you are clueless. I
would rather have what you did not give.
I would rather be what you did not make me to be. You should have given me a different spouse,
different children, a different home, a different job, or a different
body. You are terrible at being a Father
who is supposed to care for his children.”
How should the Lord respond to our covetous heart?
Repent.
The God who created you knows you very
well. He knows the secrets of your heart. And he knows that your heart deceives you when
it assures you that all your feelings are justified and good. This is what the Lord says: “The heart is
more deceitful than anything. It is
beyond cure. Who can understand it”
(Jeremiah 17:9)? Therefore, God
tells you what he sees and knows. He
exposes your sinfulness to you. He shows
you that your sin makes you discontent.
He shows you that, because of your sin, you are never satisfied with your
family, your job, or your body. He wants
you to know that you will never find contentment until the Lord himself
provides it.
Rather than discard a corrupted humanity,
the Lord acted to redeem it. The Lord is
known by his salvation, and he has acted to redeem you from your jealousy, your
discontent, your bitterness, and any attempt to invent an identity apart from
him. The Lord has acted to restore
mankind into what he had originally created them to be.
He has renewed
you in the waters of baptism. No longer
are you bound to your sinfulness. The
Lord has created in you a clean heart and renewed in you a right spirit. With your renewed spirit, you know that it is
good to align your life according to God’s word. With your renewed spirit, the Lord enables you
to find joy and contentment in your renewed identity.
This renewal is on-going because the
sinful nature still clings to you. For
some, this renewal will be a great struggle because temptation will always have
a strong pull. The world will tell you
to exalt your feelings over God’s word and to exchange the image God renews in you
for your own preferred identity. If you
are engaged in such struggles, you will need to cling to your Savior all the
more—being guided by his word and strengthened by his sacrament. It may be a hard battle, and that battle may
go on for a long time. But the Lord is a
merciful and mighty Savior. He stands
with you in your struggles, and he upholds you in your weakness. He is known by his salvation, and he will not
abandon those who are struggling with their identity. Victory, contentment, and peace will only be
found in Jesus.
The Lord reveals your true identity, and it is found in your baptism. There, the Lord has applied to you the death and resurrection of Jesus. He has put to death the sinner and raised you up a saint. He who declares, “I am the LORD,” has put his name upon you to mark you as his very own. You are a child of the Most High God—beloved, redeemed, and renewed for godly purposes. The Lord is known by his salvation; and you are known by him as the ones he has saved.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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