Definition · Webster 1828 · Scriptures · Corruption · Roots · Usage · Related
📖 Biblical Definition
I AM That I AM is the most theologically dense name of God in Scripture — the self-existing, self-defining, time-transcending Name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. When Moses asked God what to tell the Israelites when they ask for His name, God answered: "I AM THAT I AM... Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you" (Exod 3:14). The Hebrew Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh is built on the verb "to be" (hayah) — God names Himself by being itself, the only entity that is its own ground of existence. From this self-revelation comes YHWH (Yahweh / Jehovah), the tetragrammaton, the personal covenant name of God. The supreme weight of this name appears in John 8:58 when Christ Himself claimed it directly: "Before Abraham was, I AM." The Greek egō eimi — without a predicate — is the Septuagint's translation of Ehyeh; Christ's listeners understood instantly what He was claiming and "took they up stones to cast at him" for blasphemy. Christ also uses egō eimi in His seven Johannine "I AM" sayings (bread of life, light of the world, door, good shepherd, resurrection and the life, way truth life, true vine) — each applying the divine Name to His own person and work. To confess Jesus is Lord is to confess Him as the I AM of the burning bush — eternal, self-existing, God Himself.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
God's self-revelation of His Name to Moses at the burning bush; the source of YHWH; the Name Christ explicitly applied to Himself (John 8:58).
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I AM THAT I AM, noun. The Name by which God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:14). Hebrew Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. The source of the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh).
Christ applied this Name to Himself: "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). His listeners understood and took up stones to kill Him for blasphemy.
📖 Key Scripture
Exodus 3:14 — "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
John 8:58-59 — "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple."
John 18:5-6 — "They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And as soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground."
Revelation 1:8 — "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
I AM is corrupted when modernist scholarship reduces the burning-bush revelation to evolved Yahweh-worship rather than direct divine self-disclosure, or when Christ's John 8:58 claim is downgraded to mere prophetic self-importance rather than the explicit divine self-identification His hearers correctly perceived.
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Evolutionary-religion reduction. Source-critical Old Testament scholarship often treats the Exodus 3:14 revelation as the product of evolved Israelite religion — a god-name developed over centuries rather than directly revealed at the burning bush. But the canonical text presents it as direct revelation in a specific moment, and the NT (Christ Himself) treats it as such. To strip the direct-revelation event is to lose the gospel logic: the same God who revealed Himself to Moses now reveals Himself in the Son who applies the same Name to His own Person.
John 8:58 dismissal. Modern liberal theology often softens Christ's "Before Abraham was, I AM" to merely "I existed before Abraham" — a striking but not divine claim. But the Greek egō eimi without a predicate is the LXX translation of Exodus 3:14; Christ's hearers immediately understood the divine claim and tried to stone Him for it (John 8:59). The grammar, the response of the audience, and the canonical context all confirm: Christ claimed to be the I AM of Exodus 3:14. To soften this is to deny what the text plainly says and what the original audience plainly heard.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (H1961 + H834 + H1961) — "I will be what I will be"; God's self-revealed Name; the source of YHWH.
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Hebrew Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh — "I AM that I AM" or "I will be what I will be"; built on the verb hayah (to be)
Source of the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh) — the personal covenant Name of God in the OT
Greek egō eimi (without predicate) — Septuagint translation; the formula Christ uses in John 8:58 and the seven Johannine I AM sayings
Self-existence, time-transcendence, ground-of-being-itself — the only Name where God names Himself by being itself
Usage
"I AM THAT I AM — God's self-revelation at the burning bush; the only Name where God names Himself by being itself."
"Before Abraham was, I AM — Christ's direct claim to be the same I AM Moses met at the burning bush."
"When the soldiers came to arrest Christ in Gethsemane and He said "I am he," they went backward and fell to the ground — the divine Name has weight."