Pointing to Jesus (Exodus 3)

Summary:

While tending Jethro’s flock in Midian, Moses encounters God at the burning bush on Mount Horeb. 

The bush burns but is not consumed, prompting Moses to turn aside. 

God reveals Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, declares His awareness of Israel’s suffering, and commissions Moses to deliver His people from Egypt. 

Moses objects repeatedly (“Who am I…?”, “What is Your name?”, “They will not believe me”), but God answers with the name “I AM WHO I AM” (YHWH), promises miraculous signs, and assures Moses of His presence. 

The chapter ends with God foretelling Pharaoh’s refusal and the eventual plundering of Egypt.

Pointing to Jesus:

The central Christological pointer is the divine name “I AM WHO I AM” (YHWH) and God’s declaration “I will be with you” (v. 12). 

In John 8:58, Jesus explicitly applies this eternal “I AM” to Himself (“Before Abraham was, I am”), identifying Himself as the covenant God of Exodus 3. 

This reveals the absolute sovereignty and self-existence of God in redemption: salvation is grounded not in human ability (Moses repeatedly protests his inadequacy) but in the unchanging, self-sufficient being of God who decrees and accomplishes deliverance by His own power. 

The same “I AM” who later says to Moses “I will be with your mouth” (Exod. 4:12) is the One who, in the fullness of time, became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), securing the redemption of the elect by His own blood—apart from any human merit or cooperation (Eph. 1:3–7; Titus 3:5).

Reflection:

Exodus 3 teaches that God meets us in the wilderness and calls us by sovereign grace, not because of our qualifications. 

Moses was an 80-year-old fugitive shepherd—yet the holy God singled him out at an ordinary bush and transformed it into holy ground. 

For believers, this means every mundane moment (a daily commute, a hospital room, a season of failure) can become sacred when the great I AM speaks. Our instinctive response, like Moses’, is often fear and self-disqualification (“Who am I?”), but God’s answer is never about our sufficiency; it is always “I will be with you.” The Christian life is therefore lived in continual dependence on the presence of the One who is eternally self-existent, who calls us not to self-confidence but to God-confidence, and who equips the called rather than calling the equipped. When we feel most inadequate for the tasks set before us—parenting, witnessing, suffering, serving—we can hide in the unshakable promise: the eternal I AM is with us, and that is enough.