Pre-Mosaic Existence Of God As I Am
The divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush—"I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14)—declares God's self-existence and eternal being [3]. This name signifies that God is "the Being of beings," whose essence includes all time: past, present, and future [3]. The formulation expresses not merely present existence but constancy across all temporal modes: "I am what I have been, and I am what I shall be, and shall be what I am" [3]. The name speaks of a God who is "self-sufficient, self-existent, all encompassing, and without limitations, the one being in the universe who is not dependent on something else for his existence" [8].
The Metaphysical Foundation
In scholastic theology, God's essence and existence are identical—a unique property distinguishing the divine being from all creatures [6]. Whatever exists besides God has existence caused either by constituent principles or by exterior agency, but God is His own existence [6]. This self-evident character of divine being means that in God, the predicate "exists" is included in the essence of the subject [4]. The philosophical tradition, including Platonists and Pythagoreans, appears to have borrowed concepts of eternal and invariable Being from this Hebraic revelation [3].
Christ's Appropriation of the Divine Name
When Jesus declared, "Before Abraham came into existence, I AM" (John 8:58), he claimed the divine name for himself [2]. This statement asserts more than temporal priority; it identifies Jesus with the eternal, self-existent God who revealed himself to Moses [5]. The formulation "I am" recurs throughout Scripture as God's self-designation, applied by Jesus to himself and recognized in Revelation as encompassing all divine action: "Alpha and Omega," the first and last letters signifying that "God's actions are all-encompassing" [9].
The pre-Mosaic existence of God as "I AM" is thus not a temporal claim but an ontological one. God's being precedes and grounds all created reality, including the patriarchal era. The sacrificial system instituted "from the beginning" presupposes this eternal divine justice and operates within the framework of God's unchanging nature [7]. Even Job's acknowledgment—"before God I am like you; I myself was also formed from clay" [1]—implicitly contrasts creaturely contingency with the divine self-existence that requires no formation, no cause, no temporal beginning.
Sources
- Job “Job 33:6 (LEB) — Look, before God ⌞I am like you⌟; I myself was also formed from clay.”
- John “Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.” -- John 8:58”
- Exodus (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Exodus 3:14: And God said unto Moses, I am that I am,.... This signifies the real being of God, his self-existence, and that he is the Being of beings; as also it denotes his eternity and immutability, and his constancy and faithfulness in fulfilling his promises, for it includes all time, past, present, and to come; and the sense is, not only I am what I am at present, but I am what I have been, and I am what I shall be, and shall be what I am. The Platonists and Pythagoreans seem to have borrowed their from hence, which expresses with them the eternal and invariable Being; and s”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part (Prima Pars), The Existence of God, Art. 1: Article: Whether the existence of God is self-evident? I answer that, A thing can be self-evident in either of two ways: on the one hand, self-evident in itself, though not to us; on the other, self-evident in itself, and to us. A proposition is self-evident because the predicate is included in the essence of the subject, as "Man is an animal," for animal is contained in the essence of man. If, therefore the essence of the predicate and subject be known to all, the proposition will be self-evident to all; as is c”
- John (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on John 8:55: Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you,.... Whether it will be believed or not, it is certainly fact: before Abraham was, I am; which is to be understood, not of his being in the purpose and decree of God, foreordained to sufferings, and to glory; for so all the elect of God may be said to be before Abraham, being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world: or that Christ was man, before Abraham became the father of many nations; that is, before the calling of the Gentiles; for nothing is said in the text about his being the father of many natio”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part (Prima Pars), On the Simplicity of God, Art. 4: Article: Whether essence and existence are the same in God? I answer that, God is not only His own essence, as shown in the preceding article, but also His own existence. This may be shown in several ways. First, whatever a thing has besides its essence must be caused either by the constituent principles of that essence (like a property that necessarily accompanies the species---as the faculty of laughing is proper to a man---and is caused by the constituent principles of the species), or by some exterior age”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 101: Mosaic, or Christian, were founded on the assumption of the justice of God, and were designed to impress that great truth in the minds of men. They take for granted that men are sinners; and that, being sinners, they need expiation for their guilt as well as moral purification, in order to salvation. Sacrifices, therefore, were instituted from the beginning to teach the necessity of expiation and to serve as prophetic types of the only effectual expiation which, in the fulness of time, was to be offered for the sins of men. 492 Without t”
- Exodus (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Exodus 3:14: 3:14 I Am Who I Am: This name speaks of a God who is self-sufficient, self-existent, all encompassing, and without limitations, the one being in the universe who is not dependent on something else for his existence.”
- Revelation (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Revelation 1:8: 1:8 I am is the name of God in the Old Testament (Exod 3:13-14; 6:2; Deut 6:4). Jesus applied this name to himself (cp. John 4:26). Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet; they signify that God’s actions are all-encompassing. God is fully in control.”