Glory Be to Our Great God | Day 1 - God is The LORD
Give Thanks to the Triune, Covenant LORD Your God
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” - Exodus 3:14
And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. - Exodus 20:1-3
The Lord our God is but one only, living, and true God. . . . In this divine and infinite Being thre are three subsistences, the Father, the Word (or Son), and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and Eternity, each having the whole Divine Essence, yet the Essence undivided . . . - The 1689 London Baptist Confession
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” - Exodus 34:6-7
The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord. Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say taht there are three gods or lords. - The Athanasian Creed
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, - Matthew 28:19
Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. - Psalm 100:3
There is Something About That Name
Have you ever asked your parents if they ever considered naming you with a different name? I don’t remember the specific date, but I remember asking my parents if they wanted to give me a different name than “Joseph.” At one point, my mom said they considered calling me “Joshua” instead of “Joseph” to which I replied, “I’m so glad you named me ‘Joseph’ and not ‘Joshua’ because there are too many Joshuas.”
Names matter because they identify who that person or subject is from others, but sometimes, some names are chosen not just to distinguish but also to provide meaning to the person that is derivative from the name. For example, Joseph in Hebrew (יוֹסֵף) means “He shall add” whereas Joshua in Hebrew (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ) means “The LORD is Salvation.” As we begin exploring God and all that he is, we start by learning about his name. Yes, the one true living God has his own name: יהוה YHWH, “I AM WHO I AM” or “The LORD.”
The Triune, Covenant LORD is God
Throughout the Scriptures, God’s name “The LORD” is more than just a respectful title—this was his proper name. Since that is the case, let us be mindful of three realities about who the LORD is.
First, the LORD alone is God, meaning there is only one God that is and ever will be. God’s people have learned this throughout the ages by being surrounded by cultures and empires that were built on religious systems that worshiped multiple gods. If you want to have babies, go sacrifice to the Ba’al, the fertility god. If you want prosperity, worship Dagon, the god of the Philistines. Whether it’s Assyria and Babylon or Greece and Rome, hundreds of gods were worshiped each for different reasons. But the Bible breaks through the polytheistic noise of both then and now with the clear statement that only the LORD is God. In Exodus 3:14, “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Later, when giving the law on Mount Sinai, he tells Moses “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ‘You shall have no other gods before me’” (Exod. 20:1-3). The LORD is the only true and living God and every other god is but a worthless idol (Isa. 44:9-20), and although there are spiritual beings like angels and demons, all things were made by God. He isn’t just a different being. He is in a class of his own.1
Speaking of God’s people, second, the LORD is the almighty, transcendent God who rules all things, yet he also makes covenants with humanity. The LORD God didn’t need to create as if he was lonely or deficient in himself because he is the all-sufficient God, but he chose to create all things for his glorification (Rom. 11:33-36). On top of that, he not only creates human beings who are made in his likeness but also speaks and draws near to them to have a relationship with them.2 Throughout Scripture’s storyline, God has made covenants or “relationship[s] between two parties involving permanent and serious commitments of faithful, loyal love, obedience, and trust”3 with various human representatives, but every single one, like the rest of humanity, failed to keep their commitments with God due to sin. Ever since Adam, humanity’s federal and covenant head, sinned with Eve in the garden, all humanity has been dead in sinful rebellion against the lordship of God. But, we don’t see God terminate his relationship with humanity after Adam, but instead he promised that an offspring of Eve will one day crush the enemy that tempted humanity to sin against God.
So how does the Covenant LORD God bring about the fulfillment of his promises to rescue humanity from their sin? This brings us to the third reality about God: the LORD is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God has always been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons (or modes of subsistence, to be technical) who share the same divine nature. The Trinity is the LORD God who planned before the foundation of the world those whom he would save. In love, God the Father predestined to save sinners to make them holy and blameless by sending the eternally begotten Son into the world to take on human nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Son in his humanity lived the perfectly obedient life that sinful humanity couldn’t achieve, died in the place of sinners taking the wrath of God for their rebellion, rose from the dead by the Father and the Holy Spirit, and ascended to heaven to intercede for those who trust in him. Jesus, the incarnate Son of God sits on the right hand of God as our covenant head in the New Covenant he enacted with his own blood and resurrection so that those who trust in him have eternal life, no condemnation, and fellowship with the Triune LORD God.4
This LORD is Your God. How Marvelous!
It’s one thing to state the glorious reality that “The LORD is God,” but what happens when this LORD is your God? How can it be that this mysterious, transcendent Triune LORD be associated with us? That’s how amazing the God of the Bible is! The LORD is the almighty God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who does not need anything and yet not only created all things but also chose to save a people for his own possession. The fundamental questions for every human to answer must not only be “Who are we?” but also before that “Whose are we?” Do we belong to this infinite God who is the sovereign LORD over all?
If your answer is “no,” then I have the greatest news for you. Today, you can know God personally by entrusting your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate, who came to seek and save the lost (Luke 10:19). The LORD God sent his only begotten Son to save sinners like you and me so that we would no longer be enemies but friends with the Triune King. You can belong to the LORD today by dethroning yourself from the throne of your life and acknowledging Jesus as your only king and savior of your life. This Jesus, whose name is the same as Joshua, is your only salvation. The Triune, Covenant LORD alone can save, and he alone is what your life truly needs.
Father, thank you that you are God and Lord over all. There is none like you and beside you, and yet you reveal yourself to us the God who makes and keeps his covenant promises. You have shown yourself as the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and enjoy perfect love within yourself. And yet, according to your sovereign plan, you chose to demonstrate your glory by not only creating all things but redeeming them through Jesus, the Son of God incarnate. Thank you that you have made me yours through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. I belong to you as your beloved child, and you belong to me as my Lord. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.
Gerald Bray, The Attributes of God: An Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 16. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 176-7.
Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1: From Canon to Concept (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 573.
Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 165.
Wellum, Systematic Theology, 574-5.