Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
We read in the New Testament that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever. The title of this series says there is something about God. One “something” about Him is that although He is eternally the same ([Hebrews 13:8] I’ll not flesh out the concept that Jesus is God here) He is not “known” the same way at all times. Although it was the same unchanging individual in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God…” as here in Exodus 6, he says of himself: “by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them”. Their practical understanding of this same God was different despite Him being exactly the same.
In the very first words of the Bible God simply was and He “created”. Shortly thereafter He “walked” in a garden with the first two of our kind. He had conversed with the original one (Adam) and walked with the two. When the two sinned and became different, He was not different. When: “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking…” they hid themselves. Their understanding of Him was that he did not know what had happened. If the Bible ended there we’d be left with that same understanding, that God would be in the dark about events that did not happen in His presence. But read on and we find that not only does He know about what we’ve done but He knew before the “in the beginning…” of Genesis 1:1. Simply put, God’s has experienced the whole of time before time was. God’s complete error-free knowledge of your entire life existed prior to time. This is another “something” about God, that He isn’t confined or defined by time, He is eternal.
When we experience God our experience will be different than is was for Adam before he sinned. Our understanding of Him will be different than it was for Enoch who never experienced God as a sinless human. Then think about Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, etc. and finally through to the Apostles. The Apostles experience was ground-breaking in that they and those in the upper room at the day of Pentecost were converted from unregenerated sinners to regenerated sinners. This was a first in human history. Now those who became true christians had a spirit again. Adam and Eve had experienced God while both sinless humans with a spirit and as sinners without a spirit. Every soul after them until the upper room could only experience God as a sinner without a spirit. Then came the day of Pentecost where a select few sinners not only had their spirits quickened but were sealed and indwelt by the very Holy Spirit of God.
Of necessity then, the experience of a regenerated sinner must be different than that of anyone before them. Every person born on earth beginning with Cain was born an unregenerated sinner with a dead spirit. Up until the day of Pentecost God would partake of an experiential relationship with mankind based on certain parameters. At the day of Pentecost the parameters to have an experiential relationship with Him forever changed. He says “ye must be born again.”
More to follow…