Exodus 3:1-12

I.   Introduction

Our passage is the historic call of Moses with a promise.  But it is living history for each of us because the same person and word come to us.

II. God calls Moses with a promise.

1.  Our text is a part of the larger section continuing through chapter four of the commission of Moses as the deliverer of the people of God.  I take these verses to represent the call of God.  The text is divided in vs. 1-6 with the divine presence and identity (what and who); vs. 7-12 is the proclamation of the presence (said).

2.  It is instructive for each of us that Moses has been in the wilderness for forty years.  I think the years were hard on Moses.  I think he has abandoned any sense that he is the deliverer he once thought he was.  I think the years have stripped him of his confidence.  It is the way of God.  God does not need Moses’ strength, court education, or strategy because God does not compete with our identity.  See I Corinthians 1:26-29.  Appl:  humility.

3.  What is this?  The text reads an angel of the Lord appears in a blazing fire in the midst of a bush.  The miracle is that the bush was not consumed (literally eaten).  It turns Moses to investigate. 

4.  The messenger calls to Moses.  And Moses responds.  Here I am.  What does the bush represent?  I take it as a mobile temple in microcosm perhaps foreshadowing the tabernacle (AF1).  First, there is the holy ground.  Temples are holy places because God is present.  Furthermore, the location is the mountain of God.  Horeb is the same as Sinai where God will meet with Moses.   God lives on mountains.  God lives on Mount Zion (Isaiah 8:18, Revelation 14:1).   Illus:  Mount Olympus (borrowed concept from us).  The word for fire is also instructive.  This word is predominately used in contexts of either God’s revelation of himself or man’s approach to God in worship and sacrifice.  The tree or bush is a type of the golden lampstand as a microcosm itself of the tabernacle.  The angel is a theophany (theos + epiphany); the text identifies God as speaking.  The word is literally messenger; thus, the messenger represents the heavenly court.  Because of this, I take the angel to be the pre-incarnate Christ.  The NT confirms this. More particularly, God meets with us in a temple.  Illus:  He meets with us in Jesus Christ who is the temple of God. 

5.  The covenant God is breaking into history in the pre-incarnate Christ. 

And Moses responds with worship.  He hides his face in fear.  It is instinctive.  Appl:  we are losing the fear of the Lord.

6.  We now know who and what has confronted Moses.  God has called from a mobile temple representing the heavenly court.  And what follows in 7-12 is the proclamation of the court.  In vs. 7, there are three verbs:  seen, heard, know.  They are the exact verbs of 2:24-25 meaning the same God that appeared to Abraham.  Illus:  no change in person or form.  Thus, God has come down to deliver and to bring them to the covenant land of promise.  It confirms that deliverance is tied to the covenant.  The deliverance is from Egypt and to a garden land.  See vs. 8.  God is starting over with a corporate Adam.  See 19:6.  The significance is that what God is about to do is tied to what he said he would do.  The other part of the proclamation is in vs. 10.  Read 3:10.  While Moses has forgotten, God has not.

7.  In 11, Moses responds in abject humility.  Who am I?  I am a nobody.  In other words, I cannot deliver.  I am unable, ill equipped, ill clad, mal educated, and ill suited to go up against the most powerful man in the world.

8.  And the last proclamation is the climax.  I will be with you.  I will bring you back here to worship at this same mountain.  It is a twofold promise breaching present and future.  But the key is the divine presence.  Moses does not need any ability, equipment, clothing and stature, a new education, and training to take on Pharaoh.  All he needs is God because God is going to do it with Moses as the means or instrument of the divine power; a man forgotten by the nation but not by God.  And God says, serve me! Appl:

9.  The crowning proof that this is Christ is that he is the lampstand.  I am the light of the world.  In 3:14, he identifies himself as I am.  John continually uses this.  Lastly, the promise in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you,” is an allusion to the theophany to Moses in Exodus 3:12.  The contexts are parallel:  call and commission with promise.  When Moses responds in Exodus 3 with “who am I that I should bring . . . , God answers, “I will be with you.”  Moses is about to go into the court of Pharaoh to secure deliverance by the divine word.  But he goes with the promise (2:23-25) that is unalterable and unassailable by the court of man.  It does not mean that he will not experience trouble.  But he will not fail; deliverance is certain.  Likewise, the apostles are sent to the court of the world to deliver their commission.  The promise is the same.  As Yahweh was with Moses, Jesus is with us; furthermore, they are one and the same.  The success of Moses is predictive of ours.  The word will have success, and the reason is the divine presence.  In and of ourselves, we are, like Moses, not able, but the divine presence enables us.  I find it immensely satisfying that Jesus has gone before us and is now with us; the greater Moses who will not fail himself.  In Temple and Word, Moses recovers his historic identity/mission.  We do too!  What, who, said merge for us in Christ.  Go with him and about him.