Rabbi Schneider - Yahweh Is the Father
Hear the Word of God. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. "Then the LORD", Yahweh... Again, every time you see capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D in the Old Testament, that's actually Yud Hei Vav Hei. That's Yahweh. "Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, 'Yahweh, Yahweh God, Yahweh El.'" And now He declares and reveals to Moses who He is. Moses is calling upon Him and God comes and meets Him. Moses sees God's back. And as Moses sees the Lord passing in front of Him, the Lord speaks into Moses both His name and the revelation of who He is.
In other words, Moses didn't just hear the syllables. He didn't just hear with his ears "Yahweh". When Moses heard the Father breathe into Him His name, Moses' heart was filled with light and revelation so that he knew who Yahweh is, not only in name, but in the fullness of substance of who this person is and was. And so let's continue on. "The LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, 'Yahweh, Yahweh God.'" And then we begin to see the revelation of who the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is and who our Father is. The first thing that we see here is that Yahweh says, "I Am," get it, "compassionate".
So when the Lord reveals Himself to Moses, when our Father reveals Himself to Moses, the first thing the Father reveals about Himself, get this, church, is that He is compassionate. Wow, heal us, Father. A lot of times when we think of Father, when we think of God, we don't first of all think of Him as compassionate. We think of Him as judge. But that's not who He is because He desires to show compassion. In fact, the Hebrew word here, the original Hebrew in the actual text when the Lord says, I am Yahweh God, and then He says compassionate, the Hebrew word there in the actual scripture is "rachum".
It's translated compassionate in our English Bible, but the actual Hebrew says rachum. And what that means, beloved, what the word "rachum" is the word that translates directly into womb. So when the Lord says I'm compassionate, the root of that is a mother's womb. So when the Lord looks upon us, He feels about us the way a mom does towards the infant child that's in her womb with unconditional, devoted, tender, motherly love. So think about this. God is a safe place for you and me. Our Father is safe. Jesus, who said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, demonstrated this.
The apostle John felt so safe with Yeshua that we read at the Passover before Yeshua went to the cross, John leaned his head on Jesus' bosom, just resting there. How safe did John feel to do that? He knew Yeshua's goodness and kindness and intention of compassion towards Him. And it's also interesting to note that when you think about this Hebrew word rachum being directly translated in English as "womb", you think about the fact that that is actually a feminine word. Rachum, compassion, is a feminine word. So we think of God as male and the scriptures refer to Him as He and Him. And we should. But God is not just male, He's also female.
Some might think, what do you mean God's also female? He is. God is both male and female. The scripture says, God created mankind in His own image, male and female, He created He them. God has both male and female attributes within Himself. And so the first thing that the Lord does in describing Himself is use a female adjective when He says rachum. Think about this. When a child, they're running outside and all of a sudden they fall and they scrape their knee and their knee's all bloody and their mom and dad are standing 150 yards away on the front lawn in front of the home. Who does that little boy or little girl run to on the front lawn? Their mother or their father?
Well, 90-plus percent of the time, they're gonna run to their mother because they feel so safe in their mother's arms. And God wants us to know that this is the way that we can feel about Him. Loved and safe, nurtured, protected. God reaches out to Moses and says, Moses, this is who I am. And the same one that reached out to Moses as rachum, compassionate, my friend, my beloved friend, He is that to you as well. You can feel safe with your father. He is so warm and tender. And then we think about Yeshua saying even to Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather you together as a hen, as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
You can relate to God, beloved ones, not just as a male authority figure, but you can relate to the Lord, Yahweh, as your friend who nurtures you even as a mother. He wants us to feel that tenderness and to trust Him and to open our hearts to trust Him. And then the Lord continues on here and He says He's gracious. So the Lord says here, I am Yahweh, I am Yahweh God, compassionate, which we just looked at, and gracious.
Now the Hebrew word for "gracious" is "chanun" and it means favor. That God's compassionate and His favor is upon us. The concept in the original Hebrew here is that even though we don't deserve anything, even though we haven't earned anything, even though we don't have rights to demand to be blessed or to say to Him, you owe me this. He still stoops down and says to us, I love you and my favor, my goodness, my goodwill, my good intention is upon your life.
We have no claim to that. It's just who He is and who He chooses to be to us. It's as if He's stooping down to meet us where we're at. Even though we feel ashamed in the natural, God's saying, no, I love you. I created you. I'm compassionate towards you and I favor you. I love you. This is why the Lord sent Jesus to die for us, get this, why we were yet sinners. Because His favor was towards you and I when we were even dead in our trespasses and sins. Our Creator will never leave us or forsake us. He's opened His heart towards us to save us in our misery and in our darkness. That's how good He is.
And then the Lord continues on. Compassionate and gracious, slow to anger. Some of you grew up in churches like the main thing you learned about God was if you sin, man, He's going to get you with a baseball bat. And that's kind of your concept of who God's been and your heart hasn't opened up and you haven't emotionally blossomed before Him. You haven't learned that you can talk to Him about everything and that you can let Him into your life and that He's going to help you, even when you're sinning, if you call out to Him in truth. And in true repentance, He's there for you.
Jesus didn't come into the world to judge the world, but to save the world, right? He's not the accuser. The devil's the accuser. The only way we can become accused is if we reject Jesus. If we reject Jesus, there's an accusation on our life. But once we come into relationship with God through Jesus, the Bible says there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. So the Lord here reveals Himself as one, listen now, that's slow to anger. And the Hebrew word here for "anger" is "apayim". And apayim is plural.
So it's actually slow to angers. The Lord is compassionate and gracious and His disposition is slow to angers, plural, towards us. What does that mean? He could get mad so many times with our lifestyle, with what we do, with what we say, but He is patient and long-suffering towards us continually. That's why Jesus said, if your brother sins, forgive him 70 times seven, because that's who God is, slow to anger, slow to angers. He's not out to get us. I just feel like the Lord wants to open even my heart more to this.
So Father, we ask You to break in right now. Lord, we love Your word. We love Your truth. We say yes, yes, and yes. But Father, would you help us to truly understand and comprehend this revelation that You're giving us right now, that it would truly reach our center and transform us, that we would open up fully in your love. Amen and amen and amen and amen.
He's slow to angers, patient and long-suffering towards us. And then we continue on. And the Lord describes Himself as being abounding. And that Hebrew word for abounding carries with the idea of unlimited. Unlimited. Abounding is more than enough. It never stops. Remember Yeshua said he came to give life and to give it more abundantly. So the Hebrew here in the text in Exodus 34 for abounding carries with the idea of being unlimited in His loving kindness towards us. I mean, there's no limit on God. I mean, God is... wow. There's no... I can't describe.
You know, the fact that from Him is continually coming more and more and more and more and more and more and more, and it never ends. He's abounding in lovingkindness and truth. And we think of this word loving kindness. It's interesting that in scripture loving kindness and truth are often linked together. So, for example, in Psalm 85:10, we read, loving kindness and truth have met. And one translation reads loving kindness and truth kissed each other. And so God is abounding in lovingkindness towards us and truth. Emet. When we say amen, it comes from that word truth (Emet), and it has to do with faith as well. Truth.
God is abounding in loving kindness and truth towards us. And truth is so important. And as God's people to walk in fellowship with the father, we need to be people of truth. And that's why we should be examining ourselves in the Holy Spirit all the time. The scripture teaches us to examine our own heart. Jesus became flesh.
The scripture says when he became flesh, He was abounding towards us in lovingkindness and in truth. But then the text continues on after teaching us even more deeply that Yahweh is forgiving, which we've kind of already said these things, that Yahweh is forgiving towards us. He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. The text says, the Lord God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness to thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet he will by no means leave the guilty go unpunished.
So we have all these manifestations of goodness towards us of who Yahweh is. But then we come to the end of the text here, and the Lord says after describing how gracious and compassionate and loving and forgiving He is towards us, then Yahweh says, but He will by no means leave the guilty go unpunished. When do you become guilty? Finally, when you reject Yeshua. Jesus said, If you wouldn't have understood who I Am, the guilt upon your life would not be nearly as great now that you've heard the truth and yet have rejected it.
You see, when people reject God, there's nothing left for God to do but to judge them for their sin. He said He'll by no means leave the guilty go unpunished. You see Yeshua, my friends, as we get to close today, He is the perfect balance between the mercy of God and the justice of God. In the mercy of God He reflects the compassion, the lovingkindness, and all of God's goodness and desire to forgive towards us. But God also demands that sin must be punished. He demands justice. He's a God of mercy and a God of justice.
And so how is God able to show His lovingkindness to us and yet still be just when we've sinned against Him? He's able to do that, beloved, because Jesus legally paid the price for our sin when He died on the cross for us. And for people that have revelation and reject Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for their sin, there's nothing left for Yahweh to do but to judge them for He will by no means leave the guilty go unpunished. If you've never repented today is the day you must give yourself fully to your Creator.