Why does God refer to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Thus the difficulty is cleared up where God says afterwards, speaking of the patriarchs, "By My name," or "According to My name 'Jehovah' was I not known unto them." This is not in the least a denial of the fact that even before the flood "men began to call on the name of Jehovah," or that Abraham also built his altars to Jehovah, and called upon His name. It means, rather, that the significance of that name had not yet been properly told out. Now it was to be. Israel's deliverance was to illustrate Jehovah's name so as to make it His memorial name for all generations; and in it Israel should find their abiding ground of confidence.*

But there is more than this; for God takes care to utter another word: "Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, Jehovah the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." He is still more explicit. "Jehovah the God of your fathers has sent me to you. This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial to all generations." How infinitely gracious of God, that the name taken for ever in connection with Israel is not that which relegates every other creature into its own nothingness, which makes all to be merely the consequence of His word and of His will! He loves and cherishes the name in which He has bound up the objects of His choice with Himself.

God had already revealed Himself to Moses as the God of his fathers — and this might have been enough, but nothing can ever satisfy doubts and fears. And what an incidental glimpse is thus given of the condition of Israel, so as to render the supposition possible that they might not know the name of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob! God bears in grace with his feeble, hesitant servant, and replies, "I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." (v. 14.) This is the expression of the essential being of God — His name as the self-existent One; and thereby affirms His eternal being. It was this name the Lord Jesus claimed when He said to the unbelieving Jews, "Before Abraham was, I AM." (John 8:58.) But this is not all. Having revealed Himself as to His essential existence, He adds, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations." (v. 15.) This is pure grace on the part of God. "I AM, is His own essential name; but as regards His government of, and relationship with, the earth, His name — that by which He is to be remembered to all generations — is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. This gave Israel, now visited and taken up of God under His name, a very peculiar place." It points indeed to their election by the sovereign grace of God, and to their being beloved for their fathers' sake; and at the same time reveals the fact that Israel shall be for ever the centre of God's ways, and the key to His purposes upon the earth. Hence, as long as Israel is under judgment, scattered throughout the world, the period Of earthly blessing is still postponed.

Moses still makes difficulties, to which God answers in grace, until they cease to be weakness, and become rather the working of self in unbelief. For thither self-indulgence in weakness tends. In the mission which God thus confided to Moses, He declares His name "I Am." At the same time, while declaring that He is that He is, He takes for ever, as His name upon the earth, the name of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob: an important principle, as regards God's ways. "I Am" is His own essential name, if He reveals Himself; but as regards His government of, and relationship with, the earth, His name, that by which He is to be remembered to all generations, is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. This gave Israel, now visited and taken up of God under this name, a very peculiar place.

Then the Lord adds, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me unto you. This is my Name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations” (verse 15). The great I AM was to be known to Israel as JEHOVAH, the God of their fathers, the One who had called Abraham and given him the promises, which He had renewed to Isaac and Jacob. This was the Name of relationship that God was taking with Israel, a Name that implied the unchangeableness of His character, the One who would certainly perform all that He undertook to do in grace for His people.

95 This relationship of God to the Church, exceeding, as it does, all our thoughts, is presented to us in the most striking manner in the title "God of our Lord Jesus Christ." This title has peculiar significancy. When God is called the God of any one, it indicates that a tie of intimacy is formed between that person, and him who bears His name super-added to his own; it indicates a relationship based upon what God is to the one whose name He has thus assumed, and it implies a purpose to bless and honour according to that relationship. This purpose must stand. God cannot be unfaithful; and hence the relationship becomes the source of enjoyment, by faith, to him whose name is added to the name of God; at least, he has the right to appropriate it as pertaining to himself on the part of God. Thus the title "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," not only indicates that they were specially the objects of distinctive blessing, but it indicates also that which God was for these patriarchs, according to the revelation which He had made to them of Himself — a relationship upon which their faith could count, and which they were called to realize. God placed Himself in relationship to them, according to that which His name expressed. Their spiritual privileges had this name for their character and measure. Thus God in relation to us is that which is expressed in the title "God of our Lord Jesus Christ"; because we, as believers, are one with Him, and are brought into the same relationship to God. It is thus that God reveals Himself to us, in order that we may be in relationship with Him according to the import of this title.

*"'I AM' is His own essential name, if He reveals Himself; but as regards His government of and relationship with the earth, His name — that by which He is to be remembered to all generations — the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. This gave Israel, now visited and taken up of God under this name, a very peculiar place. In Abraham first God had called any out, first to him given any promises. He first had been publicly called apart from the world, so that God called Himself his God. He never calls Himself God of Abel or of Noah, though, in a general sense, He is the God, of course, of every saint. Faith itself is here pointed out as the way of righteousness. In Eden God, in judging the serpent had announced the final victory of the promised seed. In Abel He had shown what acceptable sacrifice from a sinner was — not the fruits of his labour under judgment, but the blood God's grace had given to him, which answered his need; In Enoch, clear and absolute victory over death, and removal from earth, God taking him; In Noah, deliverance through judgment when the world was judged. Then a new world begun, and a ceasing, through the sweet savour of sacrifice, to curse the earth, and a covenant for its preservation from any future destruction by water. But in Abraham we have one called out from the world (now worshipping other gods) brought into separate and immediate connection with God, and promises given to him — a person called to be the object and depositary of God's promises. This gave him a very peculiar place. God was his God. He had a separate place from all the world with Him as the heir of the promise. He is the stock and root of all heirs of it. Christ Himself comes as seed of Abraham, who is the father also of the faithful as to the earth. Israel is the promised nation under this title. As regards election they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. In this name consequently, as His eternal memorial, God would now deliver them. At the same time God foretells, that Pharaoh will not let the people go, but takes clearly the ground of His authority and of His right over His people, and of authoritative demand upon Pharaoh that he should recognize them. Upon his refusal to do so, he would be judged by the power of God." (Synopsis, pp. 61, 62.)

In Exodus 3:14-15, His name is the memorial for His people for ever. He remembers His covenant with the fathers (2:24), and His name is pledged on behalf of His people. And in the utter failure of the people soon after (Ex. 32:), where they practically give up God, Moses pleads the name, the revealed character of the Lord (vers. 9-14). See also Exodus 33:18, Exodus 34:5-8, and mark, "Thy glory" (Ex. 33:18), "goodness" (ver. 19), "name"; and see also Deut. 9:18-29, Num. 14:11-20. And again, in 1 Sam. 12:22, when the people had rejected the Lord that He should not reign over them (1 Sam. 8). "His great name's sake" is the reason given by Samuel why He will not forsake His people. And Ps. 74 may be taken as an expression of the very lowest extremity to which their own sin in the rejection of their Messiah and of the Holy Ghost, through Stephen, had brought them - when "the enemies roar in the congregation" (ver. 4); when man's ensigns, not God's (Ps 60:4), are the signs of power, and what is worse, "no signs from God" (ver. 9), no prophets, none that can tell "how long" before God comes in in power on behalf of His people; yet there is faith that God will not utterly forsake His people, and the word "how long?" turns into a cry (ver. 10). It cannot be "for ever." His faithfulness is trusted in redemption (vers. 2 and 13-15); His covenant faithfulness (vers. 16, 17), (see Jer. 33:20); "His name," their cause, His cause (ver. 21). Confidence in the faithfulness of God, when as to outward circumstances the power of the enemy seemed to make all hopeless, even on the ground of trusting Him; but they were His own people, He had redeemed them, and now bound Himself up in grace with them.

What God here insists upon is, that He is the "God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob," and that this is to be His memorial unto all generations. He was to be known as in connection with those three honored names.*

175 If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ceased to exist, could God have still taken their names, the name of naught to characterise Himself to Israel? He might have said, I am He who was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they existed; and even so it would have been an utterly unworthy relationship - the God of those who had a mere animal existence. God characterises Himself by them - is not ashamed to be called their God. Could He characterise Himself by a mere dying animal, who, when He calls Himself theirs, did not exist at all? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. But this truth went farther, for, as to separation of soul and body, Abraham was dead, and, though living for God, was not what God meant him to be as his God. God was not even in this sense, as an abiding state, the God of the dead. They must be according to what He would have man, soul and body. Till all was accomplished they might wait with their spirits blessed, but this was not God's thought as to man. He was to be complete, and hence raised from the dead. The name of God indicating His relationship with those, gone for the moment, demonstrated the resurrection. For Him indeed, as we read, all are alive; but the ground of the argument here is God's relationship with them. He cannot be the God of those who do not exist. It was a living Abraham, body and soul, of whom God could be the God. Death therefore, for he was dead, proved the resurrection. Thus divine truth was established in contradiction to the Sadducees.