Talking Christianity: 2025

Creation. Covenant. Incarnation. Spirit—
A canonical theology of God’s self-revealed grammar:
Elohim. HE IS. HE IS Saves. JESUS IS Lord.

The Scriptures unveil a Name that does not behave like other names. From “In beginning, Elohim created,” through the bush where the Voice declares “I AM” and commands Moses to say “HE IS,” to the Son whose very Name embodies “HE IS Saves,” and finally to the Spirit who breathes the Church’s confession “JESUS IS Lord,” the canon discloses one unfolding grammar of divine self-revelation. This thesis argues that Exodus 3:14–15 is the hinge of that revelation — the triune Name spoken in first person (I AM), confessed in third person (HE IS), and prayed in second person (YOU ARE). The same grammar that sounds creation into being becomes the grammar of covenant, the grammar of Christ, and the grammar of the Church’s worship and witness.

And the Name not only speaks — it teaches. Its very form hides and reveals, like Israel’s proverbs and Jesus’ parables. Those who linger long enough to listen to its cadence may find it whispering of depths that lie well beneath its surface.

The Name that Speaks

Scripture begins not with a definition of God but with His action: “In beginning, Elohim created.” The Torah’s first theology is verbal—God speaks, and it is so; the Bible begins with speech, not speculation: Creation itself is speech. Creation is sounded into being by Elohim; the first knowledge of God is voice. This is general revelation: He is speaking; His voice is His action, which is being itself—existence is what God says; creation is what He does.

Thus, the first sound in Scripture is the divine Word giving being. From the start, God’s identity is linguistic before it is descriptive; He is known in verbs before nouns, in doing before being described.
When He later appears, the bush burns and does not burn out, and in declaring, “I AM,” and in commanding, “Say, ‘HE IS,’” His special revelation is the grammar of creation becoming the grammar of revelation. The grammar of special revelation makes explicit: “I AM,” and to Israel, “HE IS,” a Name to be remembered from generation to generation. That grammar does not terminate at Sinai: it is embodied in Yeshua—“HE IS Saves”—and breathed by the Spirit as the Church’s confession, “JESUS IS Lord.” The Name unfolds canonically rather than being replaced: Elohim’s fullness, YHWH’s forever-Name, the Son’s saving Name, and the Spirit’s confessed Name belong to one continuous disclosure.
Thus, being itself is revealed as personal. This is no isolated curiosity of Exodus 3, but the canon’s profound logic: the divine Name unfolds as a continuous disclosure—Elohim, YHWH, Yeshua, Spirit—each phase neither replacing nor contradicting, but fulfilling the previous, until the Church breathes the confession, “JESUS IS Lord.”

Thesis in Brief

In brief, this thesis traces how the grammar of divine self-reference (I AM / HE IS / YOU ARE) becomes the grammar of prayer, witness, and worship —
“He is, You are I AM, You are HE IS … I AM has sent HE IS Saves to us …”

The revelation of the divine Name in Exodus 3:14–15 unfolds canonically and trinitarianly through Scripture as:
• Elohim — “the fullness of Godness,” Creator and Source;
• YHWH (HE IS) — the covenant Name, Being itself;
• Yeshua (HE IS Saves) — the Name embodied;
• The Spirit — the Name breathed and confessed (“JESUS IS” Lord = YHWH).

At its core, the Bible proclaims (as declaratory/heraldic revelation):

Elohim: plural form, singular action → fullness of deity in truly singular agency.
Genesis employs YHWH retroactively (e.g., Gen 2:4; 4:1; 4:26) to teach Israel to read all history through the revealed Name.
YHWH as “HE IS”: the communal proclamation of the Name given after “I AM.”
Exodus 3:14–15 establishes the Name’s grammar: God—“I AM”; Israel—“HE IS”; prayer—“YOU ARE”; “forever… a memorial.”
Trinitarian unfolding of Exodus 3:14–15 into Father (I AM), Son (HE IS Saves), Spirit (JESUS IS).
Public acclamation crystallises the pattern: “YHWH, HE IS God!” → “HE IS, God!” (1 Kgs 18:39).
Liturgical grammar: “I AM / HE IS / YOU ARE” governs proclamation and prayer.
This is the progressively unfolding revelation of God himself as the Name:
– Genesis 1:1–3 (Elohim; Spirit; Word) → triune whisper.
– Genesis 2:4; 4:1; 4:26 — emergence and invocation of the covenant Name within the primeval narrative.
– Exodus 3:14–15 (Ehyeh → YHWH; Name forever) → grammar established and permanence of the Name.
– Joshua 22:22; 1 Kings 18:39 → public acclamation “HE IS [God];” proclamation explicitly confesses “HE IS.”
– Psalm 86 (and parallels) — second-person prayer to YHWH; “You are…”.
– Acts 2:33–36 → Spirit poured; Jesus confessed as Lord (YHWH) and Messiah.

There is One Name!

There is only one, triune Name, given by God—notwithstanding the repeated, erroneous counterclaim by Christians. Ironically, nowadays, even Bibles are published and become popular for their pluralistic message, such as Sally Lloyd-Jones’s book, The Jesus Storybook Bible, which emphasises throughout the text that God has many “names” in the Bible, tragically misunderstanding the difference between one’s titles and one’s name.

“El” was the everyday, common word for ‘god’ in the ancient Near East (ANE), of which there were many. Moses, writing the Scroll (Torah) on the plains of Moab, east of Jericho, “in beginning…” (Genesis), adopts, not merely “El”, but “Elohim”, which is the plural form of El—signifying God’s (El’s) plurality (i.e., He is plural, in majesty/intensity) while at the same time adopting singular verbs (i.e., an immediate monotheistic claim).

“Elohim” as the Bible’s Hebrew word for God, with its plural form and singular actions, also signifies to the ancient Near Eastern context that Israel’s one God is the “fullness of might/deity”.

“El Shaddai”, not used to begin, but following Babel and then revealed to Abraham, is a title, not a new divine Name (it means “God Almighty”—and is not a personal name); there is one Name—not many—revealed by Elohim (God) for Himself; and in fact it is not a noun at all—but a personal pro-verb (a proverb!): YHWH (“He is”) remains the One Name. Jesus does not come with another, new name. He comes in the Name; His own name is YHWH (“He is”) Saves. Further, the Spirit of God does not come in another, new name; He comes in the Name of Jesus; His own name is the Spirit of the Name—the Spirit of YHWH (“He is”) Saves.

Scripture reveals a Name that does not behave like other names. Everything about God’s Name is different and unique. The canon reveals a trinitarian grammar of divine self-reference: the first person “I AM,” the third person “HE IS,” and the second person “YOU ARE.”

The Name, “HE IS”, in Hebrew (YHWH) uses a word that shares the same root as “I AM” – the verb hayah (היה), “to be” — but it is different in form, person, and function: “I AM” (Ehyeh) belongs to God’s self-speech (it is how He refers to Himself, not the Name He has given us to address Him). “HE IS” remains the one and only Name given to Israel to proclaim, and by which we must be saved.

Translate the Name!

To my knowledge, shockingly, almost all major English translations of the Bible do not faithfully render God’s Name in a way that lets ordinary readers actually hear its meaning, despite His Word through Moses (in Exodus 3:14–15), saying: “this—My Name for all time, and this—My memorial, to generation, [and] generation.” A few translations do print “Yahweh” or “YHWH” in the running text, but even these rarely translate the Name’s sense (“HE IS”) into plain speech for readers.

Similarly disturbing, most Christians believe I AM is God’s Name in translation, and therefore do not know or address God by Name — nor can they, for I AM is God’s own self-reference. Therefore, it is urgent that the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) be transliterated into English translations and rendered “HE IS” (the capitals may be kept, signifying this as the Name). Whenever the Hebrew text uses God’s Name, and modern translations render it as “LORD” or “YHWH” or “Yahweh”, readers should translate it for themselves—reading it as “HE IS” God (rather than, for example, “LORD God”).

Translating God’s Name when reading the Hebrew Old Testament, from Genesis 1 onwards (where Elohim only appears), with every occurrence of YHWH rendered as “HE IS”, reveals that Genesis 2:4 — “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth… in the day that HE IS God made earth and heavens” — begins God’s special revelation of His Name to Adam.

Translations of the Hebrew Scriptures should not effectively exclude God’s Name, nor so consistently render it in ways that obscure its meaning for ordinary readers—for example, the NIV (like most English Bibles) typically renders the Name with the title “LORD” in small caps. That convention does signal that YHWH lies behind the English word, but “Lord” is really a translation of ’Adonai, not a direct translation of YHWH itself:
– When God self-declares, render I AM (Ehyeh).
– Wherever YHWH appears in narration or human proclamation, render HE IS.
– In direct address to God, capitalise YOU ARE, while still calling upon the revealed Name.

Thesis In Summary

Part I — Elohim (Fullness of Godness)

“Elohim” is morphologically plural yet acts with uncompromised singularity—acting always as One—indicating not number but the fullness and intensity and majesty of deity—the “All-Might,” the divine plenitude that takes singular verbs. By this, Israel’s monotheism is intensified, not diluted: Elohim is not gods but Godness—the essence of divinity in perfect totality. This linguistic feature undergirds Israel’s ferocious monotheism and anticipates the triune horizon disclosed later. Transliterating “Elohim” (rather than its translation as “God”) in parallel with YHWH (HE IS), would ensure the semantic weight—“fullness of might/divinity”—is not lost in mere phonetics.

“In beginning, Elohim…”. The plural form with singular action signals that Elohim acts as one, without rival, without origin, without council. The Spirit of Elohim broods; the Word of Elohim summons light; creation answers. This plurality-within-singular action whispers the triune mystery later made explicit in Christ and in the outpoured Spirit.

Part II — YHWH / “HE IS” (The Covenant Name)

At the bush God self-names in the first person—Ehyeh, “I AM / I Will Be”—and commissions Israel to proclaim the third-person form of the Name, YHWH—“HE IS.” This is not mere orthography; it is ontology turned into liturgy: God speaks “I AM”; the people proclaim “HE IS”; in prayer the assembly addresses “YOU ARE.” This is the Name’s own “grammar of revelation,” given “forever” as a “memorial”—his monument; an everlasting reminder.

The narrative use of “YHWH Elohim” = “HE IS God” from Genesis 2:4 onward signals that the inspired narrators write primeval history in light of Sinai’s revelation—“That God who made the heavens and the earth? That was YHWH—HE IS God.” Hence, Eve’s confession (Gen 4:1) and the early revival (Gen 4:26) are presented with the covenant Name already in place as retrospective theological telling.
“This is My Name forever” is a generation-by-generation self-declaration by God, who alone says, “I AM,” is revealed/proclaimed as “HE IS,” and addressed as “YOU ARE.”

Part III — Yeshua / “HE IS Saves” (The Name Embodied)

God’s people—before Israel, and following—call upon the Name, saying, “YHWH, HE IS God!” (1 Kgs 18:39), always making explicit the Name’s meaning; Israel’s grammar translated the Name. Yet all the prophets, from Moses/the Torah onwards, promised the coming of the Name himself into history.
“HE IS” comes and at the same time becomes salvation in history in the Son’s given human Name: Yeshua—“YHWH saves / HE IS Saves.” In Jesus’ self-witness (“Before Abraham was, I AM”), the divine “I AM” speaks in flesh; in apostolic proclamation, the crucified and risen One is declared both Lord (YHWH) and Messiah, fulfilling the promise that the Name would be remembered in every generation: HE IS [God] saves—the Name saves.

“Jesus” (Yeshua) is the Name that extends the Name: YHWH + a verb—“YHWH saves.” His Name is a sentence, not a label, the Name of YHWH entering history to rescue; in Him, the verb becomes flesh. Titles (Christ, Emmanuel, Lord, Lamb, Logos) are not competing names but, like all titles, position statements, not elaborating what this Name means in action, but stating what the One who bears the Name does in function. In Jesus, the mission expands; yet the Name remains gloriously singular.

Part IV — The Spirit / “JESUS IS” (The Name Breathed)

From the Father, Jesus—The Name saves—receives and pours out the Promise: salvation by his Spirit. The Spirit’s work is testimony: “JESUS IS” (not self-designation—Not “the Spirit is”); indwelling as confession, bringing the Church to confess “JESUS IS” and to call upon the Name—now breathed into many tongues—so that what the bush began becomes Pentecost’s chorus.

Pentecost fulfils the promise that the Name would be remembered “forever”—the Name now breathed, confessed, and carried in the hearts at inception/reception within every newborn generation. The Spirit enables people to call upon the Name, teaching the Church to say “HE IS”—about Jesus—so that the confession “JESUS IS Lord” becomes the breath of the saints.

In this sense, the Spirit’s Name in function (within Trinitarian revelation) is the Name confessed—that is, “JESUS IS”: He names the Name, fills the Church with the confession, and so bears the Name among us. This is not speculative, yet it is metaphorical and doxological language, meant to describe His Being in and bearing in Spirit the One Name that Another (the Son) bears in flesh, not a proposal of a new proper name for the Spirit.

The Grammar Becomes Prayer

Thus, the Canon reveals the Name as a holy triad:
• When God speaks of Himself: I AM. (Divine self-speech).
• When the assembly proclaims His Name: HE IS. (Witness).
• When the faithful address Him: YOU ARE. (Worship).

This Exodus 3:14–15 grammar is modelled across the Psalms and prayers of Israel—invoking YHWH (HE IS) while speaking directly in the second person (“You are my God… Teach me Your way, O YHWH (HE IS)”). The third-person form of the Name does not change the person of address; “YHWH (HE IS) Elohim (God)” functions vocatively in prayer.

Because the Name is a verb of being, it gives a grammar for devotion: this grammar warrants bold, poetic prayer that folds the canonical pattern into address and doxology without irreverence.
This grammar is not pedantry but participation. It orders proclamation, petition, and praise, and it culminates in liturgical boldness that is faithful precisely because it is grammatical: testimony (“HE IS”), direct address (“YOU ARE”), and quoted self-declaration (“I AM”).

Part I — Elohim: Fullness as Singularity (who Acts as One)

“In beginning, Elohim.” Not “the gods,” not “a god,” but a plural form of “God” bound to a singular verb.

Genesis, “in beginning,” opens with a time bomb: “Elohim” is plural for ‘God’. Yet he acts singularly: “created.” The grammar itself announces a mystery: plurality of form, unity of action. The plural form of the noun conveys not number but intensity—“fullness of might,” the sum of all that could be called divine. This linguistic singular-within-plural becomes Israel’s first theological grammar: unity that contains abundance. “Elohim” = the Fullness of Godness. The word itself is revelation: It whispers of communion within oneness, of infinite sufficiency that needs no partner to create.

The Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) root word of “Elohim” is “El,” which was both a generic word for “god” and the proper name of a specific high god in Canaanite and Ugaritic religion. It was a word that (etymologically and conceptually) carried the sense of power, strength, might, and so, in the ANE, came to hold the literal idea of “the strong one” or “one to whom might belongs” or who embodies power – the source and measure of strength. In the Hebrew of Genesis, this root word and meaning appear, for example, in:

· “El Shaddai” – often rendered as “God Almighty” (Genesis 17:1)

· “El Elyon” – “God Most High” (Genesis 14:18).

In this way, in the ancient Semitic world, anyone could “name” God, in the sense—not of inventing or redefining God—that is, not giving him a personal “name”—but of bearing witness to a divine encounter – naming the aspect of God you experience; and thereby giving him a descriptor as a title (not necessarily a title as in role/responsibility/relationship). Thus, Hagar calls Him “El Roi” in Genesis 16:13 – “the God who sees me,” giving him a relational epithet. Abraham similarly does this, as do Moses and Gideon, and others throughout the Old Testament.

The second term describes an attribute or title, while “El” underscores “the strong one.” And over time, “El” became both a title and a personal name for the chief deity in the region. In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is reoriented to refer to Israel’s God – not just a mighty one, but the Mighty One: the source of all strength and life.

“El,” then, is the old root that lies behind the whole cluster of divine words: El, Eloah, Elohim, Elim. In the lexicons, Elohim (H430) is the plural of Eloah (H433), while El (H410) forms its own plural, Elim. Eloah itself is the rarer singular, found especially in Job and later poetry, whereas Elohim becomes the standard word for “God” in Israel’s prose and narrative — plural in form, yet overwhelmingly used with singular verbs and adjectives when it refers to the God of Israel.

That makes the canonical choice striking. Hebrew already had Elim, the straightforward plural of El, and Scripture does use it — mostly in poetry and almost always for “gods” in the generic sense or for members of the heavenly council (“Who is like You among the gods [ba’elim], O HE IS…?”, Exod 15:11; “Ascribe to HE IS, sons of the mighty [bene elim]”, Ps 29:1). Yet Genesis 1 does not open with Elim, nor with Eloah, but with Elohim: the plural-of-Eloah that Israel will come to treat as her ordinary, everyday word for the one God.

Elohim is therefore not just another way of saying “a god,” nor merely a stylistic variant of El. Morphologically it is “gods” – a plural noun – but in Genesis 1 it behaves as a singular subject; the verbs and adjectives align with one Actor. Theologically, this is how Israel’s Scriptures teach their hearers to hear the word: not as one among many, but as “God of gods,” the One whose strength gathers up and surpasses every other so-called power.

In that sense, we might say that Elohim functions, in Israel’s canon, as “Els-One” – “All One.” By very being He is “alone” (ontologically), the “One and Only One” who initiates all that is, or was, or will be. This is a doctrinal construal of the term’s force in Israel’s Scripture, not a lexicon definition of the Hebrew plural itself. The morphology gives us the raw materials; the canon’s usage and confession fill the word with this particular weight.

(When I describe Elohim as carrying the sense of ‘fullness’ or ‘plenitude,’ that is a theological reading of the canon’s usage rather than a lexical definition of the plural ending itself. The Scriptures shape the hearer to discern the incomparable richness of Israel’s God within that form, without suggesting that the grammar alone conveys this meaning.)

This raises an important question: if “El” and its plural “Elim” already existed, why does Genesis not simply begin, ‘In beginning, “Elim” created’? The answer lies in usage and genre. “Elim” belongs to poetry and archaic song — as in Exodus 15:11, where it names the ‘gods’ over whom HE IS is incomparable. It is not the prose-term for Israel’s God, and never carries singular verbs. “Eloah”, the singular behind “Elohim”, appears almost entirely in later poetry (especially Job). It was not the everyday singular for God in early Hebrew narrative. But “Elohim” is both early and elastic: plural in form, yet consistently acting with singular verbs when naming Israel’s one God. It can speak into the ancient world’s divine council language while also declaring a God who stands alone. It is the one form that can hold narrative monotheism and literary resonance together. Moses did not discard “Elim”; it simply was not the right instrument for Genesis 1. “Elohim” already had the weight, the reach, the fullness required — a linguistic vessel large enough for Israel’s proclamation that the One who creates is beyond compare. The theological reading of ‘fullness’ arises from this canonical usage, not from the morphology itself. The plural shape is a doorway, not a definition; it is Scripture’s way of giving the world a Name spacious enough for the God who speaks light from nothing.

Thus, in starting, Moses—the prophet on the plains of Moab, opposite Jericho, handing Israel a scroll (the Torah) before his death—opens a prophetic revelation that unveils an immediate juxtaposition: “In beginning, Elohim.” The ancient Near Eastern word-family for deity (“El” and its relatives) appears here in morphologically plural form, and yet it is joined to unwaveringly singular action:

“In beginning, Elohim created.” The prophetic revelation begins not with argument or proof but with declaratory, heraldic proclamation of God’s deeds. Elohim is known not by definition but by deed. Creation itself is His speech-act; the world comes into being — and continues in being — as the consequence of His verbs. Before there is covenant, there is action; before there is Name, there is Word. The first sound of Scripture is creation’s speech: Elohim said, and it was. From the opening clause, the Bible introduces God as verb before noun, agency before description.

Every creative act follows this rhythm of sufficiency without division. And Elohim said… and Elohim saw… and Elohim called… and Elohim blessed. No committee, no contest. The text itself refuses the myth of multiplicity.

Thus, the Hebrew word Elohim—as adopting the ANE word for God in plurality of form and unity of function but taking singular verbs—does not function here as “gods” in the polytheistic sense, but, in Israel’s Scripture, serves to announce the fullness of Godness—the One in whom all fullness dwells, a plenitude acting as one; the fullness who is One. This is a theological reading of the grammar rather than a narrow lexicon entry. This grammatical tension—plural ending, singular verb—is itself the very first word of special revelation: the first grammar of monotheism. Elohim is not many, yet neither is He empty singularity. The word bears within its shape the intensity of divine completeness.

“In beginning, Elohim created…” means the One who IS did; He alone does—he acts, by speech: all IS his works. This Elohim is not an abstraction; it is Being in motion. Genesis folds origin into revelation: the One who is is the One who creates. This means Being is Doing—and so, Doing is Being. As a claim of Moses, Elohim is not a mere label for a high being among others; it asserts the Source from whom all that exists derives existence.

The Ancient Near East imagined a council of rival powers, born from chaos, each limited, each rival. Genesis opens by dismantling that imagination: there is no committee, no struggle, no birth of deities from chaos. Elohim speaks, and it is so. The very syntax insists—plural form, singular action—that the abundance of being is contained within one undivided will; not reactive but sovereign; not personified as a force within the world but the cosmos itself proceeding from his spoken summons.

Thus, from the first word, Scripture refuses committee-cosmology: the Spirit of Elohim hovering and the Word summoning light announce agency that is one and undivided, yet bountiful enough to speak the worlds into being and to breathe life into dust. This plurality-of-form within singular agency becomes a quiet grammar—later clarified when the Name is revealed and then embodied—by which Israel confesses the One who cannot be rivalled, contained, or derived. Therefore, “Elohim” should not be flattened by mere phonetic transliteration when its semantic weight (the intensity of Godness) undergirds Israel’s ferocious monotheism and anticipates the triune horizon disclosed in Christ and outpoured in the Spirit.

Elohim is One. Yet that unity contains plurality; relationship—the same relationship later revealed in the Son and the Spirit. Creation is revelation in seed. The grammar of Elohim already holds within it the later confession that “God is One” (Deut 6:4) and yet “the Word was God” (John 1:1). The plural noun with singular verb is Scripture’s earliest hint that divine simplicity is not solitary. The Spirit of Elohim fluttering and the Word of Elohim summoning is the revelation of Elohim breathing the cadence that later Scripture will name as Father, Son, and Spirit. This is not retrojection but recognition: what was hinted in grammar becomes clear in incarnation. Israel will confess, “He is one,” yet within that oneness the creative Word and the brooding Breath are already at work. From the first words of Scripture, Christian readers have often discerned the logic of the Trinity in seed form: the Spirit hovering, the Word speaking, the Source willing—threefold agency within one act: “Elohim creates.” This is a confessional (and canonical) reading of the text’s grammar, not a claim that the doctrine of the Trinity is already fully stated at this point.

(Christians have long recognised that Genesis 1 allows a retrospective, confessional glimpse of triune action — three active as one. This is a theological reading of the narrative pattern, not a grammatical claim that the doctrine of the Trinity is present in explicit form within the Hebrew syntax.)

The theological weight of Elohim is therefore twofold:

Ontological — the plenitude of being.
Relational — the capacity for communion within unity.

Elohim, therefore, is more than a lexical curiosity; it is the first theological claim of the Bible. Unity contains plenitude; plenitude acts as one. Every sentence of Genesis 1 repeats the rhythm—Elohim said… Elohim saw… Elohim blessed—each verb reinforcing singular agency. Where ancient myth had conflict, Genesis has command and response. Light, sea, sky, land, stars, life—all arise from the same undivided speaker.

Thus, creation itself bears witness that divine being is dynamic, verbal, and self-communicative. What the bush later proclaims, “I AM who I AM,” is already implicit in the opening verse. Being is not static substance but active faithfulness. Elohim is the One whose existence is event: He is who He does.

In narrating Genesis, Moses will later name this Creator (from 2:4 onwards) with the revealed covenant Name. He backcasts primeval history, retold in the light of Sinai, where YHWH Elohim identifies the Maker as “HE IS.” From the far side of Sinai, Moses looks back and writes, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth in the day that YHWH [HE IS] Elohim made earth and heavens.” Moses, as author, standing after Sinai, reads origin through revelation: The Name revealed in Exodus shines retroactively in the Genesis 2 account of the call into covenant of Adam. “That God who made the heavens and the earth (of Genesis 1)—that was YHWH [HE IS].” The covenant Name re-reads the beginning. The One known to Moses as HE IS is the same Elohim of Genesis 1. Creation and covenant are one continuous speech.

Thus, the canonical movement from creation’s “Elohim” to covenant’s “YHWH” is not a change of deity but the deepening of the same One’s self-disclosure. Two exegetical anchors support this: (1) Moses as narrator writes retrospectively from the far side of Sinai, teaching us to read all origins through the Name (YHWH Elohim); (2) early invocations (Eve, Enosh) are presented with the covenant Name to signal continuity of the One worshipped then with the One who saves at the Exodus and at Pentecost.

Thus from the first sentence to the covenant mountain, Scripture moves from Elohim the Creator to YHWH Elohim the Covenant Maker—from unqualified being to relational being. Creation’s verb becomes communion’s Name.

So, the pattern is fixed: Elohim the Creator → YHWH (HE IS) the Revealer → Yeshua (HE IS Saves) the Saviour → Spirit the Confessor (“Jesus IS”). Fullness becomes faithfulness; the verb of being becomes the verb of saving; the eternal “I AM” becomes the incarnate “HE IS Saves.”

Part II — YHWH / “HE IS”: Ontology Turned into Liturgy

On the far side of the wilderness, Moses came to Horeb, the mountain of God—the same mountain that is later called Sinai after exodus from Egypt (Exodus 3:1-2). There, Moses writes in third person, “the messenger of YHWH (HE IS) appeared to him in a flame of fire from within the bush.” And here, at the bush, YHWH Himself mediates His own self-revelation through prophetic narration; and the grammar of Genesis breaks open into self-disclosure. The Creator who spoke worlds into being now speaks His own Name. Elohim, the voice behind the voice, through Moses the mouthpiece, by whom YHWH tells His own story, declares His self-identity in the first person—“Ehyeh asher ehyeh”—I AM who I AM / I Will Be who I Will Be. Being itself becomes speech. What is infinite declares itself in the grammar of relation. Revelation dictates grammar.

Then, immediately, the first-person becomes third-person—an immediate commission to Moses to speak the Name in third person: “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, YHWH—HE IS—has sent me to you.” Revelation moves from God’s self-utterance to humanity’s proclamation. God says I AM and at the same time says, “Tell them: YHWH (HE IS) has sent me.”

This is not a nominal tag but a theological earthquake: a declaration of existence, a refusal of containment, a personal-yet-infinite identifier, and—decisively—a direction for prayer; for calling upon the Name: His people proclaim HE IS; in prayer, they learn to say YOU ARE. The divine verb is not confined to metaphysics—it orders worship: “say ‘YOU ARE’ to Me”.

The aftershocks of this quake echo through time—existence declared, containment refused, prayer directed, and the Name remembered forever.

The Name is given “forever… a memorial from generation to generation,” so that Israel’s life with God will be ordered by this grammar: God speaks “I AM,” the people confess “HE IS,” and worship addresses “YOU ARE.” This movement from Ehyeh to YHWH is not orthographic but ontological. In Exodus 3:14-15 the God who is being itself gives His covenant identity as a participle of that very being. “This is My Name forever, a memorial for every generation.” It is a Name that insists on being spoken and remembered, a Name that refuses reduction to title or abstraction.

The Name’s shift in person—first to third—institutes the grammar of all faith. Revelation begins in self-speech, continues in testimony, and culminates in address. God grants Israel the right way to speak of Him and to Him. “Say to the people, HE IS.” Say to Me, “YOU ARE.” Thus theology becomes liturgy.

From this hinge the whole canon swings. Moses, as the writer of Genesis on the plains of Moab, East of Jericho, illuminated by Sinai, retrofits the Name into primeval history. “YHWH (HE IS) Elohim” appears from Genesis 2:4 onward, uniting the Creator of the heavens and the earth with the Covenant-Maker who speaks from fire: Genesis is Moses as Prophet writing, not primeval history, but revelation to Israel, from the far side of Sinai: “YHWH Elohim” in Genesis 2:4 is retrospective theological telling—“That God who made the heavens and the earth? That was YHWH (HE IS) Elohim.” The past is reread through revelation. That is, when Moses, as narrator of Genesis 2, writes, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that YHWH Elohim made earth and heavens,” he is retrospectively revealing that the Creator known to him by the Name “HE IS” (YHWH) is the same Elohim of creation. The covenant God of Exodus is the Maker of Genesis. Again, origin is a part of special revelation: the One who is is the One who creates.

With prophetic hindsight, Moses, speaking after Sinai, teaches Israel to read its beginnings through the unveiled Name. Every act of creation, every breath of life, every altar raised, belongs to HE IS. Thus, Genesis’ use of YHWH Elohim is retrospective theology, not an alternative deity. Eve’s testimony and the first revival are already narrated with the covenant Name so Israel will read origins through the revealed identity: the God who made all is the God who IS. Hence the people’s public acclamation, “YHWH, HE IS God!”—is Eve’s confession in Genesis 4:1 and the revival in Genesis 4:26 where the covenant Name for Israel is first known and understood in history through the revealed identity of God to the first Moses: Adam. Eve’s cry at birth—“I have gotten a man with HE IS” (Gen 4:1)—and the revival in the days of Enosh when “men began to call upon the Name HE IS” (4:26) are Moses’ theological hindsight: prophetically he is teaching a second generation of Israel (and every generation) to see creation, birth, and prayer through the Name now known as first revealed.

Canonical hinge:

Exodus 3:14–15 — Ehyeh (1st person) → YHWH (3rd person); Name “forever,” memorial for every generation; prayer directed as “You are.”

Genesis as retrospective proclamation:

Genesis 2:4 — first “YHWH Elohim”: narrator identifies the Creator as YHWH.
Genesis 4:1 — Eve’s confession with the covenant Name.
Genesis 4:26 — calling on the Name YHWH; revival toward the same God later revealed in Exodus.

Therefore, remember, when reading the Scriptures, to render YHWH as HE IS; e.g.,

Genesis 2:

2:4 “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that HE IS God made earth and heavens.”
(Within 2:5–25 where “YHWH Elohim” occurs, read consistently, rendering every reference to YHWH as HE IS; as “HE IS God…,” e.g., 2:7; 2:8; 2:9; 2:15–16; 2:18–19; 2:21–22.)

Genesis 3:

3:8 “They heard the sound of HE IS God walking in the garden…”
3:9 “But HE IS God called to the man…”
3:13 “Then HE IS God said to the woman…”
3:14 “HE IS God said to the serpent…”
3:22 “Then HE IS God said, ‘Behold…’”
3:23 “Therefore HE IS God sent him out…”

Genesis 4:

4:1 “I have gotten a man with HE IS.”
4:3 “Cain brought to HE IS an offering…”
4:4 “And HE IS had regard for Abel…”
4:6 “HE IS said to Cain…”
4:9 “Then HE IS said to Cain…”
4:15 “Then HE IS said to him… and HE IS put a mark on Cain…”
4:16 “Cain went away from the presence of HE IS…”
4:26 “Then men began to call upon the Name HE IS.”

Genesis 5:

5:29 “Out of the ground that HE IS has cursed.”

And so on and so forth.

The Name is therefore not a human label for God but God’s own act of self-naming. It turns ontology into vocation. Israel’s life is to bear witness to what the Name means: existence faithful to itself, presence that endures. To invoke YHWH—and to call upon the Name—is to confess that HE IS—the One who was, who is, and who will be; thus is to cry out, “’YOU ARE’ Elohim—You alone!”

Although Ehyeh (“I AM”) and YHWH (“HE IS”) share the same root as vayhi (“and it came to pass”) – all having at root the verb hayah, “to be, to become”, they differ in a number of ways, including in aspect and person. However, it is significant that the root is the core Hebrew idea of existence or being—and in biblical usage this is often dynamic rather than static. Hebrew “being” is frequently used in ways that imply being in action, being present, coming to be, rather than a bare abstract notion of existence. (Biblical Hebrew often expresses existence in dynamic rather than abstract ways — presence, happening. This is a tendency of usage, not an absolute rule, and it helps frame how Ehyeh and YHWH sound within Scripture’s own world.) Both derive from the root היה but belong to different persons and functions. The divine “I AM” is not the narrative “it happened.” God’s self-speech cannot be reduced to story or circumstance; it is the ground of both.

Unlike, vayhi (“it came to pass”), which is narrative past tense, Ehyeh and YHWH are non-narrative descriptions of being itself, not an event that has occurred: Ehyeh and YHWH are ontological – they name the One who IS, the One who HAPPENS TO BE, being itself.

Some scholars propose that YHWH preserves an archaic causative form of hayah – something like Yahweh – meaning, “He causes to be.” That would frame God not merely as the One who exists, but as the One who brings all into existence, the ground and giver of being. It’s a delicate distinction:

· Ehyeh = “I AM / I Will Be” – God’s self-existence and faithful presence.

· YHWH = “HE IS / He Causes to Be” – God as source of all that is.

Both truths stand together: God is, and God makes be.

“Yahweh” is a scholarly reconstruction of the likely vocalisation of the Hebrew word written as YHWH—so Yahweh is best understood not as the Name, but as a way of writing what might once have sounded like “HE IS” or “HE CAUSES TO BE,” when listening to an ancient Hebrew speaker using the Name verbally. We, however, today, neither speak nor listen nor understand ancient Hebrew in its native language—why then would we use “Yahweh” for the Name, YHWH? Paul would rebuke us, saying, “if you may not give speech easily understood through the tongue—how will that which is spoken be known? For you will be speaking to air… If, then, I do not know the power of the voice, I will be a foreigner to him who is speaking, and he who is speaking is a foreigner to me.” (1 Cor 14:9, 11).

Instead, modern translations conceal the deeper theological rhythm revealed in the text. When we read Exodus 3 in Hebrew (I cannot read Hebrew, but I can read an inter-linear transliteration that translates it into English faithfully), there’s a stunning movement:

· Exodus 3:12 – ki ehyeh ‘immakh (“for I will be with you”) – presence.

· Exodus 3:14 – ehyeh asher ehyeh (“I am / will be who I am / will be”) – being.

· Exodus 3:15 – YHWH – “He is / He causes to be” – the Name.

It flows from promise → essence → name.

God’s being is not an abstraction – it’s being-with.

He is the One who is there, who makes being happen, who keeps his word in time.

Hence, every time Scripture declares “YHWH Elohim,” it is translating the eternal “I AM” into the historical “HE IS.” The covenant binds the uncreated to the created, the infinite to the finite, the Name to the people who speak it.

Within this grammar prayer finds its voice. The Psalms alternate freely between third-person proclamation and second-person address: “YHWH (HE IS) is my shepherd… You are with me.” The shift is not confusion but consummation. Israel learns that the God who is can be spoken to.

Thus Exodus 3 reveals more than the meaning of a Name; it discloses the logic of communion. The God who says “I AM” makes space for the creature to answer “YOU ARE.” The Creator’s verb becomes the covenant’s vocabulary.

Part III — Yeshua / “HE IS Saves”: The Name Embodied (in History)

The grammar of revelation does not end in abstraction. What was heard in the bush becomes flesh in history. The covenant Name that was spoken to Moses descends into a human life: Yeshua—a sentence in itself—YHWH saves. The third-person form of the Name, HE IS (itself a verb), is joined to another verb, of deliverance. The eternal subject of being takes an object: us.

In this moment, language reaches its fulfilment. The divine verb becomes incarnate. The One who once declared, “I AM HE IS,” now walks among those who can see and touch Him. The Scriptures describe this as the Name extended in action: the word that called light into existence now enters the darkness to redeem it. Yeshua is the Word’s grammar in flesh.

This is the Big Bang of the Incarnation: Yeshua (Jesus) is the Name in action: “YHWH saves”—is the verb become noun. Fullness becomes faithfulness; the verb of being becomes the verb of saving; the eternal “I AM” becomes the incarnate “HE IS Saves.”

Every title that gathers round Him—Christ, Lord, Son of God, Lamb, Word, Logos—illuminates a facet of, not what the Name means in motion, but what the One who is the Name does in salvation history; that is, his relationship to us. None supplants the Name; all unfold its force. To call Him “Jesus” is to confess that the Creator who said, “Let there be light”, has spoken the final imperative: “Let there be life.”

When He says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” the echo is not usurpation but identity. The self-speech of Exodus now issues from human breath. The “I AM” of the burning bush walks the dust of Galilee, commands the sea, forgives sins, feeds the hungry, and raises the dead. In Him, the covenant grammar becomes conversation.

Apostolic proclamation then completes the arc: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” Kyrios in Greek stands where the Septuagint renders YHWH. To confess “JESUS IS Lord” is to name Him with the Name above every name. The bush has not been extinguished; it burns now in the hearts and mouths of the redeemed.

The theological precision of the writings of the Apostles and Prophets holds that Yeshua does not replace YHWH but embodies it. The Name does not change; its horizon widens. “HE IS” becomes “HE IS Saves.” Being becomes salvation. The verb of existence becomes the verb of grace.

This is why the earliest believers baptised “into the Name of Jesus Christ.” They were not inventing a new designation but entering the fullness of the old. The water of the Jordan echoes the water of creation: the same voice, now incarnate, speaks life again.

Christ’s obedience is the human pronunciation of the divine Name. Where Adam refused to hear and Israel forgot to remember, the Son perfectly remembers. His every act is I AM translated into human faithfulness. At the cross, the eternal verb passes through death, and even there it does not cease to be what it is: “HE IS Saves.”

Thus the Name that made the world now redeems it. The One who said “Light be” now says “Life be,” and the darkness cannot overcome it.

In apostolic testimony, the risen Lord says to Saul of Tarsus (who would be known as Paul), “I am Jesus… I am sending you,” echoing Moses’ commission; the One who spoke “I AM” now speaks from a human mouth and sends, completing the Name as action in history—I AM YHWH who saves. The canonical consequence is missionary: as Moses was sent to bring Israel out of Egypt, Paul is sent to bring the nations out of darkness—both by the One who says “I AM.” The grammar of the Name propels the mission of the Name.

Part IV — The Spirit / “JESUS IS”: The Name Breathed (and Confessed)

The Scriptures declare a singular insight: the Spirit does not take a new proper name; He is the breath of the Name—both in creation, “the Spirit of Elohim”, and in new creation, the indwelling confession “JESUS IS [Lord].” Hence, in the economy of salvation, we might say that the Spirit’s “functional Name” in Trinitarian revelation is “JESUS IS / HE IS—Is” (i.e., HE IS ever Is): He names Another, teaching the Church to call upon and bear the Name. This is metaphorical, doxological language, not a proposal of a new proper Name for the Spirit, and it is meant to tie Exodus 3’s grammar to Pentecost’s fulfilment.

When the risen Son ascends, the narrative of the Name is not concluded but intensified. What the bush revealed and the flesh embodied is now breathed. The Spirit comes not with a new label but with the old Name carried into every tongue. “No one can say, ‘JESUS IS Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” That sentence is Pentecost’s grammar lesson.

The Spirit’s hallmark is testimony. He does not speak of Himself; He makes others speak. His presence is a breathing of confession—the repetition of the Name within the Church. In this descriptive sense, the Spirit’s “functional Name” in the economy of salvation is not self-referential; it is declarative: JESUS IS.

What began at Sinai as a voice from flame now fills human breath. The divine verb, once thundering from heaven, becomes the whisper of prayer on a thousand lips. Pentecost is not a replacement for revelation but its completion: “This is My Name forever,” said the Lord to Moses, “and thus I am to be remembered.” Pentecost is the fulfilment of Exodus 3’s promise that the Name would be remembered “forever”: The promise is kept; the remembrance becomes respiration; the Name now breathed and confessed across tongues and generations. Calling on the Name is the Spirit’s own work in the Church’s mouth.

Where the Son embodied the Name, the Spirit distributes it. The confession “JESUS IS Lord” crosses linguistic boundaries, tribal borders, and centuries. Each believer who breathes that confession participates in the same Name that once called Moses and once calmed the sea.

The Spirit is therefore the memory and the moment of the Name at once—the remembrance of “HE IS” and the enactment of “HE IS Saves.” His descent on the disciples fulfils the verb’s journey: the “I AM” of the bush becomes the “HE IS” proclaimed, the “YOU ARE” worshipped, and finally the “JESUS IS” confessed.

In this, the Spirit unites grammar and grace. Divine speech becomes human witness. The Name is not left static on the page of Exodus but becomes the rhythm of the Church’s breath. Every prayer that begins “You are…” and every proclamation that ends “He is Lord” participates in this grammar of salvation.

Pentecost, then, is not only the birth of the Church but the continuation of the Name. The world hears many tongues but one meaning: the creative, covenantal, redemptive Being who is—now confessed as the crucified and risen Jesus.

The Spirit’s work is the sanctification of speech. To be filled with the Spirit is to have the divine Name articulated within. The same breath that hovered over the waters now hovers over human hearts, shaping them into living psalms of “He is.”

Thus, the Bible’s progressively unfolding revelation of God as Elohim is:

· Elohim → YHWH (HE IS) Elohim → HE IS (YHWH) Saves → JESUS IS.

Fullness becomes faithfulness; the verb of Being becomes the verb of salvation; the Name that creates becomes the Name that redeems.

Because the Name is “forever,” memory is missional. The church breathes what was revealed: from Genesis read through the Name, to the sending of Moses and Paul, to the Spirit’s worldwide witness, the grammar persists. Confessing “JESUS IS Lord” is not a private mantra but the public continuation of Israel’s proclamation that HE IS—now specified and fulfilled in the crucified and risen One.

The result is a people whose speech aligns with revelation: reading that honours the Name, prayer that addresses rightly, witness that declares boldly. In this alignment, theology, liturgy, and mission are one act.

Part V — Prayer’s Grammar: “YOU ARE”

The Name teaches how to speak to God. This is why, when asked how to pray, Jesus answered, say, “Hallowed be your Name.” The revelation of the Name culminates not in theory but in address. The grammar that began in divine self-speech (“I AM”) and moved through public witness (“HE IS”) finds its resting rhythm in prayer: “YOU ARE.” Revelation becomes relationship; ontology turns into intimacy.

The Bible’s public cry, “HE IS, God!”, becomes the prophets’ promise that whoever calls on the Name— “YOU ARE God!”—shall be saved, modelling this transition—exemplified in Israel’s Psalms. They name God in the third person, then pivot into second: “YHWH (HE IS) is my shepherd… You are with me.” The shift is seamless because the Name itself authorises it. The God who speaks of Himself makes it possible for the creature to speak to Him.

This grammar is not pedantic but participatory—just as the Lord’s prayer was to teach us how to speak to God. Because the Name is a verb of being, worship is shaped by verbs: confess, call, bless, cry, sing. The Spirit’s gift is precisely this confession—“JESUS IS [Lord]”—the breath by which prayer says rightly, “You are.”

Prayer, then, is the mirror of revelation. God gives His Name not to satisfy curiosity but to teach address. “Say to the people, ‘HE IS.’ Say to Me, ‘YOU ARE.’” In that movement, theology becomes worship. To utter “YOU ARE” is to step into the eternal conversation between Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Scriptures identify this as the grammar of devotion:

God’s self-speech: I AM — divine ontology revealed.
The assembly’s witness: HE IS — doxology declared.
The believer’s prayer: YOU ARE — communion experienced.

The grammar is not ornamental; it protects truth. It keeps Creator and creature distinct while holding them in covenantal dialogue. The worshipper does not invent words for God; he borrows God’s own verbs.

Hence my experimental liturgical phrasing—

“HE IS, YOU ARE I AM;
YOU ARE HE IS;
I AM has sent HE IS Saves to us.”

—does not trespass but obeys the scriptural pattern. It weaves the three persons of speech into one act of praise. It begins with witness (“HE IS”), moves to address (“YOU ARE”), and anchors in the divine self-declaration (“I AM”). Within that triad the Church finds her breath.

In prayer, the Name is not analysed but enacted. When the worshipper says “YOU ARE,” he joins the chorus that began in Genesis and will never end: creation answering its Creator in the grammar He gave. The verb that made the world becomes the verb that redeems it, and the verb that redeems becomes the breath that adores.

The Psalms are a gallery of this grammar. “You are my refuge,” “You are good,” “You are my God”—each prayer preserves the Name’s covenant logic. To pray “YOU ARE” is to confess both the constancy and immediacy of the One who Is.

Prayer, then, is the Church’s daily Pentecost—the Spirit teaching tongues to say again what the bush once declared and the Son once embodied. To speak rightly to God is to remember His Name.

If our prayers do not, first and foremost, say “YOU ARE,” we have not yet learned to pray as Jesus (HE IS Saves) taught us, saying, “Our Father, hallowed be Your Name:”

HE IS, YOU ARE I AM.
You are HE IS—faithful from age to age.
I AM has sent HE IS Saves to us,
and by the Spirit we confess: JESUS IS Lord.
Teach hearts to call upon the Name,
and lips to confess, “HE IS.”
Save, our Lord HE IS.

Part VI — The Spirit’s Witness and the Church’s Mission

To sanctify the Name in the heart and on the tongue is the Church’s vocation. The Spirit’s witness (“JESUS IS”) makes the people a living memorial of the forever-Name; public acclamation becomes evangel, and prayer becomes participation in God’s self-giving. Thus the Church is the ongoing bush—aflame, not consumed—speaking the same Name into every language until the songs of Revelation resound: “Holy, holy, holy, HE IS God Almighty…,” “HE IS God omnipotent reigns.”

The trinitarian revelation of the Name reaches its fullness in the Spirit’s continuing act of remembrance. What began as a word of self-disclosure in the wilderness has become a world of confession in the Church. The Spirit ensures that the Name remains spoken.

To be filled with the Spirit is not merely to receive power but to receive speech. The gift of tongues at Pentecost is not linguistic spectacle; it is theological necessity. The Name must be uttered in every tongue because the Name is for every nation. “This is My Name forever” means “This is My Name everywhere.”

The Spirit’s witness, therefore, is linguistic, missional, and ontological at once. Linguistic—because He gives words: “JESUS IS Lord.” Missional—because the confession drives outward: “that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow.” Ontological—because He binds creaturely breath into the rhythm of divine being.

The Church’s mission is not to invent new names for God but to carry the revealed Name faithfully. Every proclamation, every act of mercy, every baptism, is a repetition of Exodus 3 in new circumstances: I AM has sent HE IS Saves. The bush burns now in the community of believers, and its flame is the Spirit’s witness.

This continuity from Sinai to Pentecost defines Christian identity. The Church does not replace Israel; she inherits Israel’s grammar and sings it in the key of Christ. When she says “HE IS,” she remembers the covenant; when she says “JESUS IS,” she proclaims the fulfilment; when she prays “YOU ARE,” she enters communion.

The Spirit unites all three grammatical persons of divine speech into one act of worship. Within the Church’s breath, “I AM,” “HE IS,” and “YOU ARE” converge without confusion. The Spirit, who is Himself the Breath of God, makes this convergence possible.

Thus, every confession of faith is an act of exhaled theology. The Spirit breathes through the Church as through a flute: the melody is not new, but it is newly sounded. Each generation receives the same Name and finds new languages in which to praise it.

This is why the Church is called to guard the Name—not to hide it but to use it rightly. To pray “YOU ARE,” to proclaim “HE IS,” to believe “I AM”—these are the ways the world hears again the Word that made it.

In this, theology and mission are one. The Name that was revealed, embodied, and breathed now sends. As the Father sent the Son, so the Son sends His own with the Spirit. Every disciple becomes a bearer of the Name: a living translation of the eternal grammar into the world’s many idioms.

The Church’s end is not silence but song. When the redeemed stand before the throne, they will not tire of speech; they will find their words made perfect. “HE IS,” “YOU ARE,” and “I AM” will converge in one eternal resonance, and the universe itself will echo the Name it was created to confess.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever. HE IS.”

The Name Remembered Forever

The revelation of the divine Name is not a single event but an unbroken act of divine self-giving. What began in the beginning continues. The first word of creation, the first Name of God, the first breath of life—all resound as one continuous sentence: HE IS.

This is the grammar of eternity. The bush still burns, the Word still speaks, the Spirit still breathes. The Name remains what it always was: Being in motion, Love in speech, God in self-giving. To remember the Name is to return to reality.

Throughout Scripture, memory and mission intertwine. “This is My Name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” The Hebrew zeker—memorial—means more than recollection; it means making present again. The Name remembered becomes the Name encountered. To speak it rightly is to step into its presence.

So the Church does not merely recall the Name as an artifact of Sinai or a relic of Israel’s faith. She lives within it. Every baptism, every benediction, every whispered prayer “You are,” every Lord’s Supper confession “JESUS IS Lord,” renews that same revelation. The Name is not retired; it is rehearsed.

When the prophets cried, “YHWH, HE IS God!” they anticipated the moment when the nations would echo, “JESUS IS Lord!”—not as a contradiction but as a continuation. The same divine selfhood has traversed creation, covenant, incarnation, and Pentecost to dwell in human hearts. The verb has not ceased to be spoken.

The Spirit’s presence is this remembrance made living. He guards the grammar from corruption, ensuring that no generation forgets how to speak of God truthfully:

without reducing Him to a concept (for He says “I AM”),
without turning Him into an abstraction (for we proclaim “HE IS”),
without domesticating His holiness (for we can only address Him, trembling, “YOU ARE”).

Thus, the Name teaches worship. To pronounce it rightly is to be re-created. To misuse it—to break the commandment to “bear the Name in vain”—is to fracture reality’s grammar itself. But to bear it truly is to participate in God’s own being.

The ancient promise, “In every place My Name shall be great among the nations,” finds its fulfilment not in monuments or temples but in mouths. The glory of God is not the silence of unpronounceable mystery, but the harmony of redeemed speech.

“HE IS, YOU ARE I AM;
YOU ARE HE IS;
I AM has sent HE IS Saves to us,
and by the Spirit we confess: JESUS IS Lord.”

Here, the divine sentence closes only to begin again. Creation echoes revelation; revelation renews creation. The Name that is a verb gathers the world into praise. The story ends where it began—on a breath.

And the breath says:

HE IS.

Appendix I — The Grammar of the Name

The following table summarises the grammar of divine self-reference as it unfolds canonically and trinitarianly—correlating revelation, response, and relationship. It synthesises the exegetical and theological points from this thesis into a single map of usage and meaning.

Person of Speech	Form of the Name	Scriptural Function	Representative Texts	Canonical Fulfilment
First Person	I AM / Ehyeh	Divine self-speech; God declaring His own being, existence, and faithfulness; origin of revelation.	Exodus 3:14–15; Isaiah 41:4; John 8:58; Revelation 1:8	The Father as the eternal source of being and speech: “I AM who I AM.”
Third Person	HE IS / YHWH	Human and communal proclamation of God’s being; covenantal remembrance; public confession.	Genesis 2:4; 4:26; 1 Kings 18:39; Psalm 100:3	The Son as the embodied Name: “HE IS Saves.”
Second Person	YOU ARE / Atah hu	Direct worshipful address; prayer and praise; relational intimacy with the revealed One.	Psalms 86:10; 90:2; John 17:3; Revelation 4:11	The Spirit enabling personal communion: “Abba — Father… YOU ARE.”
Compound Fulfilment	Yeshua / HE IS Saves	The Name joined to a verb of deliverance; the divine grammar incarnate in history.	Matthew 1:21; John 17:6; Acts 2:36; Philippians 2:9–11	Christ as the living verb of salvation; the Name in flesh.
Pneumatological Confession	JESUS IS / HE IS — Is	The Spirit’s testimony within the Church; remembrance of the Name through confession.	Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Acts 2:21; Revelation 22:17	The Spirit breathing the Name into every tongue: “JESUS IS Lord.”

This grammar is not a ladder but a circle. The self-speech of I AM becomes the proclamation HE IS, which becomes the prayer YOU ARE, which returns in Christ as HE IS Saves, and is breathed again by the Spirit as JESUS IS. Revelation ends where it began—in divine speech.

Appendix II — Concordance of the Name (Genesis 1–Exodus 15)

This appendix provides a canonical concordance translating the Name into the narrative, rendering it transliterated into English, so that the Name spoken is the Name known, from Creation to Exodus; following the revelation of the Name into its first public enactment: the liberation of Israel from Egypt. Each rendering restores meaning to the Name rather than masking it beneath a title, following the trinitarian grammar of revelation, proclamation, and prayer. YHWH → HE IS; divine self-declaration → I AM; direct human address → YOU ARE. This rendering exemplifies the principle of translation in practice: the divine Name is spoken to be heard and heeded rather than disclosed in fear and religiosity. The verbs of being—I AM, HE IS, YOU ARE—become the grammar of revelation and the word of faith:

Genesis 2–5

2:4 “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that HE IS God made earth and heavens.”
2:7 “Then HE IS God formed the man of dust from the ground…”
2:8 “HE IS God planted a garden in Eden…”
2:15 “HE IS God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden…”
2:16 “HE IS God commanded the man, saying…”
2:18 “HE IS God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone…’”
3:8 “They heard the sound of HE IS God walking in the garden…”
3:9 “HE IS God called to the man…”
3:14 “HE IS God said to the serpent…”
4:1 “I have gotten a man with HE IS.”
4:26 “Then began men to call upon the Name HE IS.”
5:29 “…out of the ground that HE IS has cursed.”

Genesis 6–11

6:3 “HE IS said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever…’”
6:5 “HE IS saw that the wickedness of man was great…”
6:6 “HE IS regretted that He had made man on the earth…”
6:8 “But Noah found favour in the eyes of HE IS.”
7:1 “HE IS said to Noah, ‘Enter the ark…’”
7:16 “Then HE IS shut him in.”
8:1 “But HE IS remembered Noah…”
8:20 “Noah built an altar to HE IS…”
8:21 “When HE IS smelled the pleasing aroma, HE IS said in His heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground…’”
9:1 “HE IS blessed Noah and his sons…”
9:12 “HE IS said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant…’”
9:26 “Blessed be HE IS, the God of Shem.”
11:5 “HE IS came down to see the city and the tower…”
11:9 “Therefore its name was called Babel, because there HE IS confused the language of all the earth.”

Genesis 12–25: Abraham and the Promise

12:1 HE IS said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house…”
12:4 So Abram went, as HE IS had told him.
12:7 Then HE IS appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”
12:8 He built an altar to HE IS and called upon the Name HE IS.
13:4 Abram called on the Name HE IS.
13:14 HE IS said to Abram, “Lift up your eyes…”
14:22 Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to HE IS, the Most High God…”
15:1 After these things the word of HE IS came to Abram in a vision.
15:2 Abram said, “YOU ARE, O Lord HE IS, what will You give me?”
15:6 He believed HE IS, and He counted it to him as righteousness.
15:7 HE IS said to him, “I AM HE IS who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans.”
15:18 On that day HE IS made a covenant with Abram.
16:9 The angel of HE IS said to her, “Return to your mistress…”
16:13 She called the Name of HE IS who spoke to her, “YOU ARE El Roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen the One who sees me?”
17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, HE IS appeared to Abram and said, “I AM El Shaddai; walk before Me and be blameless.”
17:3 Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
17:7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you… to be God to you and to your offspring.”
18:1 HE IS appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre.
18:13 HE IS said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh…?”
18:14 “Is anything too hard for HE IS?”
18:25 Abraham said, “Far be it from YOU ARE to do such a thing… Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
19:24 Then HE IS rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from HE IS out of heaven.
21:1 HE IS visited Sarah as He had said.
21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the Name HE IS, the Everlasting God.
22:1 After these things HE IS tested Abraham.
22:14 Abraham called the Name of that place “HE IS Provides.”
24:12 He said, “HE IS, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today…”
24:27 “Blessed be HE IS, the God of my master Abraham…”
24:48 “I bowed my head and worshipped HE IS…”
25:11 After Abraham’s death, HE IS blessed Isaac his son.

Genesis 26–36: Isaac and Jacob

26:2 HE IS appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt…”
26:24 HE IS appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father.”
26:25 He built an altar there and called upon the Name HE IS.
28:13 HE IS stood above it and said, “I AM HE IS, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.”
28:16 Jacob awoke and said, “Surely HE IS is in this place.”
28:20–22 Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If HE IS will be with me… then HE IS shall be my God.”
31:3 HE IS said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers…”
31:49 “May HE IS watch between you and me when we are out of one another’s sight.”
32:9 Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham… YOU ARE the One who said to me, ‘Return to your country…’”
32:30 Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “I have seen HE IS face to face.”
35:1 HE IS said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel…”
35:7 He built an altar there and called the place El-Bethel, because there HE IS had revealed Himself to him.
35:9–11 HE IS appeared to Jacob again and said to him, “I AM El Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply…”

Genesis 37–50: Joseph and Preservation

39:2 HE IS was with Joseph, and he became a successful man.
39:3 His master saw that HE IS was with him.
39:21 But HE IS was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love.
49:18 “I wait for Your salvation, HE IS.”
Thus the patriarchal narratives are threaded with one confession: HE IS, the faithful God of promise, who reveals Himself through speech and covenant.

Exodus 1–3: The Name Revealed

1:20 HE IS dealt well with the midwives.
2:23–25 The people of Israel groaned… God heard their groaning, and HE IS remembered His covenant.
3:2 The angel of HE IS appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the bush.
3:4 When HE IS saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.
3:6 He said, “I AM the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
3:13–15 Moses said, “If they ask, ‘What is His Name?’ what shall I say?”
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. … Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘HE IS has sent me to you.’ … This is My Name forever, and this is My memorial to every generation.”

Exodus 4–7: The Sending and the Signs

4:1 Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice; for they will say, ‘HE IS has not appeared to you.’”
4:2 HE IS said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
4:11 HE IS said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth?”
4:12 “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”
4:14 Then the anger of HE IS was kindled against Moses.
4:27 HE IS said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.”
4:30 Aaron spoke all the words that HE IS had spoken to Moses.
5:1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says HE IS, the God of Israel: Let My people go.”
5:2 Pharaoh said, “Who is HE IS, that I should obey His voice?”
5:23 Moses said, “Since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your Name, HE IS, he has done evil to this people; You have not delivered Your people at all.”
6:1 HE IS said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.”
6:2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I AM HE IS.”
6:3 “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by My Name HE IS I was not known to them.”
6:6 “Say therefore to the children of Israel, ‘I AM HE IS, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.’”
6:7 “I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I AM HE IS your God.”
6:8 “I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I AM HE IS.”
6:12 Moses said before HE IS, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips; how will Pharaoh listen to me?”
6:13 HE IS spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.
6:29 HE IS said to Moses, “I AM HE IS; speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.”
7:5 “The Egyptians shall know that I AM HE IS when I stretch out My hand against Egypt.”
7:6 Moses and Aaron did so; as HE IS commanded them, so they did.

Exodus 8–10: The Name in Judgement

8:10 Pharaoh said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, that you may know that there is none like HE IS our God.”
8:19 The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of HE IS.”
8:22 “I will set apart the land of Goshen… that you may know that I, HE IS, AM in the midst of the land.”
9:13 HE IS said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh.”
9:14 “For this time I will send all My plagues upon your heart… that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth.”
9:16 “For this purpose I have raised you up, to show you My power, so that My Name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
9:29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to HE IS; the thunder shall cease… that you may know that the earth is HE IS’s.”
10:1 HE IS said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, that I may show these signs of Mine before him.”
10:2 “That you may tell your son and your grandson how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians… and that you may know that I AM HE IS.”

Exodus 11–12: The Passover

11:1 HE IS said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh.”
11:9 HE IS said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
12:11 “It is the Passover of HE IS.”
12:12 “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night… and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am HE IS.”
12:27 “You shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Passover of HE IS, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt.’”
12:29 At midnight HE IS struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.
12:42 “It was a night of watching by HE IS, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 13–15: The Sea and the Song

13:3 Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, for by strength of hand HE IS brought you out.”
13:9 “It shall be a sign on your hand… that the law of HE IS may be in your mouth.”
13:14 “When your son asks you… you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand HE IS brought us out of Egypt.’”
14:4 “I will get glory over Pharaoh… and the Egyptians shall know that I AM HE IS.”
14:13 Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of HE IS, which He will work for you today.”
14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and HE IS drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night.
14:25 The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for HE IS fights for them.”
14:30 Thus HE IS saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians.
15:1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to HE IS, saying:
“I will sing to HE IS, for He has triumphed gloriously.”
15:2 “HE IS is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.”
15:3 “HE IS is a warrior; HE IS is His Name.”
15:11 “Who is like You among the gods, YOU ARE, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?”
15:18 “HE IS will reign forever and ever.”

From Revelation to Remembrance

At Exodus 15, the grammar of revelation reaches its hinge: I AM → HE IS → YOU ARE; creation, covenant, and redemption as one continuous sentence.

The Exodus is not merely the context of the Name’s revelation but its enactment. The God who declared I AM now proves HE IS. The divine verb moves from grammar to history: being acts; existence delivers; ontology becomes salvation.

In the burning bush, Moses heard the Name; at the sea, Israel sang it. The canonical movement is complete: revelation → redemption → remembrance.

The covenant people will henceforth be those who live by this grammar—those who confess, in every age and tongue:

“HE IS, YOU ARE, I AM.”

Appendix III — The Name in the Song, at the Mountain, and in the Law (Exodus 15–20)

The liberation that culminates in the Song of the Sea does not exhaust the revelation of the Name; it inaugurates it. The exodus event is grammar turned into history — HE IS proved true. Yet at Sinai, grammar turns back into speech: the God who acts now speaks again, this time to a whole people.

1. The Song of the Sea: Doxology of the Verb

Exodus 15 stands as Israel’s first liturgy, the grammar of the Name set to rhythm. Each line is a commentary on Exodus 3:14–15, as the people’s lips echo what the bush declared.
“HE IS is my strength and my song,
He has become my salvation.”
The verb of being now carries the verb of saving; ontology merges with soteriology. The Name itself becomes music — Being sung as deliverance.
“HE IS is a warrior; HE IS is His Name.”
The Scriptures emphasise this: the people’s confession “HE IS” is no new invention but the human echo of divine self-speech. They are not naming God; they are repeating God’s own Name back to Him. The act of remembrance is itself a mode of participation.
At the sea, Israel’s grammar is fully trinitarian before the doctrine is named:
• The Father is — the source of the act.
• The Word saves — the outstretched arm.
• The Spirit blows — the wind dividing waters.
In one event the whole Name works together: HE IS Who Saves, breathed into history.

2. The Journey to the Mountain: The Name Among the People

Exodus 16–19 narrate the transition from deliverance to dwelling. At Sinai, “HE IS” descends not as abstract deity but as covenant partner.
“Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you” (Exod 19:9).
The same Name that thundered through the sea now speaks in intimacy, binding a people to Himself by word. The covenant is not merely law; it is speech shared — the continuation of the grammar first uttered to Moses.
Israel’s history becomes a dialogue of verbs: HE IS provides; HE IS commands; HE IS forgives; HE IS dwells. The wilderness becomes a classroom in divine conjugation.

3. The Decalogue: The Law of the Name

The Ten Words begin not with command but with declaration:
“I AM HE IS, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exod 20:2)
The Law begins in I AM — self-declaration — before it proceeds to You shall. Ontology precedes ethics; being precedes doing. Every command that follows is grounded in this first verb of divine selfhood.
The Scriptures identify this as the “Covenant Grammar”: the moral life is derivative speech. Israel does not invent holiness; she repeats it. The commandments are the inflectional forms of HE IS lived out in human action.
The second commandment, “You shall not bear the Name of HE IS your God in vain,” is the apex of this grammar. “Bear” (nasa’) implies carrying, not merely pronouncing. To misuse the Name is to distort reality; to bear it truly is to live as sentence and sign. The covenant people become, as it were, conjugations of the divine verb — living witnesses of “HE IS.”

4. The Law as a Continuation of Revelation

The Scriptures make explicit that the revelation of the Name is progressive yet unbroken:
• Genesis reveals who acts: Elohim — fullness as unity.
• Exodus 3 reveals how He is to be spoken: HE IS.
• Exodus 20 reveals how He is to be lived: bear the Name truly.
Thus, Sinai is not a legal interruption but a linguistic deepening. The law is the Name spelled out in ethics — holiness as grammar extended into community. The people’s life becomes the syntax of divine being.
The Spirit will later internalise this at Pentecost, writing the law upon hearts so that “HE IS” may be spoken not merely with lips but with lives.

5. Speaking the Law as Praise

To read the commandments rightly is to hear them as worship, not only as regulation. When Israel gathers to recite the Ten Words, she rehearses the covenant Name:
• “I AM HE IS your God” — first person.
• “You shall” — second person, the human response.
• “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy” — a call to imitate divine rest, echoing Genesis, where HE IS ceased and blessed.
Even rest becomes speech; silence itself is the last declension of the divine verb.

6. From Sinai to Spirit

The grammar of the Name is thus the architecture of revelation:
Creation (Elohim) → Covenant (HE IS) → Incarnation (HE IS Saves) → Indwelling (Jesus IS).
At Sinai, the second movement reaches its peak. The mountain that burns without consuming prefigures the Church herself — the bush enlarged, the same fire inhabiting yet not devouring.
The Spirit’s descent at Pentecost is Sinai fulfilled, not reversed; the sound of wind and fire are the same syllables heard again, but now written on flesh instead of stone.
Hence the Decalogue anticipates Pentecost’s confession. The Spirit enables obedience by breathing the Name within: the law of HE IS becomes the life of YOU ARE.

The Covenant as Continuing Grammar
Thus, from the sea to the mountain, from “HE IS” sung to “I AM” spoken, the revelation unfolds as a single sentence across time. Sinai is not an interruption of grace but its articulation. The same God who declared, “I AM,” and who commanded, “Say, HE IS,” now says, “You shall,” teaching His people to live by His verbs. This is ontology through adoption: “You are” because “I AM” your God.
The covenant community becomes a participle in the divine life — being, doing, and bearing the Name that is.
“Blessed be HE IS, who speaks, and it is;
Who commands, and it stands fast;
Who is, and was, and will be forever.”

Appendix IV — The Name in the Wilderness: Numbers and Deuteronomy

Between Sinai and the Jordan, the revelation of the Name is tested, rehearsed, and transmitted. The wilderness books are not a pause in salvation history but a liturgical corridor. Here HE IS becomes the living refrain of a wandering people — the verb of Being sustaining a nation between promise and possession.

1. Leviticus: The Holiness of the Name

Leviticus begins where Exodus leaves off — the God who dwelt on the mountain now descends into the tent. The refrain, “And HE IS spoke to Moses, saying…” opens nearly every section. Each ordinance, offering, and ritual repeats the same pattern of speech: Being commanding being, holiness begetting holiness.
“Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, HE IS, your God, am holy.” (Lev 19:2)
Holiness is thus participatory grammar. Israel is not commanded to imitate an external standard but to inflect her life according to the verb she bears. To be holy is to conjugate HE IS truthfully.
The Scriptures emphasise this: the holiness code is not moralism but memorial — “Be holy, for I am holy” is a continuation of “This is My Name forever.” To live rightly is to bear the Name without vanity, to exist in synchrony with the divine verb.
Every blessing and curse is a commentary on the third commandment. The unclean bear the Name in distortion; the priests bear it in purity upon their foreheads. The high priest becomes the living reminder of Exodus 3: the one who enters speech with God face to face, who bears the engraved letters “Holy to HE IS.”

2. Numbers: The Testing of the Name

In the wilderness narratives, the Name is not merely invoked but tested — both by the people and by the nations. Each murmuring episode is a grammatical failure, a lapse from confession (HE IS) into complaint (Is He?). The difference is one letter — yet that letter divides faith from unbelief.
“They tested HE IS, saying, ‘Is HE IS among us or not?’” (Exod 17:7; echoed in Num 14)
Faith speaks “HE IS”; fear asks “Is He?”
The Scriptures underline this inversion as theological rebellion: to reverse the Name is to reverse reality. Unbelief reverts grammar; it collapses Being into doubt.
Nevertheless, HE IS remains faithful even to the faithless. His Name guarantees presence:
“HE IS went before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.”
Every encampment, every census, every trumpet blast rehearses order within speech. The wilderness becomes a classroom in divine memory: even when Israel forgets, HE IS remembers.

3. The Priestly Blessing: The Name Placed

At the heart of Numbers lies a verse that gathers the entire theology of the Name into liturgical gesture:
“Thus you shall bless the children of Israel, saying to them:
‘HE IS bless you and keep you;
HE IS make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
HE IS lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.’
So shall they put My Name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Num 6:24–27)
The Scriptures call this “the moment when grammar becomes gesture.” To bless is to place the Name; to raise hands is to write the tetragrammaton over the people in air and light.
This benediction is proto-trinitarian in shape: three clauses, one Name. The repetition reveals relation within unity — the same HE IS threefold in blessing, anticipating the baptismal Name of Father, Son, and Spirit.
To be blessed, therefore, is to be named. The divine verb overshadows the human noun; the people exist because they are spoken.

4. Deuteronomy: Remembering the Grammar

Deuteronomy means “second law,” yet its deeper sense is “second hearing.” The Name is spoken again, this time to a new generation. Moses becomes both prophet and grammarian, reteaching the people how to speak rightly of God before they cross into promise.
“Hear, O Israel: HE IS our God; HE IS is One.” (Deut 6:4)
The Shema is the heart of the covenant’s syntax. It is both creed and command: the only true sentence about God and the only way to live before Him. The Hebrew echad (one) simply means ‘one’ in lexical terms. Its sense shifts with context. In some settings it describes a unified whole (‘one flesh’ in Gen 2:24), while in others it expresses straightforward numerical singularity. The Shema’s confession — ‘HE IS our God; HE IS one’ — is not primarily a philosophical claim about numerical simplicity but Israel’s covenant pledge of exclusive loyalty. Theologically, Christian readers have long understood this oneness to be fully compatible with the later revelation of Father, Son, and Spirit: unity without rivalry, faithfulness without fragmentation.
The Shema compresses the entire theology of Exodus 3 into six words. When the people declare “HE IS our God,” they are speaking the third-person confession taught at the bush. When they recite it daily, they are fulfilling the “forever” of Exodus 3:15 — a memorial of the Name in living time.
Moses insists that this confession must not remain abstract:
“You shall love HE IS, your God, with all your heart, soul, and might.” (6:5)
Love becomes the covenantal form of speech. To love HE IS is to let the divine verb govern every motion of being.
Throughout Deuteronomy, Moses warns against forgetfulness — a grammatical amnesia that leads to idolatry. To serve other gods is not merely to betray faith but to mispronounce reality. The foreign gods are dead nouns; HE IS alone conjugates existence.
Hence the continual refrain: “Remember HE IS who brought you out of Egypt.” Memory is the moral act; forgetfulness is sin. The people’s task is to remember by repetition — to say, to teach, to write the Name upon doors, hands, and hearts.
“You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut 6:9)
The Scriptures read this as a foreshadowing of Pentecost: the Torah written on the heart, the Spirit engraving the Name within.

5. The Promise and the Future Tense

In Deuteronomy’s closing chapters the Name expands into futurity:
“HE IS will circumcise your heart… HE IS will rejoice over you for good.” (Deut 30:6, 9)
The verb that began as I AM and HE IS now becomes He Will Be. The revelation stretches into promise. The Scriptures describe this as “the divine conjugation of hope.” The covenant does not end in nostalgia but in anticipation.
Moses himself dies speaking the Name he cannot yet see fulfilled. The future participle of HE IS remains open — awaiting incarnation.

6. The Wilderness as Incubation of the Name

The wilderness generation lives suspended between revelation and fulfilment, between HE IS and He Will Be. In this interval the people learn what it means to carry the Name as grammar of existence:
• Leviticus teaches how to bear the Name in holiness.
• Numbers teaches how to test and trust the Name in trial.
• Deuteronomy teaches how to remember and teach the Name across generations.
In all three, HE IS proves Himself patient, faithful, and near. The divine verb does not fade with distance; it deepens with duration.
The Scriptures describe this as “the breathing of the Name through time.” God is not static being but dynamic faithfulness — HE IS with us, HE IS for us, HE IS yet to come.

7. The People as Living Concordance

By the end of Deuteronomy, the nation itself has become a concordance. Each tribe, each camp, each gate bears a fragment of the Name’s grammar. The covenant community becomes the visible lexicon of divine faithfulness — a people who exist because they are spoken.
Moses’ final benediction gathers all grammar into blessing:
“Blessed are you, O Israel; who is like you, a people saved by HE IS, the shield of your help and the sword of your triumph!” (Deut 33:29)
The wilderness closes with doxology; the next word must be incarnation. The divine verb has reached the edge of flesh.

From HE IS to HE IS Saves
Deuteronomy ends where the Gospels begin. The Name waits to be embodied. The next breath of Scripture will join HE IS to salvation — Yeshua. The covenant grammar, tested in the desert, will take on a human accent.
Israel’s forty years of wandering are, in truth, forty years of learning to speak the Name without distortion. The language of heaven has been taught on the dust of the earth.
“I will proclaim the Name HE IS; ascribe greatness to our God.” (Deut 32:3)

Appendix V — The Name in the Psalms and Prophets

The Psalms and Prophets are the lungs of Scripture — the breath by which the Name continues to speak. The divine grammar (I AM / HE IS/ YOU ARE) that began at the bush and became flesh in Christ is sung, lamented, confessed, and promised in the Psalms and the Prophets. They are the living concordance of the covenant Name.

1. The Psalter: The Grammar of Prayer

The Psalms are not writings about God; they are the speech of those knowing His Name, and confessing it to HE IS. The Psalter is “the school where the Name becomes personal speech.” The revelation of Exodus 3:14–15 finds its daily form here: God says I AM, the congregation declares HE IS, and the individual cries YOU ARE.

a. The Divine Self-Declaration in the Psalms

In the Psalms, I AM appears as quotation and remembrance of Sinai:
“Be still, and know that I am God (Elohim); I will be exalted among the nations.” (Ps 46:10) In the Psalms, God’s self-speech sometimes echoes the tone of Sinai. Psalm 46:10 has, in Hebrew, ‘know that I am God (Elohim).’ The text does not use the Tetragrammaton in that line, yet when read within the wider canon it naturally resonates with the same pattern of divine self-declaration revealed at the bush; read in the light of Exodus 3, this “I am God” resonates with the same “I AM / HE IS” grammar of divine self-declaration, even though the psalm itself names “God” (Elohim) rather than explicitly using the Tetragrammaton in this line.
“I AM HE IS your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” (Ps 81:10)
Here, God reasserts His self-revealed identity, grounding all worship in His speech. Each divine “I” recalls the covenant formula — the eternal subject who speaks His own Name.

b. The Congregational Proclamation: “HE IS”

The psalmic refrain ki tov (“for He is good”) is the simplest and most enduring form of proclamation:
“Give thanks to HE IS, for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever.” (Ps 136:1)
This is the third-person doxology — the people’s response to revelation. Every hallelujah (“Praise HE IS”) completes the grammar of Exodus: the people now speak what the bush had declared.
This form is profoundly Trinitarian in shape. When Israel sings “HE IS good,” she names the Father; when she sings “His steadfast love endures,” she names the Son; when she breathes the praise, she names the Spirit.

c. The Direct Address: “YOU ARE”

Prayer proper begins when the worshipper turns from description to address:
“You are my God, and I will give thanks to You.” (Ps 118:28)
“You are my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.” (Ps 91:2)
“You are great and do wondrous things; You alone are God.” (Ps 86:10)
The movement from “HE IS” to “YOU ARE” is the heartbeat of faith — grammar turning to intimacy. The covenant is enacted whenever the worshipper crosses that grammatical threshold.
The Psalms’ greatness lies in this oscillation: speech about God and speech to God, never collapsed, but continually in dialogue. The Name lives in that rhythm.

2. The Psalms as Trinitarian Template

Across the Psalms, the triune rhythm is encoded in repetition and poetic structure:
• The Father is the speaker of “I AM.”
• The Son is the content of “HE IS.”
• The Spirit is the breath that utters “YOU ARE.”

Psalm 33 exemplifies this triadic voice:
“By the Word of HE IS the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host.”
Here, Word and Breath (Spirit) appear as co-agents with the One named HE IS. The creation grammar of Genesis reappears as liturgy.

Psalm 110, quoted repeatedly in the New Testament, deepens this mystery:
“HE IS says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand…’”
David’s confession holds two Lords in one Name — anticipating the dialogue of Father and Son.

3. The Prophets: The Name as Event

The prophetic corpus transforms the Name from static reference into historical action. Each prophecy begins with “Thus says HE IS” — the perpetual echo of Exodus 3:14–15. The Name is not merely remembered but enacted; speech becomes event.

a. Isaiah: The Sanctity and Salvation of the Name

Isaiah’s vision in chapter 6 is the bush renewed in temple form. The seraphim’s cry,
“Holy, holy, holy is HE IS of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory,”
is the song of the triune grammar in eternal recurrence: three holies, one Name.

Later Isaiah fuses transcendence and redemption:
“Say to those with anxious heart, ‘Be strong, fear not! Behold, your God will come… He will save you.’” (Isa 35:4)
This is the proto-Yeshua moment — the fusion of HE IS with He Saves.

Isaiah 43–45 forms a crescendo of divine self-speech:
“I AM HE IS, and besides Me there is no saviour.” (43:11)
“I AM the first, and I AM the last; besides Me there is no god.” (44:6)

These are not monologues of solitude but revelations of identity preparing for incarnation. When Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” He is speaking within Isaiah’s prophetic grammar.

b. Jeremiah: The Faithful Name Amid Judgment

Jeremiah weaves lament with confession. Even in ruin, he affirms:
“Great is Your faithfulness.” (Lam 3:23)

The divine HE IS remains the axis of reality even when Israel forgets. Jeremiah 23:6 seals the promise in a Name:
“This is the Name by which He will be called: HE IS our righteousness.”

This anticipates Paul’s proclamation that Christ “became for us righteousness.” The prophetic Name becomes personal salvation.

c. Ezekiel: The Name Vindicated

Ezekiel’s refrain — “Then they shall know that I am HE IS” — occurs seventy times. This is the prophetic chorus of vindication. In exile, the Name proves itself again through restoration. God’s purpose is to make Himself known, not as idea but as active being.

Ezekiel 36 links this vindication with new creation:
“I will sanctify My great Name… I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”

Here, the Spirit becomes the final interpreter of the Name — the one who inscribes it upon flesh.

4. The Minor Prophets: The Name in the Margins

Even the briefest prophetic books sustain the same grammar.

• Joel 2:32: “Everyone who calls on the Name of HE IS shall be saved.”
— Peter will later quote this at Pentecost, interpreting HE IS as JESUS IS.
• Jonah 2:9: “Salvation belongs to HE IS.”
— A confession from the depths; even rebellion cannot escape the grammar of being.
• Malachi 1:11: “From the rising of the sun to its setting, My Name will be great among the nations.”
— The final Old Testament prophecy of universality, fulfilled when the Spirit spreads the confession JESUS IS Lord to every tongue.

5. The Name Through Time

The fourfold movement of the Name through the canon may be summarised as follows:

Phase	Form of the Name	Canonical Expression	Trinitarian Fulfilment
Creation	Elohim — fullness as unity	Gen 1–2	Father — Source of Being
Covenant	YHWH / HE IS — revealed Name	Exod 3–20	Son — Word of Revelation
Redemption	Yeshua / HE IS Saves — embodied Name	Gospels	Son Incarnate
Confession	JESUS IS — breathed Name	Acts–Epistles	Spirit — Breath of the Name

The Psalms and Prophets stand between covenant and redemption — the interval where the Name is prayed, sung, and promised.

6. Rendering the Name as HE IS

The Church needs to restore the meaning of the Tetragrammaton in public reading and song—and it can only do this by transliterating YHWY into English and thereby translating the Name into plain speech. Examples:
“Bless HE IS, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” (Ps 103:2)
“The earth belongs to HE IS, and the fullness thereof.” (Ps 24:1)
“Seek HE IS while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.” (Isa 55:6)

This restoration is not novelty but recovery — an act of fidelity to revelation. To speak HE IS is to join Israel’s grammar and the Church’s confession into one unbroken hymn.

7. The Name as Music: The Psalter as Concordance

Each psalm becomes a line in the great symphony of divine speech:
• Psalm 8 — HE IS Creator.
• Psalm 23 — HE IS Shepherd.
• Psalm 46 — HE IS Refuge.
• Psalm 103 — HE IS Compassion.
• Psalm 136 — HE IS [the] Good [that is, ‘Goodness’]; His love endures forever.

The Psalter is the acoustic space of theology. Every attribute is a harmony of the one Name. The Spirit who inspired the psalmists breathes the same confession through the Church’s song.

8. The Prophets as Commentary on the Name

Where the Psalms are personal, the Prophets are historical. Together they form two halves of the same revelation: one interior, one exterior.
• The Psalms teach how to pray the Name.
• The Prophets teach how the Name acts in history.

Both converge in Christ, who prays and fulfils the Name simultaneously.

9. The Breath of the Canon

The Scripture itself is structured as divine respiration:
• Genesis and Exodus — the inhalation of the Name into speech.
• The Psalms and Prophets — the sustained exhalation of praise and promise.
• The Gospels and Epistles — the new breath of incarnation and confession.

The Bible is the long syllable of HE IS extended through human time.

10. Eschatological Fulfilment: The Last Psalm

The Psalms end with pure breath — “Let everything that has breath praise HE IS.” (Ps 150:6)
This is the teleology of revelation: every creature participating in the divine verb. The prophets echo this in cosmic vision:
“In that day HE IS will be one, and His Name one.” (Zech 14:9)

Here, the grammar of salvation reaches its final form: HE IS not merely confessed but manifest; language and life reunite.

This will be the blessedness and sanctity of the seventh day, when God ceases from all His work; when every beast and every bird and every thing that has “breath of life” (Gen 1:30) feeds on the green leaves of the tree Himself, who said, “I AM the life”—filling not their stomachs with destruction, but their lungs with healing.

The Name Sung and Spoken Forever

From David’s harp to Isaiah’s scroll, from Jonah’s cry to Malachi’s warning, the divine Name threads the canon as melody and meaning. The Psalms teach the Church to say “YOU ARE”; the Prophets teach her to believe “HE IS”; the Spirit ensures she never forgets to breathe the Name in every tongue.

The concordance of the Name is therefore not a list but a life. Scripture is the map of that life; worship is its voice.
“Let every breathing thing praise HE IS. Praise HE IS.”
“And the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’”

Appendix VI — The Incarnation of the Name: From Sinai to Bethlehem

The story of the Name does not end with Sinai; it descends into flesh.
The Word that spoke “I AM” now walks among those who can answer “HE IS.”
In Jesus, Yeshua — “HE IS Saves” — the Name is completed, not replaced. The covenant grammar that began at the bush, was thundered at Sinai, and sung in the Psalms, becomes audible again in human speech.

1. The Prophets: The Name Anticipated in Flesh

The prophets are the interpreters of the Name’s endurance. They stand between revelation and incarnation, announcing that the divine verb will not remain abstract. Every oracle begins or ends with the same refrain:
“Thus says HE IS.”
The prophetic voice, in its very formula, becomes a continuation of Exodus 3:14–15. This refrain is not mere authority but ontology in speech: when the prophet speaks, HE IS speaks again.
• Isaiah 42:8 — “I AM HE IS, that is My Name; My glory I give to no other.”
• Jeremiah 23:6 — “This is His Name by which He will be called: HE IS our righteousness.”
• Ezekiel 36:23 — “I will sanctify My great Name… and the nations shall know that I AM HE IS.”
Each prophecy intensifies the self-revelation of the Name, moving toward embodiment. Isaiah’s “Immanuel” (“God with us”) and Jeremiah’s “HE IS our righteousness” are two grammatical steps toward Yeshua: “HE IS saves.”
The prophets therefore do not invent messianism; they inflect the Name forward. The coming One is not an addition to HE IS but His perfect conjugation.

2. The Transition: The Silence Between Testaments

Between Malachi and Matthew lies what we may call “the silent syllable of the Name.” For four centuries, the divine verb seems unspoken, yet its echo resounds in synagogue and prayer. The people continue to call upon the Name but now avoid pronouncing it; reverence replaces familiarity.
This silence is grammatical as well as historical: the subject remains, the verb is awaited. The unspeakable tetragrammaton becomes expectation itself — a pause before the next word.
The Hebrew HE IS awaits the Greek ἐγώ εἰμι — “I AM.” When Jesus speaks it, the silence ends.

3. The Gospels: The Word Made Flesh

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John’s prologue recapitulates Genesis 1 through Exodus 3 in a single sentence. The Word (Logos) is the self-speaking God; the Name becomes narrative.
Every “I AM” saying in John is a reappearance of Exodus 3:14, not as quotation but as identity. The One who said “I AM” from the bush now says it within human history.
“Before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58)
“I AM the bread of life.” (6:35)
“I AM the light of the world.” (8:12)
“I AM the resurrection and the life.” (11:25)
“I AM the way, the truth, and the life.” (14:6)
Each utterance expands the Name’s field of meaning: being becomes giving, life becomes person, existence becomes relationship.
When the angel instructs Joseph, “You shall call His Name Yeshua, for He shall save His people from their sins,” the Name is both new and ancient. It joins HE IS to He Saves — eternity to time, ontology to mission.
Thus, Yeshua is the divine sentence completed: HE IS Who Saves.

4. The Baptism and the Voice

At the Jordan, the threefold Name sounds together for the first time:
The Son stands in the water; the Spirit descends as dove; the Father’s voice declares, “You are My beloved Son.”
Here, Exodus 3:14–15 becomes event:
• The Father declares “I AM” through the voice.
• The Spirit bears witness — “HE IS.”
• The Son receives the address — “YOU ARE.”
The baptism is therefore the audible revelation of the Name’s internal grammar. The triune pattern of speech — I AM / HE IS / YOU ARE— becomes relational reality.

5. The Ministry: The Name in Motion

Every healing and parable in the Gospels enacts the same divine grammar. Jesus does not act in the Name; He acts as the Name. When He touches lepers, forgives sins, stills storms, or calls the dead, the bush burns again in Galilee.
“Lazarus, come out!” — the verb of being creates being again.
“Your sins are forgiven.” — the covenant Name proves faithful.
“Peace, be still.” — creation obeys its own grammar.
The people’s response is the ancient confession reborn:
“Truly, this man is the Son of God.”
“Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
“No one can say, ‘JESUS IS Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
The old cry “HE IS God!” (1 Kgs 18:39) now returns as “JESUS IS Lord!” The same Name, re-sounded through new lungs.

6. The Cross: The Name Vindicated

On the cross, the Name is written over His head in three languages — Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — the universal grammar of HE IS Saves. The inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” becomes, by divine irony, the first multilingual proclamation of the Name.
Here, we may remark, “The verb of Being passes through death without ceasing to be.” The One who said I AM endures the negation of existence and still remains. On the third day, the sentence continues — resurrection is the perfect tense of HE IS.
“Why do you seek the living among the dead? HE IS not here; HE IS risen.”
Being cannot be undone; HE IS triumphs over was.

7. Pentecost: The Breath of the Name

At Pentecost, the Spirit descends to ensure the Name will never again be lost. The divine grammar becomes the Church’s breath. Each tongue speaks one sentence with many accents: JESUS IS Lord.
This is the third movement of Exodus 3:14–15.
• The Father said, “I AM.”
• Israel declared, “HE IS.”
• The Spirit now teaches, “Jesus IS.”
The Name has moved from bush to temple to body — from flame on mountain to fire in hearts.
The Spirit’s language is confession. The miracle of tongues is not polyphony but unity — one Name spoken by many beings, the echo of HE IS across nations.

8. The Epistles: The Name Explained

Paul and the apostles make explicit what the Gospels show. The grammar of the Name becomes theology.
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” (Rom 11:36) — the triadic flow of being.
“God has given Him the Name above every name.” (Phil 2:9) — the Name of YHWH (HE IS) shared with the Son.
“No one can say ‘JESUS IS Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3) — the grammar of confession completed.
The apostolic Church lives by the rhythm I AM → HE IS → Jesus IS. Every doxology is a ripple of Exodus 3 through time.

9. Revelation: The Name Fulfilled

The final book of Scripture closes the circle. The voice from the throne declares:
“I AM the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come.” (Rev 1:8)
This is the eternal conjugation of the divine verb — past, present, and future joined in one Name. The tetragrammaton becomes time itself sanctified.
The Lamb bears “a Name written which no one knows but Himself” (19:12), yet He reveals it to the redeemed who bear “His Name upon their foreheads” (22:4). The high priesthood of Israel becomes the identity of the saints; the covenant grammar becomes creation’s song.
“And they sang a new song: YOU ARE worthy…”
“Holy, holy, holy is HE IS God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”

10. The Name Incarnate and the Human Vocation

The incarnation of the Name is the humanisation of Being. In Jesus, I AM meets I am not and transforms it. The divine self-speech embraces creaturely dependence without ceasing to be self-same.
In Him, the verbs of God and man meet in one grammar:
• God says, “I AM.”
• Humanity answers, “YOU ARE.”
• Together they proclaim, “HE IS Saves.”
Thus prayer becomes participation in the life of the Trinity. To call upon the Name is to be drawn into its conversation:
“HE IS, YOU ARE I AM;
YOU ARE HE IS;
I AM has sent HE IS Saves to us.”

This is not intended as a clever novelty, but as a distilled summary of what I take to be Scripture’s basic language about God — the grammar of grace drawn from the canon’s own verbs.

The Church as the Sentence of God
The Church is the continuation of the Name in the world — the living utterance of HE IS Saves. Every baptism writes the Name upon the body; every Lord’s Supper renews the conversation; every act of mercy extends the verb into time.
The last word of theology is not silence but speech transfigured.
The last command is not to define God but to declare Him.
The last confession is the first Name ever spoken.
HE IS.

Appendix VII — The Name in the New Covenant

The New Testament is the living echo of the divine Name. Every time the apostles write “the Lord,” they are invoking the covenant Name revealed to Moses. In Greek, Kyrios carries the freight of YHWH; the Septuagint had already made this substitution, ensuring that Israel’s reverent silence about the Name would not become forgetfulness. The New Testament does not abandon the Name—it breathes it.

Each verse that calls Jesus “Lord” or that quotes “the Lord” from the Hebrew Scriptures is a confession that the one revealed as HE IS in Exodus now walks among His people as HE IS Saves.

Tracing every instance where “Lord” or “God” translates YHWH in the New Testament, re-rendered as HE IS, with theological commentary on each:

1. The Synoptic Gospels: The Name in the Voice of Jesus

The Gospels do not begin with philosophy but with naming. Jesus (Yeshua) itself is the Name of YHWH extended into salvation.

Matthew
• Matt 1:21 — “You shall call His Name Yeshua, for He shall save His people from their sins.”
→ The Name itself interprets the mission: HE IS Saves.
• Matt 3:3 — “Prepare the way of HE IS, make His paths straight.” (Isa 40:3)
→ John the Baptist’s proclamation explicitly identifies Jesus as the coming of YHWH.
• Matt 4:7, 10 — Jesus quotes Deuteronomy: “You shall not put HE IS your God to the test… You shall worship HE IS your God.”
→ The incarnate Word invokes His own Name from Torah, embodying faithful Israel.
• Matt 22:37 — “You shall love HE IS your God with all your heart.”
→ The great commandment remains unchanged; the subject of love is the same God now speaking in human voice.
• Matt 28:19–20 — “Baptising them into the Name… and behold, I AM with you always.”
→ The Great Commission unites all three grammatical persons: Name (HE IS); Command (YOU ARE); Promise (I AM).

Mark
• Mark 12:29 — “Hear, O Israel: HE IS our God, HE IS One.”
→ The Shema, unchanged but intensified, as the incarnate One reaffirms the grammar of unity.
• Mark 14:62 — “You will see the Son of Man… and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of HE IS.”
→ Jesus joins Daniel 7 and Psalm 110: the human One shares the throne of the Eternal.

Luke
• Luke 1:46–47 — “My soul magnifies HE IS, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”
→ Mary’s song becomes the first Christian hymn to the Name as salvation.
• Luke 2:11 — “For unto you is born this day… a Saviour, who is Messiah, HE IS.”
→ The angelic announcement declares the ancient Name newly clothed in flesh.
• Luke 4:18–19 — “The Spirit of HE IS is upon Me.”
→ Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled; the triune grammar appears: Spirit / Son / HE IS.
• Luke 22:31–32 — “HE IS said, ‘Simon, Simon… but I have prayed for you.’”
→ The covenant Name now intercedes personally.

2. The Gospel of John: The “I AM” Sayings and the Name in Flesh

John’s Gospel is the theology of Exodus rewritten in human story. Each “I AM” is the burning bush rekindled.
“Before Abraham was, I AM” (8:58) – the absolute “I AM” (no predicate, no metaphor).
“I AM the bread of life.” (6:35)
“I AM the light of the world.” (8:12)
“I AM the door.” (10:7,9)
“I AM the good shepherd.” (10:11)
“I AM the resurrection and the life.” (11:25)
“I AM the way, the truth, and the life.” (14:6)
“I AM the true vine.” (15:1)

Each phrase combines divine self-reference (I AM) with relational predicate — God disclosed in giving.
• John 1:1–3 — “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God.” → In beginning, Elohim spoke; in Christ, Elohim speaks Himself again.
• John 12:41 — “Isaiah saw His glory and spoke of Him.” → Isaiah’s vision of HE IS (Isa 6) was a vision of the Son.
• John 20:28 — “My Lord and my God!” → Thomas’ confession joins both titles; the Name is now recognisably Jesus.

John’s Gospel is the grammar of Being turned narrative. Every sign and word is an inflection of HE IS within human time.

3. Acts: The Name Proclaimed and Breathed

Acts is the sequel to Exodus — the Name sent into the nations.
• Acts 2:21 — “Everyone who calls upon the Name HE IS shall be saved.”
→ Peter cites Joel, translating Israel’s grammar into the Church’s confession.
• Acts 2:36 — “God has made Him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified.”
→ Kyrios here = YHWH. The crucified One bears the Name forever.
• Acts 4:12 — “There is no other Name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
→ The Name revealed at Sinai is now singularly identified with Jesus.
• Acts 7:59–60 — “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
→ Stephen’s dying prayer mirrors Psalm 31:5 (“Into Your hands, O HE IS, I commit my spirit”), transferring the Name without loss.
• Acts 9:5 — “Who are You, Lord?” — “I AM Jesus whom you are persecuting.”
→ The Damascus moment is revelation re-enacted; I AM speaks from heaven through the Son.

4. Paul: The Name as Gospel

Paul’s letters turn the divine Name into theology of grace.

Romans
• Rom 10:9–13 — “If you confess with your mouth ‘JESUS IS Lord’… for everyone who calls on the Name HE IS shall be saved.”
→ Joel’s prophecy reinterpreted: the same Name, now named as Jesus.

1 Corinthians
• 1 Cor 8:6 — “For us there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ.”
→ Paul reconfigures the Shema, distributing its monotheistic grammar across Father and Son.

Philippians
• Phil 2:9–11 — “God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name above every name.”
→ The Name = YHWH; the exaltation of JESUS IS the revelation of HE IS.

2 Corinthians
• 2 Cor 3:16–18 — “When one turns to HE IS, the veil is removed… Now HE IS is the Spirit.”
→ The covenant Name identified dynamically with the Spirit’s presence.

Ephesians
• Eph 4:5–6 — “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.”
→ Baptismal grammar echoing the Shema; the triune unity articulated through the Name.

5. Hebrews and the Other Epistles

The Epistle to the Hebrews interprets the Name as priesthood — the mediation of divine Being.
• Heb 1:10–12 — “You, HE IS, laid the foundation of the earth.”
→ Psalm 102:25–27 quoted directly to the Son — the Name addressed to Him.
• Heb 13:8 — “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever.”
→ The temporal translation of I AM who I AM.

James, Peter, and John echo the same grammar:
• James 5:11 — “You have seen the purpose of HE IS, how compassionate and merciful HE IS.”
• 1 Peter 3:15 — “Sanctify Christ as HE IS in your hearts.”
• 1 John 4:15 — “Whoever confesses that JESUS IS the Son of God, God abides in him.”

The Name no longer dwells in temple but in hearts; confession is habitation.

6. Revelation: The Name Restored and Revealed

Revelation completes the grammar of Scripture:
“Grace to you… from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come.” (1:4)
The eternal conjugation of Being becomes eschatology.

• Rev 1:8 — “I AM the Alpha and the Omega, says HE IS God, who is and who was and who is to come.”
• Rev 4:8 — “Holy, holy, holy is HE IS God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”
• Rev 11:17 — “We give thanks to You, HE IS God Almighty, who are and who were.”
• Rev 19:6 — “Hallelujah! For HE IS God Almighty reigns.”
• Rev 22:4 — “They will see His face, and His Name shall be on their foreheads.”

Revelation ends where Exodus began — with sight and speech united. The bush’s fire becomes the city’s light; the unpronounceable Name becomes the song of creation.

7. The Name in Full Circle

From Elohim at creation to HE IS Saves in resurrection and HE IS All in All in new creation, Scripture is the unfolding of one utterance. The Name is not a relic but a living verb.

To read the New Testament with the divine Name restored is to hear the Bible as it truly sounds — one continuous act of divine self-speech, resonating through Israel, incarnate in Christ, breathed in the Spirit, confessed by the Church, and consummated in the world to come.
“From Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.
To HE IS be the glory forever. Amen.”

	Revelation	Response	Fulfilment
Torah	“I AM”	“HE IS”	The Voice at the Bush
Prophets & Psalms	“HE IS”	“YOU ARE”	The Song of Israel
Gospels	“I AM” in flesh	“YOU ARE the Christ”	The Word Made Flesh
Acts & Epistles	“JESUS IS”	“HE IS Lord”	The Breath of the Spirit
Revelation	“HE IS, and was, and is to come”	“Amen, come”	The Name Consummated

To render the New Testament’s use of Lord and God faithfully, we should:
• Reading: Substitute HE IS wherever Kyrios clearly translates YHWH.
• Prayer: Reserve I AM for divine self-declaration and Christ’s own “I AM” sayings.
• Confession: Use JESUS IS as the Spirit-breathed formula of worship.
• Address: Employ YOU ARE in doxology and prayer.

Example (Phil 2:9–11, re-rendered):
“Therefore HE IS has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name above every name, that at the Name of HE IS Saves every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that JESUS IS HE IS, to the glory of HE IS the Father.”

Appendix VIII — The Name and the Church’s Speech

To remember the Name is to recover the world’s true grammar.

This thesis is not speculation but practice. The Name calls to be spoken, prayed, sung, and lived. Theology becomes liturgy; revelation becomes response. The final confession of the Church remains the first confession of creation: HE IS.

In creedal form:
“I believe in HE IS, Maker of heaven and earth,
and in HE IS Saves, His Son, our Lord,
and in the Spirit who teaches our confession, ‘JESUS IS.’”

In doxological form:
“To HE IS who was and is and is to come—
be glory forever. Amen.”

In commissioning / missional form:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptising them into the Name—
the Name that says, ‘I AM,’ is proclaimed, ‘HE IS,’ and is prayed, ‘YOU ARE.’”

The revelation of the Name does not conclude in Scripture’s pages; it continues wherever the Church breathes. The New Covenant does not replace Israel’s grammar — it perfects it. The Name that was spoken to Moses, prayed by David, and prophesied by Isaiah is now embodied in Christ and confessed through the Spirit. The Church lives by the same speech that created the world:

1. Confession: The Breath of Faith

Confession is the Spirit’s grammar lesson to the world.

When the apostles cry, “JESUS IS Lord,” they are not composing new theology but fulfilling the grammar of Exodus 3. The Spirit teaches the Church to pronounce the Name rightly — not only with lips but with life.
“No one can say ‘JESUS IS Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3)

This is the Spirit’s hallmark: testimony, not self-reference. The Spirit’s breath converts the divine I AM into the Church’s HE IS.

The confession “JESUS IS Lord” gathers the entire canon into one phrase:
• Elohim — Creator and Source (HE IS).
• YHWH — Covenant and Presence (HE IS).
• Yeshua — Salvation and Incarnation (HE IS Saves).
• Spirit — Confession and Communion (JESUS IS).

Thus, to confess the Name is to participate in the whole economy of God. Every believer becomes a syllable in the one divine sentence.

2. Baptism: The Naming of the Nations

Baptism is not a rite of entry but a re-speech act — God’s grammar applied to human beings.
When Jesus commands,
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matt 28:19)

He does not multiply names but expands one. The threefold prepositions — of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit — describe the internal grammar of the single Name.

This is the canonical completion of Exodus 3:15.
At the bush, God said, “This is My Name forever.”
At the mountain of Galilee, the risen Lord declares what that Name forever is — the triune form of HE IS.

In baptism, the Name is placed upon the person as in Numbers 6:27: “They shall put My Name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” The priestly gesture of benediction becomes the Church’s sacrament of identity.

The baptised no longer bear their own name alone; they are spoken into being within God’s grammar.

To be baptised into the Name is to be submerged in the reality of divine Being. The one who emerges from the water lives conjugated in grace:
• God is I AM.
• Christ is HE IS Saves.
• The believer is YOU ARE Mine.

3. The Lord’s Supper: The Name Remembered and Given

If baptism is the placing of the Name, the Lord’s Supper is its repetition. Every celebration of the Supper is a continuation of Exodus 3: the divine self-giving that speaks life.
Jesus’ words at the table — “This is My body… this is My blood” — mirror the bush’s “I AM.” In both,

Being becomes gift. The bread and cup are not metaphors but manifestations of the same speech that said, “Let there be.”

The Lord’s Supper formula is the covenantal continuation of ‘I AM has sent Me to you. The Son, having been sent, now sends Himself again through bread and wine, so that the Church may live as the spoken people of the Name.

“Do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19)
The Greek anamnesis does not mean recollection but re-presentation. The Lord’s Supper is the living re-saying of the Name — not nostalgia but participation. When the Church breaks bread, HE IS becomes audible again in time.

The Lord’s Supper is the burning bush distributed. Each communicant becomes a branch aflame yet unconsumed, bearing the Word within.

4. The Church’s Speech: The People as Verb

The Church is not a collection of nouns — institutions, persons, doctrines — but a living verb, the continuation of HE IS Saves in the world. To belong to Christ is to be spoken by Him.
• The Creed is the Church’s syntax.
• The Liturgy is the Church’s rhythm.
• The Mission is the Church’s sentence.

Every act of mercy, every proclamation of good news, every whisper of forgiveness is the Name conjugated through human life.

The Church’s existence is God’s ongoing breath; her holiness is grammatical — to speak and live without distorting the Name.

5. The Commandment Renewed

“You shall not bear the Name of HE IS your God in vain.”
In the New Covenant, this commandment is intensified, not relaxed. The believer now bears the Name not on lips alone but in body and vocation. To sin is to mispronounce the Name; to love is to speak it truly.

The moral life is therefore linguistic before it is ethical. Righteousness is right speech lived out — confessing with the mouth and believing in the heart (Rom 10:9).

6. The Name and the Spirit’s Indwelling

Pentecost’s fire is the Name entering respiration.
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak…” (Acts 2:4)
The Church’s first miracle is linguistic because salvation itself is grammatical: the right word spoken in the right way about the right One. The Spirit ensures that what the Father spoke and the Son embodied will never again fall silent.

In the believer, this becomes inward reality:
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Rom 8:16)
The divine I AM calls forth the creaturely I am Yours.

7. The Eschatological Confession

The Church’s grammar stretches toward its final tense:
“At the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Phil 2:10–11)
The last word of history is a Name spoken in unison. The divine verb will echo through all languages until speech and being are one. The world ends not in silence but in harmony — all creation finally breathing the same Name.

8. The Triune Pattern in the Church’s Life

The Church thus lives inside the Name’s grammar, moving ceaselessly from hearing to saying, from saying to being.

Act	Word	Response	Function
Revelation	“I AM”	“HE IS”	Faith arises
Worship	“HE IS”	“YOU ARE”	Adoration unfolds
Mission	“YOU ARE”	“HE IS Saves”	Witness proceeds
Fulfilment	“JESUS IS”	“HE IS All in All”	Consummation occurs

9. The Sacramental Logic of Language

Christian theology must recover a sacramental ontology of words. God did not first create matter and then add speech; He spoke matter into being. Every true word participates in the Word. To speak truthfully is to echo creation; to lie is to unmake it.

Hence, preaching, prayer, and praise are not religious activities but continuations of creation’s first sound. The pulpit, font, and table are linguistic sacraments — material words, audible grace.

In every Lord’s Supper, the Church hears again the priestly blessing transfigured through Christ:
“HE IS bless you and keep you;
HE IS make His face shine upon you;
HE IS lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”

But now, the Church adds the revealed fulfilment:
“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The ancient benediction and the Great Commission are one act — the Name placed, remembered, and sent.

10. The People of the Name

The world’s future is grammatical: when all nations finally pronounce God’s Name without distortion, creation will rest. Until then, the Church breathes the sentence that began in Eden and was completed in Christ:
“HE IS, YOU ARE I AM;
YOU ARE HE IS;
I AM has sent HE IS Saves to us.”

And so the prayer continues:
“Hallowed be Your Name.”

Appendix IX — The Grammar of Worship

How “I AM / HE IS / YOU ARE” structures Christian prayer, hymnody, and proclamation:

Worship is theology set to breath. The divine Name, first revealed as verb, continues as rhythm within the Church’s language of adoration. Every psalm, creed, and hymn — consciously or not — follows the trinitarian grammar of the Name: God speaks I AM, the people proclaim HE IS, and the worshipper replies YOU ARE.
The liturgical syntax of revelation: God initiates, humanity echoes, the Spirit unites. The result is the living music of Being itself.

1. The Triune Structure of All Worship

At Sinai, grammar became covenant. In Christ, grammar becomes communion. The Church’s liturgy continues this threefold speech:

Person			Divine Voice	Human Form			Liturgical Expression
	Father	“I AM”			“HE IS”	Proclamation: “Glory be to God on high.”
	Son	“HE IS Saves”			“YOU ARE”	Adoration: “You are the Christ.”
	Spirit	“JESUS IS”			“HE IS”	Confession: “JESUS IS Lord.”

Every act of worship falls somewhere within this circuit. The Spirit keeps it moving; the Name ensures it remains true.

2. “I AM”: The Voice of God in Worship

The first word of worship is not human. Worship begins with God’s speech, not ours. Before Israel sang, God said. Before the Church confessed, Christ declared.

When Scripture reports divine speech — “I AM the Lord your God,” “I AM with you always,” — it grounds every subsequent hymn. These are not titles but self-utterances, the breath that animates all true praise.

The “I AM” sayings of Jesus (“I AM the bread, light, door, shepherd…”) are therefore liturgical in character: they supply the vocabulary by which the Church lives. To hear these in worship is to hear the bush speaking anew.

3. “HE IS”: The Grammar of Proclamation

Every creed, sermon, and song that declares who God is participates in this grammar. It is the Church’s third-person witness to revelation.

Examples from the ancient hymns:
• “HE IS risen.”
• “HE IS King of glory.”
• “HE IS the image of the invisible God.”
• “HE IS coming again to judge the living and the dead.”

This mode is the grammar of witness. It belongs especially to preaching and proclamation, when the assembly declares truth outward into the world.

The Psalms’ refrain, “For HE IS good, His mercy endures forever,” remains the archetype. The Church inherits this cadence; it runs through the Gloria, the Te Deum, and the Sanctus:
“Holy, holy, holy — HE IS God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”

4. “YOU ARE”: The Grammar of Prayer

Prayer is the grammatical pivot from proclamation to communion. Having spoken about God, the worshipper now speaks to Him.

The Psalms are its model:
“You are my God.” (Ps 31:14)
“You are my shepherd.” (Ps 23:1)
“You are mighty to save.” (Ps 89:8)

The New Testament continues the same rhythm:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matt 16:16)
“You are worthy, our Lord and God.” (Rev 4:11)

In every true prayer, the divine HE IS becomes YOU ARE. The Spirit performs this conversion of grammar — not as correction, but as intimacy.

5. The Sanctus: The Eternal Grammar Sung

“Holy, holy, holy is HE IS God Almighty;
Who was, and is, and is to come.”

The Sanctus is the perfect condensation of the Name’s grammar:
• Holy (thrice repeated) reflects the triune fullness.
• It preserves the verb of Being.
• Who was, and is, and is to come unfolds the eternal conjugation of I AM.

Every time the Church sings this, heaven and earth overlap. The angels at Isaiah’s altar, the elders of Revelation, and the worshippers at every Lord’s Supper share one continuous breath.

6. The Gloria: “HE IS / YOU ARE” in Alternation

The Gloria in Excelsis embodies the Name’s alternation:
“Glory be to God on high (HE IS);
O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father (YOU ARE);
For You only are holy; You only are the Lord; You only, O Christ, with the Holy Spirit, are most high.”

Here, speech moves fluidly between witness and address. The congregation first proclaims God’s glory, then turns to worship the One bearing the Name. This interplay is precisely the rhythm of Exodus 3 transformed into liturgy.

7. The Creed: “HE IS” as Corporate Confession

The Nicene Creed is structured entirely in the HE IS mode.
“We believe in one God… in one Lord Jesus Christ… in the Holy Spirit.”
Each article is a theological third-person sentence, derived from the Name and ending in praise. The Creed is thus not abstract doctrine but public witness: the Church repeating Moses’ charge, “Tell them, HE IS has sent me.”
The Creed is the sermon of the burning bush written for the nations.

8. The Doxology: Returning to “YOU ARE”

Every liturgy closes by returning to direct address:
“Through Him, with Him, in Him… all glory and honour are Yours.”
This “Yours” completes the grammatical circle — from I AM (God’s initiative) through HE IS (proclamation) to YOU ARE (communion). The doxology’s prepositions (through / with / in) articulate the triune structure of divine life.

9. The Jesus Prayer: “HE IS Saves” Becomes Breath

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
This ancient prayer is both confession and inhalation. The repeated invocation of “Lord Jesus” — literally HE IS Saves — unites the Name’s two halves: YHWH and salvation. Each breath utters the grammar of being and redemption together.
In the Jesus Prayer, language itself becomes repentance. Every inhalation confesses HE IS, every exhalation trusts HE IS Saves.

10. The Hymnody of the Church: The Name Set to Music

From early Latin chant to Wesleyan hymns, the same grammar persists:
• HE IS — declaration: “Crown Him Lord of all.”
• YOU ARE — devotion: “You are worthy of all praise.”
• I AM — divine speech: “I AM the Bread of Life.”

Even when unacknowledged, these three persons of grammar structure Christian song. The music of the Church is the theology of Exodus 3 set to melody.

11. The Liturgical Year: The Name Through Time

The calendar itself thus becomes a yearly conjugation of the divine verb.

Season	Aspect of the Name	Emphasis
Advent	“HE IS coming”	Expectation of the Name appearing
Christmas	“HE IS Saves”	The Name embodied
Epiphany	“HE IS Lord”	Revelation of divine identity
Lent	“YOU ARE merciful”	Confession and repentance
Easter	“HE IS risen”	Triumph of Being over death
Pentecost	“JESUS IS Lord”	The Name breathed
Ordinary Time	“HE IS faithful”	Daily remembrance of the Name
All Saints / Christ the King	“HE IS all in all”	The consummation of the Name

12. The Name and the Future of Worship

Worship’s renewal will not come from novelty but from recovering the Name’s grammar. Modern liturgy often drifts into slogans or sentiment; contemporary ‘praise and worship’ music frequently strays into idolatrous egocentrism. The ancient rule recalls that all speech before God must align with Being itself.

Our future liturgy must again let grammar become theology:
• When God speaks — preserve I AM.
• When the Church proclaims — declare HE IS.
• When the heart prays — confess YOU ARE.

In this way, the people of God will speak truly, sing rightly, and live faithfully within the Name that is forever.

“Let the Word of Messiah dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to HE IS.”

Our hymns — our writings and poetry — should capture the trinitarian grammar; here in doxological form:

HE IS, YOU ARE, I AM
HE IS, Creator and King of all;
YOU ARE, Redeemer near to call;
I AM, the Spirit, breath and flame —
One holy God, forever the same.
HE IS who was, HE IS who saves,
YOU ARE the One who breaks our graves;
I AM, the Life, the Light, the Word —
Praise to the Name our hearts have heard.

14. The Grammar of Eternity

Our liturgy, creed, and prayers should not be human works (inventions) but reflections of divine syntax (His Word-work). To worship is to speak reality. The eternal act of God is a conversation: Father speaking, Son answering, Spirit breathing the response into creation.

In heaven, this conversation will never cease; the saints and angels will endlessly translate I AM into HE IS and YOU ARE.
“And every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is HE IS,
To the glory of God the Father.”

The circle closes, yet it never ends. The grammar of worship is the grammar of being; and being itself is praise—all being: it boasts, consciously or corruptly, resonating in a rave of knowledge that HE IS Elohim. (Ps 19:1; Rom 1:19).

Appendix X — Notes of Divine Grammar

1. The Root היה (h-y-h) and Its Persons of Being

The grammar of God’s Name rests upon the Hebrew verb היה — to be. Its three core forms determine the divine Name’s personal grammar:

Person	Hebrew Form	Transliteration	Function	Rendering
1st Person	אהיה	Ehyeh	Self-speech; divine self-reference	I AM / I WILL BE
3rd Person	יהוה	YHWH	Human proclamation; memorial Name	HE IS / HE WAS / HE WILL BE
2nd Person	אתה הוא	Atah hu	Direct address; relational invocation	YOU ARE

Thus, revelation in Exodus 3:14–15 establishes a tri-personal grammar rather than a static proper noun. The Name is verb, not title; being itself in communicative form.

“Ehyeh” is not equivalent to “vayhi” (“and it came to pass”). They share the root of being but differ in person and aspect—guarding the transcendence of God’s self-speech from the common flow of narrative verbs. God’s being is not a past event but an ever-present act.

2. From Ontology to Liturgy

Where Ehyeh speaks ontology, YHWH governs liturgy. The shift from first to third person signifies the movement from divine self-revelation to communal confession. “Tell them, HE IS has sent you” (Exod 3:15). The Name is thus not only what God is but how He is to be spoken of.

This movement generates the grammar of worship itself:
• “I AM” — divine speech.
• “HE IS” — witness.
• “YOU ARE” — prayer.

The entire canon echoes this pattern. The Psalms employ all three forms dynamically. Prophecy mediates between “HE IS” and “YOU ARE.” The New Testament translates this same logic into Greek (Ego eimi, Kyrios estin, Su ei), maintaining the theological continuity of the verb.

3. The Trinitarian Expansion of the Name

Exodus 3:14–15 already contains the trinitarian potential of Scripture’s God-talk. Each Person of the Trinity enacts one “person” of the grammar:

Divine Person	Speech Function	Canonical Manifestation
Father	I AM / I Will Be — Source and Speaker	Revealing the divine being to Moses; sustaining creation
Son	HE IS Saves — Embodied Word	Yeshua / Jesus, in whom “HE IS” takes flesh
Spirit	JESUS IS — Confessed Breath	The indwelling testimony “JESUS IS Lord”

Thus, revelation proceeds from “I AM,” is enacted in “HE IS Saves,” and is breathed in “JESUS IS.”
This is not speculative metaphysics but linguistic fidelity: each Person of the Trinity corresponds to one grammatical person of divine speech.

4. The Covenant of Speech and the Sin of Silence

The second commandment, “You shall not bear the Name of YHWH in vain,” is grammatical as well as moral. To bear it in vain (lash-shav) means to misuse the verb of being—to speak of God falsely, to distort His grammar in human language or life. The Scriptures underline that bearing the Name rightly means living in the truth of divine speech.

When Israel forgets the Name, history itself breaks down; exile is not merely political but linguistic—God’s people lose their grammar. Restoration begins with re-speaking: “Then men began to call upon the Name HE IS” (Gen 4:26).

5. From “El Shaddai” to “HE IS”

Genesis 17:1–3 is pivotal: “YHWY (HE IS) appears to Abram and says to him, “I—God Almighty [El Shaddai]: Habitually walk before Me, and be perfect.” And recounting, Exodus 6:2b-3 says, [YHWY (HE IS) said to Moses] “I—YWHY (HE IS): And I appeared to Abraham as El Shaddai, but by My Name YHWH I was not known to them.”

In my view, this does not mean the patriarchs were completely ignorant of the Name, but that they had not yet experienced or understood it in its covenantal depth; not yet known the Name in covenant terms disclosed at the Exodus. (This is one well-attested way of reading this verse and understanding Genesis’ earlier use of YHWH—though some scholars take the line differently. My argument proceeds on this recognised, confessional reading.)

On this view, “El Shaddai” denotes sufficiency, provision, manifestation; “YHWH” discloses Being itself—the eternal, faithful One who keeps covenant. Revelation thus moves from title to Name, from description to self-identification.

6. Christ as the Completion of the Verb

In Yeshua, the verb of being receives an object: salvation. The Name “HE IS” becomes the Name “HE IS Saves.” This is the moment where ontology and soteriology unite. The eternal “to be” takes the temporal “to save.”

Christ’s Incarnation and Cross are the enactment of Exodus 3:14–15 in human history. When He says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” He does not adopt a title but speaks the grammar of His own being. His death and resurrection demonstrate that being itself is redemptive; the divine verb cannot be undone.

7. The Spirit as the Breath of the Name

At the level of theological description, we can speak of the Spirit’s “functional Name” in Trinitarian revelation as “JESUS IS / HE IS—Is” (i.e., HE IS ever Is): He names Another, teaching the Church to call upon and bear the Name. This is not speculative metaphysics or a literal naming formula but a way of highlighting that each Person of the Trinity corresponds to one grammatical person of divine speech.

The Spirit’s descent at Pentecost is the moment when divine speech becomes plural without ceasing to be one. The same Name now inhabits many tongues. This is the Spirit’s functional Name—not self-referential but testimonial: JESUS IS.

This is why Luke records that the Spirit gave “utterance.” Theology becomes respiration. The confession of the Name in every language is both the restoration of Babel and the fulfilment of Exodus 3: “This is My Name forever.”

8. Pastoral Implications

• Scripture Reading: Always render YHWH as HE IS; retain I AM where the divine voice speaks directly.
• Prayer: Employ YOU ARE when addressing God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ personally, maintaining relational immediacy and theological accuracy.
• Church: Teach this, the Church’s grammar, as a participation in divine speech, not merely as a linguistic curiosity.
• Mission: The Church’s task is to translate—not replace—the Name; to carry its meaning faithfully into every language. Translate the Name!

9. The Eschatological Horizon of the Name

Revelation closes the canon by gathering the entire grammar into one sentence:
“Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come.”

The eternal verb now contains all tenses. The Name is fulfilled in time yet transcends it. The final vision is not of a silent deity but of a cosmos singing the same verb that once called it into being.
Every creature that has breath speaks: HE IS.

10. The Name as Proverb and Parable

The divine Name is not a noun but a verb, and in this it bears a resemblance to Israel’s wisdom tradition. A proverb (mashal) works by juxtaposition — the wise and the fool, life and death, righteousness and deceit — setting truth within tension so that wisdom may be discerned. The Name revealed at the bush shares this structure. YHWH is itself a juxtaposition: the unnameable named, the infinite spoken finitely, the transcendent present in time. In this sense, the Name is proverb not by etymology but by theology — revelation given in paradox; wisdom set forth as mystery.

The Name binds together realities no creaturely naming can hold in one word: being and doing, identity and act, the eternal “IS” and the historical “WILL BE.” It is, in itself, a proverb of divine being — a sentence whose meaning is inexhaustible, a confession that must be lived to be understood.

And in another sense, the Name is a parable. It reveals and veils at once — a secret disclosed, yet the disclosure remains secret except to those who listen. Those who will not hear, do not; those who refuse to turn, cannot see. The Name opens itself to all and yet remains closed to any who will not enter it. As with the parables of Jesus, the Name itself separates the inattentive from the attentive, the casual from the seeking. It is both invitation and threshold, both light and concealment — the wisdom of God expressed as speech, offered to be received or refused.

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HE IS: The One Name—Given, Spoken, Known