God said Two names God would be known by: 1st, A name that speaks what he is in himself, I AM THAT I AM. The Septuagint renders the words ειμι ο ων, I AM the existing Being, or HE WHO IS; and the Chaldee, I AM HE WHO IS, and WHO WILL BE. That is, I am He that enjoys an essential, independent, immutable, and necessary existence, He that IS , and WAS, and IS TO COME. It explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1st, That he is self- existent: he has his being of himself, and has no dependance on any other. And being self-existent, he cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all- sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and blessedness. 2d, That he is eternal and unchangeable: the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. For the words are with equal propriety rendered, I WILL BE WHAT I AM, or, I AM WHAT I WILL BE, or, I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. Other beings are, and have been, and shall be; but because what they have been might have been otherwise, and what they are might possibly not have been at all, and what they shall be may be very different from what now is therefore their changeable, dependant, and precarious essence, which to-day may be one thing, to- morrow another thing, and the next day possibly nothing at all, scarce deserves the name of being. There is another consideration which makes this name peculiarly applicable to God, namely that he is the fountain of all being and perfection, and that from him all things have derived their existence; so that it is he alone that has life in himself: and no creature, of whatever rank or order, has so much as an existence of its own: For in him we live, and move, and have our being. And though divers of God's attributes are, through his goodness, participated by his creatures, yet because they possess them in a way so inferior to that transcendent, peculiar, and divine manner in which they belong to God, the Scriptures seem absolutely to exclude created beings from any title to those attributes.
Thus our Saviour says, There is none good but one, that is God. Thus St. Paul terms God the only Potentate, though the earth be shared by several potentates; and the only wise God, though many men and the holy angels are wise. And thus he describes him as one who only hath immortality, although angels and human souls are also immortal. In so incommunicable a manner does the superiority of God's nature make him possess those very excellences which the diffusiveness of his goodness has induced him to communicate. 3d, That he is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word, as well as in his nature; and not a man that he should lie. Let Israel know this; I AM hath sent me unto you.