Exodus 3: 13 – 14: And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
John 8: 57 – 58: Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
In the Old Testament, Jehovah God was above His people, but then in the New Testament God came down among His people in the person of Jesus Christ. This act of changing form is called “enmorphe” in the Greek, and is best likened to an actor changing his costume and mask to play another character in a great theatrical performance. So God changed His mask and appeared among us in the personage of Jesus Christ, insomuch that Jesus in the flesh would use the same words to the Jews as He did to Moses when Jesus was in Spirit as Jehovah God, saying that He is the “I AM.”
Unlike the disciples who knew Jesus in the flesh, the apostle Paul was never afforded this opportunity; however, after having been struck to the ground by the Pillar of Fire on his way to Damascus, Paul heard Jehovah God speaking to him, saying the words, “I AM Jesus whom thou persecutest!” (Acts 9: 5). From this Paul learned that the same Jehovah God who was the Pillar of Fire that led Israel through the wilderness was actually Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate form.
After his conversion, Paul went into Arabia for three years, where in a place of solitude he studied the scrolls of the prophets, and under the guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit came to understand that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the same Jesus who was crucified on the cross of Calvary. This revelation Paul reiterates to us in Galatians 1: 15 – 17: But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.
This great revelation that Paul received in the desert of Arabia was also revealed to the prophet in the last days. Whilst he was out hunting, the Lord showed the prophet three great big rainbows coming from one source at the top of a hill, and a Voice spoke, saying, “Jesus of the New Testament is Jehovah of the Old; He only changed His mask from Spirit to man.” Such a tremendous truth was then beautifully summed up for us in the message “Christ is the mystery of God revealed” (July 28, 1963). All that God was He poured into (the Greek word is “kenos”) Christ, and all that Christ was, He poured into the Church; so then the Bride of Christ in the last days is the living expression of the invisible Spirit of God, which is Christ the Word.