God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
To be part of the community of faith entails a responsibility to hold each other accountable to Christ as judge, under whom and in whose name we care called to a growing obedience and to an open admission of our faults. Such a responsibility will also entail punishing those who continual and flagrant sins cast scorn on Christ’s call and character as the Lord of the church.
All other things derive being – their ‘is-ness’ is secondary. But God did not derive His being from any other – His ‘is-ness’ is underived, original, eternal! He was, and is, and is to come, the eternal ‘I Am.’ Rather than concealing His identity, this Name reveals the deepest mystery of His being, and rocks our minds with the discovery that we cannot begin to fathom the mind and life of this eternal God.