In the description of the burning bush recorded in Exodus we are told of Moses' receiving an important message from God, so important and so sacred that Moses, to indicate his reverence for it, removed his shoes. When God told him to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, Moses, thinking of himself as a mortal, felt the task an impossible one for him to accomplish. Then was revealed to him the great truth that God is the One who is and will be, and that he could rely on God as his constant help: "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."
This may be regarded as one of the most portentous passages in the Bible. Could a more sublime and all-inclusive term be found for God? He is the one infinite I AM, the only self-existent Being. He is One and All.
Since God is the one I AM, the one Being, man, God's image and likeness, has no selfhood apart from God, and he can do nothing save what God worketh in him to do. Just as there could be no image in a mirror without its original, so man could not exist without God. All that man is, has, and does, he is capable of only because he is God's image and likeness. Man is "that which has not a single quality underived from Deity," says Mary Baker Eddy on page 475 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
