Jesus, The Great I Am Series

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John 8:51-59 51Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” 52At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

When you think of Christmas, you think of a baby being born. When you think of the birth of a baby you think of a beginning. The baby born in Bethlehem was a beginning, the beginning of the incarnate God in human flesh, the God/Man Jesus Christ. But here, Jesus makes that in one of the most shocking statements “Before Abraham was born, I AM”?

They rightly concluded that if Abraham saw Jesus, it isn’t because Abraham is alive now; it’s because Jesus was claiming to be alive then. That shock registers their response, “You’re not even 50 years now. How could You ever say that You saw Abraham who has been dead for centuries?”

And the Lord’s responding statement is monumental: John 8:58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” What it means is there was a definite point in time when Abraham began, a point in past history when the man who did not exist came into existence. Jesus says, “Before that, I AM.” That’s the eternal present that indicates no beginning.

It is a statement about eternality. It is a statement about everlasting life, no beginning, no end. In the life of God there is no before and there is no after. Thus is Jesus claiming to be the eternal God.

To give us understanding of the greatness and the vastness of this name, we need to go back to Exodus 3. God has made Himself manifest to Moses in a most startling in a burning bush, and God commissioned Moses to lead 2 million or so Jews out of Egypt to the Promised Land.

Exodus 3:13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” There were many false gods. They all had names. Moses said, “Now when I go to them and say, ‘I’m coming from the God of your fathers, and God has sent me to lead you out,’ and they say to me, ‘Well, what God? What is His name?’ what do I tell them?”

Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” Now, what is bound up in that name?

He is the eternal present.

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

But when Jesus said, “Before Abraham began, I AM,” in that little two-word phrase, “I AM,” Jesus opened up vast understanding for us about who He is. I am is Yahweh in the Old Testament used 6,800 times. The Jews knew the name of God to be “I AM.” When Jesus said, “I AM,” they knew He was claiming to be God.

Certainly eternal existence. God has no before and no after and no past and no future. But that’s not all. Exodus 3:11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Exodus 3:12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: Now, we learn a second thing about I AM. I AM is the eternal One who is present with His people – I AM, not in the distance sense; I AM in a near sense.

He is present with His people.