John 8:56-59
Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
It was a shocking claim and the Jewish leaders reacted with their willingness to stones Jesus to death right then and there. In the Old Testament, God revealed His name to Moses: “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Ex. 3:14). Thus, in Judaism, “I AM” is unquestionably understood as a name for God. Whenever Jesus made an “I am” statement in which He claimed attributes of deity, He was identifying Himself as God. Sometimes it was more subtle metaphor—I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the good shepherd—but on two occasions there was not subtly whatsoever. There was only a clear and unmistakable declaration:
“I am.”
The verbs Jesus uses are in stark contrast to each other: “…before Abraham was, I am.” In one short statement, Jesus is declaring his eternality, and thus, his deity. There is no doubt that the Jews knew exactly what he was saying, since they took up stones and were ready to kill him. Not only did he claim to be God, he did that on the heels of claiming that Abraham knew about his coming and looked forward to it. Jesus was wrapping the entire Jewish narrative around himself. All the prophets. All the stories. All the wisdom literature and poetry. What had been. What was. What would be. It all centered in on him, the great I AM.
Of this verse, John Calvin wrote, “…by these words he excludes himself from the ordinary rank of men, and claims for himself a power more than human, a power heavenly and divine, the perception of which reached from the beginning of the world through all ages.” I think most of us tend to underestimate the true “other worldliness” of Jesus the Christ, God the Father, and The Holy Ghost. We tend to humanize what we can’t fully grasp, and in doing so we end up minimizing that which simply cannot be maximized enough. That is why the self-given name of God is so deeply profound:
“I AM that I AM.”
All existence itself emanates from the eternal existence of YAHWEH. It’s an amazing thought: All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (Jn. 1:3). Molecular structures. Plants. Animals. Eco-systems. Continents. Oceans. The atmosphere. Our solar system. The Milky Way. The Universe. The tilt of the earth. The beautiful Fall colors. Childbirth. Finger-painting. Hot Wheels. Ferrari’s. Buckingham Palace. The United States of America. The Grand Canyon. Solar winds. Dark matter. The MacBook Pro I’m typing on. The fingers, eyes, and mind that operates it. The Holy Spirit that indwells me. The Bible that guides me. The family that loves me.
Jesus IS THE GREAT I AM…and He loves you enough to die for you. Think about that today. The Center of the Universe is your King, Master, Father, and Friend.
