Gospels Part 063

Jesus makes a very bold statement about who He was several times in the Gospel of John. But we need a little background to understand and grasp what He’s telling us. Let’s notice John 8:56-59. Here Jesus is arguing with some of the Jews, and notice what He says and the reaction it brings:  

Jesus said: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Then the Judeans replied, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM!” Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus was hidden from them and went out from the temple area.  

Let’s notice three key points here:  

• Jesus claims to have existed before Abraham (who lived about 2,000 years earlier).
• Jesus uses the words “I AM,” applying them to Himself.  
• This prompts the Jews to try to stone Him. Make no mistake; they weren’t just picking up rocks to throw at Him; they were trying to stone Him to death!  

Translated into English, what He says here sounds confusing. It’s not good English. But in the Aramaic or Hebrew language in which Jesus was speaking, He was saying something that immediately made people try to stone Him to death for blasphemy. So, what is really going on here?   

Jesus was revealing Himself to be the actual One whom the Jews knew as God in the Old Testament period. He was saying not only that He existed before Abraham, but that He was the same Being as the God whom Abraham, Isaac and Jacob worshiped.   

To understand the background, we have to go back to the time when God is revealing Himself to Moses at the burning bush and telling Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. We read about this in Exodus 3:13-14:

“Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is His name?” what shall I say to them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’”

Here we see that Moses asked this Being what His name was. God responded, “I AM WHO I AM,” and told Moses to tell the Israelites, “I AM has sent me to you.”   

“I AM” is basically linked to the personal name for God in Hebrew, the name YHWH. It’s commonly shown in our English Bibles with small capital letters as Lord. It appears as “Jehovah” in some Bible versions, although most scholars would agree the actual pronunciation was more like Yahweh. The Hebrew word or name is impossible to translate precisely into English. Something close would be “The Eternal One,” “The One Who Always Exists” or “The One Who Was, Is and Always Will Be.” A shorthand way of expressing this would be “The Eternal.” That’s the basic meaning of the word.   

So, what’s going on here in John’s Gospel when he writes about this? When Jesus said what He did, the Jews knew right away exactly what He meant. And they picked up rocks to stone Him to death for blasphemy! They knew He was applying God’s divine name of I AM to Himself and thereby claiming to be that same God!  

Another verse that ties in with this is Isaiah 42:8 where this same Being says, 

“I am the LORD [YHWH], that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another . . .”   

The Jews understood who Jesus claimed to be. He said He was the Being that the nation of Israel worshiped as the one true God. By Jesus claiming for Himself the name “I AM,” He was saying that He was the God whom the Jews worshiped as YHWH. This name was considered so holy that the Jews of His day wouldn’t even pronounce it. So when the Jews heard Jesus use that name for Himself, they wanted to kill Him for blasphemy—for claiming to be God.