Truth does not change. One can disbelieve and argue against the truth and end up still disbelieving, but it does not change the reality of the truth. In this passage unbelief is present and the truth is being declared.
Jesus has been in a verbal battle about His identity with the Pharisees and scribes. It begins in chapter 8:1 and continues through chapter 10:19. The debate starts with Jesus being compared to Moses in authority, then Jesus declares to be The Light of the world, The Father sent Him and bears witness of Him, to be from heaven, those who believe Him will live and those who don’t will die in their sins, and everyone is a slave to sin which brings us to verses 53-59. We will be focusing on verse 58. It is in this verse Jesus is making a proclamation about Who He is. Lets continue in verse 53 of the debate.
In this verse, the Pharisees and scribes respond to Jesus’ proclamations and challenge His greatness to that of Abraham or the prophets. Abraham was the father of the Hebrews, the father of Israel. The first Hebrew. He was called out by God to be a great nation, Genesis 12:1. No one could be greater than the founder of the people, or of the prophets, people that God spoke through for leading and judgement, in the eyes of His opponents.
The following two verses, Jesus diverts the attention off of Him and back to The Father. He is reiterating the point from earlier in the debate that what He does or says is from The Father and it is The Father Who is honoring Him not man or Himself. Also, He makes a clear distinction between their relationship with God and His. Jesus uses two different words for “knowing”. He uses “ginosko” for the Pharisees and scribes and “oida” for Himself. “Ginosko” has the idea of coming to know something through knowledge or understanding. “Oida” has the idea of knowing something through the act of seeing or being with personally and experience it. Jesus makes it clear that He has experienced God The Father personally, and that they don’t even understand Yahweh (The Lord God) through the scriptures that they have read and studied.
Then in verses 56-57, Jesus mentions that Abraham rejoiced to see His day as if He was there with Him. This bewilders the Pharisees and scribes because in the physical appearance of Jesus He is less than 50 years old by a generous estimation given by them.
It is here in verse 58, that Jesus makes His proclamation about His identity. Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” He begins His response with “Truly, truly” or “Amen, Amen” in the Greek. This tells the listener to be aware that what is about to be said is very important and is to be understood as the truth. Following this attention grabbing introduction, Jesus makes a proclamation that shocks and enrages the Pharisees. He says that He existed before Abraham.
Jesus is not just saying that he existed before Abraham, but that He existed before anything was created. The “I am” statement would remind those who were listening of the time that Yahweh (The Lord God) spoke to Moses at Mount Horeb in the burning bush in Exodus 3:1-15. The Lord God had summoned Moses to lead Israel out of the bondage of Egypt. Moses was fearful and questioned how the people would listen to him. The Lord told him to tell the people that “I AM That I AM” sent him to deliver the people from the bondage of slavery in Egypt.
Jesus is making a parallel of that event to the present time taking place. What was taking place during Moses’ time was a shadow of the true deliverance from the slavery of sin and death. Moses took the people out of a physical bondage but they were still in the spiritual bondage of sin and death. Jesus came to be The Deliverer from spiritual sin and death to give life. However, Jesus did not just come as the messenger of God to Deliver the people, by His “I am” statement He is, also, stating He is The Lord God that has come to be The Deliver of the world.
This reference by Jesus as being Yahweh, The One and Only God, enraged the non-believing Pharisees and scribes. To them it was impossible that He could be God. They disbelieved all the works (miracles) and declarations that Jesus made to be God in the likeness of man. Therefore, because of their belief that He was blaspheming God, they picked up stones in an attempt to stone Him to death.
How exciting to see the boldness of Jesus as He tells others Who He is so that they might believe in Him for salvation. The Apostle John explains the purpose of this book in John 20:31(NAU) “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” May we share with others this truth in the hope that they too will come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Lord, as we meditate on this truth in Your Word, please cause Your boldness to well up within us to stand as beacons of truth in love to those around us.
Love Daniel
Posted on March 21st, 2007 by Daniel
Filed under: Truth To Live By