Context No. 3962 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 8:54-59: in context
54Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God. 55You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57The Jews therefore said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?” 58Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.” 59Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, having gone through the middle of them, and so passed by.
In a heated exchange, Jesus makes a claim so staggering that his hearers immediately pick up stones to kill him. Speaking of Abraham, who had lived two thousand years before, he says: your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. When they scoff, you are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus answers with words that echo God's own name revealed to Moses: before Abraham was, I am.
This is no ordinary claim. Jesus does not merely say he existed before Abraham; he takes to himself the divine name, I am, the name of the eternal, self-existent God. He is claiming to be God, existing eternally before Abraham was ever born. His hearers understood exactly what he meant, which is why they reached for stones; to them it was blasphemy. But it was the truth. Jesus is not simply a great teacher or prophet who lived and died; he is the eternal I am, God himself, who existed before all things and always will. This is the heart of who Jesus is, and everything depends on how we respond to it. He forces the question: is this man the eternal God, or not?
Do I receive Jesus for who he claimed to be, the eternal I am, God himself who existed before all things, and does that claim shape how I respond to him, or do I try to keep him as merely a great teacher?