John 8:56-59 (NIV)
“Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Jesus’ teaching session ended on a stunning note. His hearers had erected a wall against Jesus’ testimony that He was indeed the Son of God. That whole concept could find no place in their minds and hearts. They knew Jesus as a man, a good man, perhaps; maybe even an amazing man who could do amazing things; but just a man. And His claims to be more than that put them on edge.
Earlier in the discussion, they had claimed to be children of Abraham. Now Jesus brought Abraham back into the conversation. He stated that Abraham himself had seen Jesus’ day far off and had rejoiced to see it. The fact that God had clued Abraham in on what would happen in the future could be gleaned from the scriptural promise that all nations would be blessed through his line (for example, in Genesis 12:3). However, Jesus reported this revelation, as well as Abraham’s joyful reaction to it (which is not specifically mentioned in the Scriptures) as if he were giving an eyewitness account. But with Abraham having been dead for around 2,000 years, and Jesus being only about 32 years old at that time, that seemed very unlikely, and the crowd called Him on it, mockingly asking how He could have seen what He was so confidently reporting.
That’s when Jesus dropped the bombshell. Verb tenses can be tricky to translate, especially when they seem to lack an appropriate context for the tense being used. But Jesus was neither confused nor inaccurate in His precisely chosen words: “before Abraham was born, I am!” Not “I was,” but “I am”. In that one short sentence, Jesus was claiming not only to have been around since before the days of Abraham two millennia before; He was also identifying Himself with the divine name of God, revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai at the burning bush: 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.'” (Exodus 3:14 NIV) It was a stunningly clear declaration that Jesus was not only NOT a mere human, as He appeared to be, but that he Himself was the eternally existing God in the flesh.
To the Jews who were listening to Him, this was blasphemy of the highest order. With a shout of rage, they scattered to grab some rocks from nearby (there were no rocks lying around in the temple courts), intending to stone Jesus to death. But by the time they returned, He had left the temple complex.
Father, the truth is the truth, even if nobody wants to hear it. Jesus never shied away from the truth of who He was. Help me to never shy away from that truth either. Instead, help me to testify clearly and boldly, both by my words and my actions, that Jesus was and is God in the flesh, the Lord and Savior of all humanity. Amen.