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Before Abraham Was, I AM

Stones or worship? How do you respond when Jesus says, “I AM”?

This is the text of a message I preached at Roswell Alliance Church in Roswell, GA on October 8, 2023. Click on the link for the online service if you prefer to watch or listen. The sermon begins at about the 18th minute.

Video: 37 minutes

Reading time: 7 minutes

Online service – Roswell Alliance Church

Scripture: John 8:52-59

Text: John 8:58 “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

Set the context

To appreciate the significance of this statement by Jesus, it will help to see it in its context.

John 8 is a chapter of shocking discoveries 

     About ourselves 
     About Jesus

Shocking discoveries about ourselves

In John 8:1-11, a law posse takes on a law breaker. Which is Jesus? Will He side with the lawyers and prosecutors, or discharge the lawbreaker?

Jesus astonishes them. He doesn’t declare the woman innocent, but He also takes the stones, and the law, out of their hands.

There will be no stone throwing. The accusers walk away with this startling conviction: “No one can say I am without sin.”

This scene reveals what Paul would later express: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one.”

We move on to John 8:31-47, where Jesus’s audience objects to His statement that the Son will set them free. “We have never been in bondage. We have always been free to live as we want.”

This is amazing. They forget the whole reason for The Exodus, when God delivered them from slavery and hard labor in Egypt. They ignore the 400 years of up-and-down life during the judges and the years of exile with the Assyrians and Babylonians. And even now, they are not free, but at the mercy of Rome.

The conversation continues and they cite their pedigree: Abraham is our father and, ultimately, God is our father.

Jesus counters. “You are of your father the devil.” Children of God do not behave like you.

These are shocking discoveries. Altogether, they drive to this revelation: I am not who I think I am; I am not what I thought I was.

Shocking discoveries about Jesus

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” and Paul explained, “everything that is exposed to the light becomes visible” (Ephesians 5:13).

We see how this works in John 8:1-11, where the accusers come to Jesus, dragging the woman with them, thinking to expose the darkness in her life and to shine the light on their goodness. The light exposes them and the woman, and manifests Jesus. By His action, Jesus exposed them all as in the dark, and revealed Himself as the one who makes manifest what we are.

The discovery of who and what I am when I come into the presence of Jesus reveals He is the light. I am like the woman at the well in John 4, who runs from Jesus, shouting, “Come see a man who told me all I ever did.”

When we don’t see Jesus for who He is, we are left in the dark. There is no light in us, either to throw stones or to see the way out of our darkness and escape.

This is the context. Now, the final scene. There are three parts.

The question:  Who do You make Yourself out to be? 
The answer: "I AM" 
The response: Stones or worship

The question

“Who do You make Yourself out to be?”

Jesus had a way of raising this question.

  • In a boat with the disciples when He calms the storm. “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”
  • In the house of Simon the Pharisee, Jesus accepts the adoration of a woman who comes in uninvited and says she is forgiven. “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Luke 7:49
  • “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?” John 7:15

One way or another, Jesus had people asking, “Who are you?”

One time, Jesus turned the tables and He asked the question. “Who do people say I am?” Then, directly to the disciples, “Who do you say I am?”

The answer

Jesus answers their question: Before Abraham was, I AM.

The answer addresses two of our five W’s: When and Who.

When

The answer is bad grammar. Jesus combines the present tense with the past: Abraham was, I AM. But Jesus breaks the rule even more.

There is the past: Abraham was.

There is the distant past: Before Abraham

And there is Jesus: I AM.

Jesus is saying, go back in the past to Abraham; go into the distant past, before Abraham, and there I am, the ever present, I AM.

No wonder the writer of Hebrews declares, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

The original has it, “Before Abraham came into being, I AM.” I exist before Abraham existed.

This is the when, which brings us to the who.

Jesus brings the people back to the burning bush, to when God answered a similar question by Moses, “Who do I tell the people sent me?”

“I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). Tell them, Yahweh, I AM, has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14).

I AM sent Moses to deliver Israel from their bondage in Israel.

I AM called Abraham out of Ur.

I AM promised, “I will make you a great nation.”

I AM the God whom Abraham believed and counted his belief for righteousness.

You ask who I make myself out to be?

I AM.

To help grasp the significance of this, let’s go back to the Old Testament.

Nehemiah 9:7-8 drops us in the days of Abraham.

  • The Lord God chose Abraham.
  • Brought him out of Ur and to Canaan
  • Found his heart faithful. You searched him, and found what you were looking for: faith. Someone who listened to, and believed, God.

This is Abraham. The faithful man who these Jews told Jesus, “Abraham is our father.” We are in the past.

But Jesus said, go back farther: Before Abraham, I AM.

And what do we find in that time before Abraham?

Nehemiah 9:6

  • You alone are the Lord. The title is Yahweh, I AM, the same Yahweh who spoke to Moses.
  • The Creator: you made heaven, the heaven of heavens; the earth; the seas.
  • You preserve them all, the life of all who live. Several translations say, “You give life to all things.” The Hebrew for preserve includes all phases of life:
To give life, to quicken
To preserve, to keep life alive
To revive, restore, i.e. To resurrect.

You begin to see how Paul and John came to believe this about Jesus:

John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Paul, in Colossians 1, says Jesus 

15: Is the image of the invisible God. 
16: Is creator of all things 
17: Is before all things. Before anyone and anything. He is the one who was, and is, and is to come. 
17: Holds all things together
19: Is the fullness of God. Everything God is, is in Christ.

The response

So, we have the question: Who do You make Yourself out to be? And the answer: I AM.

Now, what do we do with this?  How do we respond?

The scriptures we are considering show us two responses: Stones or worship.

In John, “they took up stones to throw at Him” (John 8:59). They wanted to kill Jesus.

To this, Jesus would counter: “You believe in God, believe also in me.” Would you stone God? Then why do you take up stones to throw at me?

The other response is worship.

In Nehemiah 9:5 the leaders told the congregation, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God Forever and ever!”

In Nehemiah 9:6, “The host of heaven worships You.”

When you learn Jesus is I AM, the proper response is to stand and bless the Lord.

The word translated “stand up” means arise, and suggests you are sitting or lying down. In other words, get up from where you are. Change positions. Arise. You can’t take this news sitting or lying down. It must move you, must get you to your feet.

The English phrase, “bless the Lord,” translates the Hebrew for to kneel.

Together, the phrase “stand up and bless the Lord” says to get up, so you can kneel.

The host of heaven worships and this is another position word. Worship has the idea of being prostrate.

All of this reminds me of when the disciples asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1). To answer, Jesus called a young child and said, “Whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Watch the child. He or she is playing while the adults talk, then hears Jesus call. The child stops, gets up, and goes to Jesus. This is the same behavior the Levites want from the Hebrews at the thought of the Lord: Stop what you’re doing, get up, and come into the Lord’s presence.

Let this be our response, too, when Jesus declares, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

Throughout the days ahead, let us bless the Lord. From time to time, stop what you are doing and worship. You don’t have to be in a church building; worship where you are. The eternal I AM is worthy of all honor and blessing.

Photo credit: Image by Robert Cheaib | Pixabay