I AM

Ok, I am going to play a little game. I am going to make a statement about someone from the story’s surrounding Jesus’ birth. From the statement I want you to tell me who I am talking about. The first one is, I am the one the angel called “the favored one,” who will be the mother of Jesus. I am the one the angel told to stay married to Mary. I am the angel who spoke to Mary and Joseph. I am the one the angels announced the birth of Jesus. All of these people have great description about who they are each one begins with I am. But there is One who doesn’t need anything else to follow the I Am. Kids are now dismissed and they will learn about the I Am from mrs. Lynn.

This morning we begin our series on Knowing Him by Name. This goes along with the advent calendars you can download from focus on the family. It is interesting how many names Jesus has. He has His birth name which is Jesus, the Lord Saves. This is a name God himself has given Him. As you go through the week you will also find many other names, like, “The Word,” “Son of David,” “the true Vine.” All of them are powerful and all have meaning. There is only One name though that caused the religious leaders of the day to really take notice of Jesus. There is only One name that stirred them up to the point of wanting Him dead. We find this name in John’s gospel.

John 8:58–59 NASB95

58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” 59 Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

John 8:58-59 reads, “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” What is the name that caused the religious leaders to pick up stones and though at Jesus. It was the name “I Am.” What is so significant about this name, why would this cause such anger and distress. Names have a lot of meaning and this name has some very significant meaning. First of all, I Am is Eternal.

I Am is Eternal

When we look at Jesus saying I am we only have one thought about this. It is a pronoun “I” with a verb, “am.” In normal everyday English this is how we would we describe ourselves, “I am” a pastor. “I am” a father. Each time we use the phrase in English it is just to point to our function or title. In fact when we use the phrase I am there is no power in it at all. The power is in the noun that comes after it. If I were just to say ‘I am’ (short pause) you would all sit there in suspense to know what I am going to say next. When Jesus says “I Am” here, there is no suspense, they know exactly what He is saying. He is telling them He is God.

The argument that comes up here is that Jesus has told them in verse 51, “truly, truly I say to you, if anyone keeps My words he will never see death.” In verse 52 they respond to Jesus in an unbelieving way. They try to demean Him. “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say , ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’” Do you see what they are doing. The revere Abraham and the prophets as men of God and these men died how can Jesus, who is born out of wedlock, have words of eternal life. This is followed up with their statement in verse 53, “Surely Your are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself our to be?” Basically they are saying to Him, who do you think you are. Our father Abraham who God chose to be the patriarch of our people has died, those who God spoke through to bring warnings of impending judgment to the nation they have died and you think you are greater then them. You think you have words of eternal life. How can that be possible?

So Jesus responds and His response doesn’t point to Abraham as the response of the others. His answer points directly to God. Look at verse 54, “Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, He is our God’; 55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.” Do you see what Jesus has done here, He has flipped things around on them, called them out on their hypocrisy. The religious leaders of the day say God is their God, the God of Israel. Still, they say this but they don’t know God at all. Jesus on the other hand knows God, knows God so well, He calls Him Father. If He were to say He didn’t know God then Jesus would be a liar. He qualifies knowing God by saying He does know Him and He keeps His Word. The Jewish people say they know God and they know God’s word but they don’t keep it, nor can they.

Then He tells them something they have a hard time grasping. Verse 56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Notice the contrast Jesus provides. Jesus calls God His Father, but He calls Abraham their father, not His own. Abraham is not Jesus’ father because Jesus is the God of the universe. He is the Lord of Abraham. Abraham trusted that God would bring Salvation through His offspring. Abraham trusted that God would Save the World and Abraham looked forward to the day when God would do this. He didn’t understand how God would do it but he know God could. So he rejoiced for the day when Jesus would come. This is faith, not needing to see the day but trusting God at His word that He would bring this day about. This is that day, the Messiah is walking the earth and the promise of all nations being blessed through Abraham is about to be fulfilled in and through Jesus.

The religious leaders could except what Jesus was saying. So the questioned Him one last time. Verse 57, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Abraham has been long since dead, by this point in history it has been about 2000-3000 years since Abraham walked the earth. That is why they say you aren’t even fifty, they are being sarcastic. How could you have seen Abraham. Well the only answer to that question lies in Jesus’ full name. Verse 58, “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born I am.”

Notice how Jesus tells them here , ‘before Abraham was born, I am.’ This can also be read before Abraham existed, I existed. English I am is just to point to what we are or what we are going to do. In the Greek there is a word for that, it is ego. If you were to say I

See when we look at Jesus saying this in English it just looks like He is saying I am. The thing is when we look at the Greek there is a lot more to this then we realize. See in the Geek the word that is used here for the Am, emie. When you translate the word in its original form the first person pronoun is already built into it. So what you would get when it is translated is I Am. Well that is great but what happens here in the Greek is they took the word for “I” or “me” because they do have that. It is the word Ego. When you have the words together they are emphatic. When the religious leaders heard Jesus say here I am, ego eimi, they heard Him say I have always existed.

This is the same phrase God uses of Himself in the book of Exodus.

Exodus 3:13–15 NASB95

13 Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.

Moses wants to know God’s name and He wants to know how to respond when the nation asks who has sent him. God simply tells them, I AM Who I AM. The one who exists, The eternal has sent me. Yahweh in the Hebrew and ego eimi ho own in the Greek. God’s covenant name is the One who exists. When Jesus tells says in John that before Abraham was I Am He is saying He is eternal and He is equal to God. That is exactly what He means. That is why it made the religious leaders angry, because Jesus was claiming to be equal to God, in eternality. This is what they thought of when they heard Jesus say “I Am.”

Even Isaiah pointed to this;

Isaiah 9:6 NASB95

6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

The One God was going to bring forth would be called eternal father. The leaders should’ve been ready for this. They should have heard this and they should have thought oh He is the One God has sent but instead they were threatened by Him and wanted to end His life.

Micah the prophet says this;

Micah 5:2 NASB95

2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.”

This points to an eternal being. This is why Jesus tells the religious leaders they don’t know God because if they did know God they would have known what His Word teaches. That the Messiah is One who will be chosen by God who has always existed and who will always exist.

After the Jesus’ ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit believers had a deeper understanding of what Jesus meant. Look at what Paul tells the Colossian church;

Colossians 1:15–17 NASB95

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

When Jesus says that He is the I Am here He tells them He has always existed and that He is equal to God because He is God. They didn’t trust in this truth but instead they turned to kill Him. The thing is since Jesus is the great I Am He also has great power. The I Am Has Power.

I Am has Power

In verse 59, “Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” They wanted Jesus dead for blasphemy but because Jesus is the great I am He has more power then these people want to give Him credit for. He walks right passed them. Jesus has the power of God, He is God. He could just as easily just stopped these people but that wouldn’t have brought redemption to mankind. So Jesus being God hid himself from their sight and walked right out of the temple. I find it funny how they thought Jesus was delusional and had a demon, yet they were the ones who were delusional by think they had the power to kill Jesus.

Even when they get their false claims from Judas and the others they pay to lie about Jesus to put Him on the cross it still wasn’t by their power, Jesus had all the power in all these events because He is the great I am. I mentioned last week how Jesus, just by His name demonstrated His power. Let’s go ahead and look at this passage in John’s gospel.

John 18:1–11 NASB95

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of the Kidron, where there was a garden, in which He entered with His disciples. 2 Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for Jesus had often met there with His disciples. 3 Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” 5 They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am He.” And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. 6 So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 Therefore He again asked them, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way,” 9 to fulfill the word which He spoke, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.” 10 Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave’s name was Malchus. 11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”

Jesus had control of this entire situation. Judas wasn’t acting on his own but acting under the control of the evil one to fulfill what God had already set in motion. The roman cohort were also acting on the authority of the chief priests and the Pharisees to put Jesus to death but this was still part of a great plan by God to redeem His people. Jesus by His own name, I AM demonstrates here that He has the power and is in control of this entire scenario not the religious leaders. Mankind thinks the have control of things. When in actuality we have no control at all. We just yield our control to One or the other and ultimately God is in control of all things. I Am has always existed and all that has been created has been created for Him and for His glory, for His majesty, for His power. How can you have any control over your life? What power do you truly have. Judas didn’t act on his own power. Look at this;

John 13:26–28 NASB95

26 Jesus then answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him.

Judas didn’ act on his own power but Satan worked in hi to bring about what God’s plan already was. The religious leaders had no power either. They were fulfilling what the word of God had prophesied in Isaiah 53. See we have no power to do anything. We are either controlled by sin or we are controlled by our Savior. Jesus is the only One with true power because Jesus is the great I Am.

Look at what Paul tells the Roman church;

Romans 6:12–18 NASB95

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

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