8:48-59 “I am”

March 13, 2021

Read John 8:48-59

This conversation – and this whole section – now moves to an amazing climax. The Jews answered Jesus’s damning accusation (8:44) with ridicule (48) which Jesus affirmed was groundless (49-50). “Very truly” he is the one who can give victory over death (51). The Jews rightly concluded that if this is true then it means that Jesus is greater than Abraham (52-53) but this was no proud boast (54). Unlike them, Jesus truly knew God and God was truly his Father (54-55).

Because Abraham was their father, they should have followed their father’s example. Abraham had rejoiced at the prospect of Jesus’s coming (56) for it would be the fulfilment of God’s promised salvation (Gen.12:1-3). Jesus was not claiming to be a contemporary of Abraham (57); nevertheless, the truth is that before Abraham was born Jesus already existed. Once again, we meet with the Greek words, ego eimi (58). Twice already in this chapter Jesus has used these words (8:24,28), just as he did with the woman at the well and the disciples on the lake (4:26; 6:20). What is hinted at on those occasions is now affirmed explicitly and emphatically.

That Jesus is the “I am” is a claim to timeless existence, just as John has declared in the gospel’s opening verses (1:2). But it is more than that, for the Old Testament background to these words means that it is a claim to be God (Exod.3:14; Isaiah 41:4; 43:10), as John has also said (1:1) and as we see here from the reaction of the Jews who considered his words to be blasphemy (59). All the previous claims of Jesus have their basis in this claim to be the “I am”, and the recurring question of these chapters, “Who is Jesus?” (7:12; 7:25-27; 7:40-43; 8:25), now finds its supreme answer: he is God.