In John chapter 8 Jesus engaged the Pharisees who refused to believe that God was His Father (which would mean He was the Son of God). At one point they said that they were Abraham’s descendants and that he was their father (verses 33 & 39). In verse 56 Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” and the Jews quickly responded, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham” (verse 57). Jesus then said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (NKJV). He did NOT say, “Before Abraham was, I was,” which might mean that He came into existence before Abraham. Rather, He uses the Name of God: I AM! Jesus Christ is eternal, the SELF-EXISTING ONE, the great “I AM.”

The Pharisees and other religious rulers knew He was referring to Himself as God for they knew that God had told Moses that this was His name. We read in Exodus 3:13-14, “Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” This claim to being God angered them and we read in verse 59 of our chapter, “Then they took up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” They had already tried to kill Him before for the same reason as we see in John 5:18, “Therefor the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, MAKING HIMSELF EQUAL WITH GOD.”

If Jesus was not God, He would have been either a 1) deceiver, or 2) self-deceived, but He spoke the truth for He is indeed the “great I AM.” This can be seen in many scriptures but one of my favorite passages is John 1:1 and 14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS GOD…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER, full of grace and truth.” Jesus was the “eternal Word” who “was God” and “was with God (the Father)” and after His incarnation His disciples saw His glory and knew He was the “only begotten Son of the Father” (the “eternal Son of God”). He was “God manifest in the flesh” as read in 1 Timoth 3:16, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” His incarnation (His miraculous birth where He became a true man with a human and a divine nature) was for the purpose of revealing God to men who had no other way of “seeing God.” John 1:18 declares, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” I would also encourage you to read John 1:2-3 along with Colossians 1:15-17 to see that He is also the Creator and Sustainer of all things. These verses all prove that Jesus is the eternal God Who has always existed. He is the SELF-EXISTING ONE, the “great I AM.”  (DO)  (666.3)