What did Jesus mean when He said "I AM"?

The Jews, as ever, utterly misunderstood His words. He spoke of Abraham seeing His day, and they thought it meant a claim on His part to have seen Abraham. Their mistake served to bring out the great and emphatic pronouncement, "Before Abraham was, I AM." At a certain moment Abraham "was." The verb used here is the same as in John 1:14, where we read that the Word "was made" or "became" flesh. The verb for "am" is the one signifying abiding existence, as used in John 1:18; the Son "is" in the bosom of the Father; and it is used in the past tense, as to the Word in the bygone eternity, in John 1:1 and 2. Jesus therefore said, Before Abraham came into existence, I eternally AM.

This tremendous claim moved the Jews to attempt His death by stoning, and had it been false they would have been quite right. It surely moves our hearts to adore Him, and to adore the grace that brought Him into Manhood and so low for our salvation.

These last words of Christ, considering, too, the place in which they were uttered, might have led them to pause, and to review their ways. Abraham was but a creature. There was a time, therefore, when he did not exist. Referring to that, it could rightly be said, "Before Abraham was." What follows was intended to mark the great difference between Abraham and Himself; for of Himself He could say, "I am." Now "I am" was God's announcement about Himself to Moses (Ex. 3:14). The Lord declared, therefore, that He was the Eternal One, who had no beginning, and will have no end. In the past He was, "I am." In the present He is, "I am." In the future, and for ever, He will be, "I am." Such was the meaning of His words, revealing to those people that He was God.

But where were they uttered? In the precincts of Jehovah's house, He, a man in the eyes of men, averred thus that He was God, the Eternal One. No token, however, of Divine rejection of His claim was vouchsafed that day. Yet God was not in ignorance, or in unconcern, as to all that went on upon earth. The immediate response from heaven in chapter 12 attests that. The silence, therefore, as to any rejection of Christ's claim to be a Divine Person, was as significant as the voice heard in the chapter just referred to. Jehovah in heaven clearly assented to Christ's claim, put forth on earth in His holy house. God, the God of Israel, was personally present in the midst of the Jews, but they did not discern it. Creation owned the presence of God in the person of Christ, and at once obeyed His bidding. The demons knew that He was the Christ and the Holy One of God. Yet men, religious men, knew not that God was then in the court of His own house. He was speaking, but they would not hear. He was working miracles, but they were not rightly affected by them. Light, indeed, was shining, but found no entrance into their hearts. Taking up stones to cast at Him, He left them, and was hidden, and so passed out of the Temple.

But the Lord did not hesitate to meet their challenge of Abraham, and lets the Jews know that the father of the faithful exulted to see His day (as ever, I presume, His appearing in glory), and saw and rejoiced. It was, of course, by faith, like the not seeing or tasting death in the context; but the Jews took all in a mere physical way, and on their arguing from His comparative youth to the denial of Abraham's seeing Him, the still deeper utterance comes forth, "Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am," the ever-subsisting One.173 ["It was the day when the promises would be accomplished, and very naturally he who had the promises looked for the time when they are to be made good in Christ." — "Lectures on the Gospels," p. 476, note.]

It was said: the good confession before the Jews, the truth of truths, the infinite mystery of His Person, which to know is to know the true God and eternal life, as He is both. Such He was, such He is, from everlasting to everlasting. Incarnation in no way impeached it, but rather gave occasion for its revelation in man to men. He Who was God is become man, and as He cannot cease to be God, so He will not cease to be man. He is the Eternal, though also a man, and has taken manhood into union with Himself, the Son the Word, not with God only, but God too. "Before Abraham was (γενέσθαι), I am" (εἰμί). Abraham came into being. Jesus is God, and God is. "I am" is the expression of eternal subsistence, of Godhead. He could as truly have said, Before Adam was, I am; but the question was about Abraham, and with that calm dignity which never goes beyond the needed truth, He asserts it, and no more; but what He asserts could not be true, were He not the ever-present and unchanging One, the I AM before Adam, angels, and all things; as, indeed, He it was Who created them. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that has been made.

And when the Lord called Moses to send him to Pharaoh to lead His people forth, he answered, What am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt ? Forty years before in self-confidence he had undertaken the work and had run before he was sent, and now he had learned humility and his weakness. God answered his confessed distrust with the all-sufficient assurance, "I will be with thee." When He sends forth He goes along to accomplish His own purposes. What encouragement for all who wait on the Lord and conscious of their own weakness, go forth in service. In response to another question, God reveals His name. "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM, and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel , I AM hath sent me unto you." God had made Himself known to Abraham as Jehovah (Genesis 15:7). But here He gives the explanation of His name Jehovah. The patriarchs knew the name Jehovah, but the blessed significance of that name was not known to them. He reveals Himself as the Self-Existing One, THE I AM THAT I AM. He is the One, which is, which was, which is to come (Rev. 1:4). And this wonderful Name of the Unchanging, Living One, the Eternal, the Name unsearchable in its depths is the Name of our Lord who has redeemed us. When about to act in the deliverance of His enslaved people to lead them out and to bring them in, He makes Himself known as the I AM. "Before Abraham was I AM" (John 8:58). Our ever-blessed Lord is the I AM, who spoke to Moses. And what is Jehovah, the I am for His people? Well has it been said, "Jehovah, in taking this title, calling Himself 'I AM,' was furnishing His people with a blank check, to be filled up to any amount. He calls Himself I AM, and faith has but to write over against that ineffably precious name whatever we want."

Being, then, such as we see, we do not wonder that He claims to be the self-existent One, as in His words to the Jews: "Before Abraham was I AM" (John 8:58). This is the incommunicable name of Deity, by which He revealed Himself to Moses and to Israel: "I AM hath sent me to you" (Ex. 3:14). Being always the Word, the Revealer, this older voice was, of course, His own. He is thus the Abiding, the Unchangeable, the Eternal. Jehovah is but the synonym of this; and so the glory of Jehovah, which Isaiah saw in his day, is declared to be His glory: "these things said Esaias when he saw His glory, and spake of Him" (John 12:40-41 with Isa. 6:9-10). The Old Testament thus, as well as the New, is full of His Presence; only that now He has taken that tabernacle of flesh to display His glory in, in which all His purpose to be near us, all His delights with the sons of men, have fully come out. He is now truly Immanuel, "God with us;" and the blessedness of that for us will fill eternity.

God had already revealed Himself to Moses as the God of his fathers — and this might have been enough, but nothing can ever satisfy doubts and fears. And what an incidental glimpse is thus given of the condition of Israel, so as to render the supposition possible that they might not know the name of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob! God bears in grace with his feeble, hesitant servant, and replies, "I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." (v. 14.) This is the expression of the essential being of God — His name as the self-existent One; and thereby affirms His eternal being. It was this name the Lord Jesus claimed when He said to the unbelieving Jews, "Before Abraham was, I AM." (John 8:58.) But this is not all. Having revealed Himself as to His essential existence, He adds, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations." (v. 15.) This is pure grace on the part of God. "I AM, is His own essential name; but as regards His government of, and relationship with, the earth, His name — that by which He is to be remembered to all generations — is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. This gave Israel, now visited and taken up of God under His name, a very peculiar place." It points indeed to their election by the sovereign grace of God, and to their being beloved for their fathers' sake; and at the same time reveals the fact that Israel shall be for ever the centre of God's ways, and the key to His purposes upon the earth. Hence, as long as Israel is under judgment, scattered throughout the world, the period Of earthly blessing is still postponed.

Moses was filled with trepidation, as God's servants usually are when called to do His work. He asks that, when he tells the Israelites that the God of their fathers has sent him, what will he say when they ask as to God's name. However, the weakness of Moses' faith does give occasion for God to reveal one great aspect of His name which should encourage every believer. He tells Moses, “I am I who am” (v. 14 — Numerical Bible). Therefore Moses was to declare, “I Am has sent me to you.” In this name is implied the fact that God is the self-existent, eternally existent One. With Him there is no question of past and future, as there is with us. He is the omnipresent One, infinite and eternal. this name is equally applied to the Lord Jesus, who uses the expression many times in the Gospel of John, and seals the matter with the declaration, “Most assuredly I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Wonderful name to fill a believer's heart with adoration!

The claim to pre-existence involves His Deity. He can say, "Before Abraham was I am." This is truly a claim of pre-existence, but it is more, for the Lord does not say "I was" but "I AM." This is the consciousness of eternal existence, as well as the claim of pre-existence. This is the language of One who knows no past, and will know no future — the One to Whom time is as if it were not, who has neither beginning nor end — the Eternal I AM.

Take this very passage, "Before Abraham was, I am"; not, "holiness was in God." "I" is somebody, not something which existed when "I" did not. "Holiness existed when I did not" is not I existed, and existence in its absolute character, not "I was" but "I Am." "I was" is in time - "I am" is eternal. If Christianity be true, if Christ spoke the truth, He - not "an idea to be realised" - had an eternal existence. And this the Jews felt and took up, stones to stone Him for making Himself God.

"The Jews therefore said to Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" They thought the sense of this the same, because they looked not beyond the outside; but, on man's ground, the Jews' reasoning was generally correct, but it was utterly, morally wrong, without conscience, therefore without God and that which God alone could teach. They now brought it to the point of the mere Manhood of Christ, the point of their darkness. Our Lord, as the Truth, could but give the light: "Before Abraham was"; ye see not who I am, ye know not My existence, My Being, know ye not Me: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM."