What is the significance of Jesus saying, "Before Abraham was, I am!" in John 8:58?

He had plainly told the opposing Jews of their real father, being children neither of Abraham nor of God, but of the devil. He will now tell them plainly with whom they were contending. "Before Abraham was, I am" (58). He could have told them that He had seen Abraham, had spoken to him, had talked with him, and had sat at the patriarch's tent door. He could have told them of Abraham's hospitable reception of Himself, and of the two angels. He could also have reminded them, had He wished it, that Abraham, when pleading with Him on behalf of the cities of the Plain, averred that he himself was dust and ashes, but the One he addressed was the Lord (Gen. 18:27). Stirred up afresh, however, by the Lord's words, "I am," to them sheer blasphemy, they took up stones to cast at Him; but in vain. He hid Himself, and went out of the Temple.

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.

Before these Jews stood One whom not even His bitterest foes could convince of sin, and He told them the truth. That truth honoured the Father and delivered men from death, yet they refused the truth, dishonoured Him, called Him a Samaritan, and said He had a demon. They gloried in Abraham though they admit he was long since dead. The Lord met them as One who knew He had come forth from the Father, was honoured of the Father, and was going to enter upon His own day, to which Abraham had looked forward, and which by faith he saw.

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.

Here we have the present tense used to deduce eternity, as it is in some other places in the Scriptures. The Lord said "Before Abraham was, I AM" and thereby showed that HE was eternal. If He had said "Before Abraham was, I was", it need only have meant that He was older than Abraham, but the present tense gives the sense of eternal existence — no beginning and no end. In John 8:24, the Lord said, "If ye believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins". The insertion of the pronoun "he" in the A.V. is quite unwarranted. The context does not show that the Lord had said that He was anybody that the "He" could refer to. It is the assertion of His eternal Godhead. There are other similar passages.

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.

Not to know Him is the fatal ignorance of the world; to deny Him, the unbelieving die of the Jews, as of all who assume to know God independently, and to the exclusion of His Divine glory. And it is death while they live, eternal death, soon to be the second death, not extinction, but punishment in the lake of fire. Meanwhile unbelief can with impunity show its spite. "Then took they up stones to cast at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple." The remaining words are probably taken from Luke 4:30, though many witnesses (ACELKΔ, etc., with some very ancient versions) insert them. [But not Syrsin.]

Accepting then these revelations as proved truly Divine, I hear Jesus saying (John 8), "Before Abraham was, I am." Did He speak the truth? If not, the morality of the gospel in its Chief is detestable, not Divine. Lofty precepts condemn, if there be not holy practice. If Jesus was holy and true, He was God, according to the import of His own words. None but a Divine person could say, "Before Abraham was, I am," πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγώ εἰμι. If you know Greek tolerably, you will see, when it is pointed out, the amazing force of this statement. In speaking of Abraham, a mere creature, the Lord uses the verb γίνομαι, which means to become, or come into being. In speaking of Himself, He employs the substantive verb, which alone is proper to express, where required, absolute uncaused being. He does not merely say, "Before Abraham was, I was," no matter how high you carry the point and term of His existence, even if it were the first of created beings, as the Arians say. If so, Jesus would have said, ἐγενόμην. But no! He, the lowliest of men, could not deny His deity. He is God, the "I am," and so He declared Himself, which provoked the unbelieving Jews to take up stones. But the time to suffer was not yet come; and so He passed through and went on His way. Again in John 10 Jesus declares that He has ἐξουσίαν, right and title as well as power, to lay down His life as well as to take it again: who could have such authority but a Divine person?

But He answers: If He is but a man glorifying Himself, that glory is empty enough. Nay, but it is His Father glorifies Him, — He whom without true knowledge they call their God. On His part, if He denied the knowledge that He had of Him, He would be as false as they were now in professing that they knew Him. He did know Him, and kept His word. Then He looks back over the expectant ages awaiting Him whom now, being come, they refused, and affirms, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it and was glad." "Thou art not fifty years old," they reply; "and hast Thou seen Abraham?" His answer is the full disclosure of His glory, the claim of the incommunicable title of Deity for Himself: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham came into being, I AM."

It is Immanuel; but there is no knee bent to Him, no loving homage tendered. They take up stones to stone Him; and He, hiding Himself for the moment from their sacrilegious violence, passes out of the temple.

This interesting chapter ends with a startling self-revelation of His absolute Deity, that He is the Eternal Jehovah. Eleven times the name "Abraham" is found in the eighth chapter of John. At the close the Lord speaks of Abraham having seen His day and rejoiced. He saw it in faith. Then when the Jews expressed their astonishment He answered, "Before Abraham was, I AM!" It is the most positive, the clearest declaration of our Lord of His Eternity, that He is God. He is the "I AM"--Jehovah. Thus this great testimony has always been received. We let a few of the ancient teachers speak:

Chrysostom observes: "He said not before Abraham was, I was, but, I AM. As the Father useth this expression I AM, so also doth Christ, for it signifieth continuous being, irrespective of all time. On which account the expression seemed to the Jews blasphemous."

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.

Gregory remarks: "Divinity has no past or future, but always the present; and therefore Jesus does not say before Abraham was I was, but I am."

The Unitarians try to explain this away by saying, "Jesus only meant that He existed as Messiah in God's counsels before Abraham." Astonishing! How do they know what He meant? It is a satanic invention. The Jews knew better. They understood what He meant. They took up stones to stone Him because they knew He claimed absolute Deity. A miracle followed. The Greek means literally "He was hid." Their eyes must have been holden as He went out of the Temple and passed by.