John - Day 20: The Great I Am

There’s a great passage in the Gospel of John where some people think they know who Jesus is and they accuse Him of being someone He’s not. And so Jesus responds ultimately in one very loaded statement and He reveals to us in just a few words an awful lot about who He is. After an argument with some Jewish seekers, Jesus changes everything with one single statement. It was either the most heinous, deceptive, psychotic thing He could say, or it was the most life-giving, beautiful, illuminating, wonder- ful truth that they, and we, could ever know. Jesus said in verse 58, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born (came into being), I am!” Jesus was equating Himself with God! In Exodus 3:13-14 God tells Moses to tell the Israelites that “I AM” (Jehovah, Yahweh) sent Him to them. Jesus was telling these Jews that He was God, and they understood exactly what He meant, because they immediately wanted to stone Him, the punishment for blasphemy.

Jesus is a polarizing figure. We all have a choice to make with Jesus Christ. There’s no riding the fence. We must either dismiss Him as a mentally ill or trying to deceive and manipulate the world, or accept and follow Him as the Savior of the world. This is a huge decision. The whole trajectory of our lives depends on what we believe about Jesus Christ.

Read John 8:31-59

Q: Why is it significant that Jesus claimed this about Himself?

Q: What would you have thought of Him had He not? How else could He have conveyed that He was God?

Q: What possible alternatives are there to believe about Jesus?

Q: What would you say to someone who says I believe in God, and I think Jesus was a real human, just not God?

For Further Study: 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 6:16, Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-4, Exodus 3:14