16 - John 8:58

’Verily, verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.’ -John 8:58.

Many surprising words fell from the lips of Jesus; words that could not and would not have been spoken by any other, in truth or in falsehood; words that imply the possession of unlimited power, absolute authority, omniscience, omnipresence. Yet there is not the least trace of pretension in such declarations; they are found in the rear of acts and testimonies that unquestionably declare the same things. In other words scarcely less surprising, he insists upon his humanity, his limited nature, his restricted knowledge, his privation (as a man) of all merit: ’’There is none good save one, that is, God; I can of mine own self do nothing." When we see him walking on the waters, controlling the elements, raising the dead, we feel that it is simply condescension on his part to unfold to us the mysteries of his being, to tell us of that God who is manifest in his flesh, and of the humanity in which God is manifest. But no more astonishing word ever fell from the lips of Christ than this: "Before Abraham was, I am." Should any one fancy the meaning to be. Before Abraham ceased to be, I am, the Greek will correct him; its meaning being. Before Abraham existed, I am. The I AM is the I AM of Divinity. "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; the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you"(Exodus 3:14-15). All the fulness of the Godhead is in these words. If we think of One upon the throne of the universe competent to utter the I am of supreme Divinity, and to speak universes into existence or nonexistence, let us know that that One says to us in Christ, I am. The ’’I" of Christ is the "I" of God: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." "I will, be thou clean!" said Jesus to the leper; and the immediate annihilation of the man’s leprosy shows us who it is that says "I will."

"He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." Constrained by an evil heart of unbelief, man has departed from the living God, the God in whom is life, and who alone of all beings is able to say in the sovereign sense of the words "I am;" has departed from the living God, and made gods for himself in whose presence sin is less tormenting. The "advanced thought" of the present day is against idolatry; but it is also against the idea that there can be any special manifestation of God. The tremendous interval which separates God’s almightiness from our pettiness is taken as the measure of the impossibility that he should become manifest to us. But an equally tremendous consideration is neglected, namely, that God is love, and delighteth in mercy, and has made man in his own image with the very purpose of revealing himself to him. Man is fearfully and wonderfully made, being made so that there may be a sublime manifestation of God in his nature; and the proof of this is given in the person of Jesus. The "I am" was made flesh, and dwelt among us. If we were walking in accordance with the true laws of our being, we should have no difficulty in understanding this matter of the Incarnation; our repugnance to believe shows how sin has made havoc of our nature, what a ruined thing is our boasted humanity.

Before Abraham existed, I am. I that speak to you from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth spoke with Adam within and without the walls of Paradise; walked with Enoch; shut Noah in the ark; called Abraham out of Haran; and spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. All the Divine wisdom that makes the Gospel precious to the believer was present when commandments were given to the patriarchs, when the law was proclaimed on Sinai, and when the prophets spoke to the kings of Israel; even as the wisdom and knowledge that speak to men from the fruit laden branches of the mature tree are present with the seed and with the sapling. The Old Testament sins and deficiencies that are so offensive to the disciple of the New Testament could not have been dealt with by a revelation like that of the Gospel. God could have taken away the liberty of man, and then have stamped arbitrarily upon his mind whatever seemed good to him; but God is Himself, and not what we may fancy him: therefore he has left man his liberty, and given him such a revelation as he could be persuaded to receive; beginning with a comparatively slight interference with his will, allowing a large exhibition of reckless and vicious self-will; increasing the measure of that interference, and curbing that exhibition, by slow degrees; gradually breaking him in; not forsaking him utterly, when violent outbreaks and relapses seemed to show that nothing had been won; foreshadowing and preparing for the future fuller dispensations of truth. Imagine Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the tables of the law, and descrying the Israelites prostrate before the golden calf; imagine him drawing near and addressing them in the language of the Sermon on the Mount. They to whom the merest letter of the law was almost unendurable would never have been persuaded to receive, even if they could have understood, a law that searched the heart and taxed the faint germinant desire with guilt. The course of the divine revelation was that of he dawn of day; the faintest crepuscular light, showing a thousand-fold more darkness than it dissipates, slowly, imperceptibly, increasing unto the perfect day. The Old Testament is the exhibition of a world of sin, with at first the faintest irradiation of heaven’s light; it is a broad valley of sin, with at first a tiny rill of goodness traversing it; the rill gradually deepens and broadens into a stream, and goes on wearing a wider and still wider channel for itself; but the little rill and the broad overflowing Nile are one stream; the wisdom that was incarnate in Christ was present with be patriarch. See the altar where Abel offers his lamb in sacrifice; see that rude altar on Mount Moriah where Abraam offered up his only and well beloved son, and received him again as from the dead; observe the outstretched arms of Moses on the hill, securing victory over the Amalekites; consider the brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness; the feast of the passover; the manna, the smitten rock, the Aaronic priesthood, the ascension of Enoch and Elijah; trace the stream of Messianic prophecy; and find in all the evidence that the Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world was slain from the foundation of the world: "Before Abraham was, I am." "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."