John 8:51 to End. Christ Speaks of Abraham.

One of the most precious promises ever made, was received with the most insulting contempt. The Lord declared, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." The Jews replied, "Now we know you have a devil." If they had not been themselves the children of Satan, they would not have uttered such language. They did not choose to understand the meaning of the promise. They said, "The prophets are dead." But to what did our Lord refer when he said, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death?" He did not speak of the separation of soul and body. That is not death to the righteous, for the soul rests with God, while the body sleeps in the grave. He spoke of another death, called the second death. It is the separation of soul and body from God forever and ever. That is death. None shall taste it who keep Christ's saying. What saying? His saying concerning himself, that He is the Son of God and the Savior of men. For on another occasion he declared, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but should have everlasting life."

When the Jews insolently inquired, "Whom make you yourself?" the Lord did not choose to tell them plainly who He was; but he told them who they were NOT. They professed to be the children of God. But Jesus told them that because they said "He is our God," they were "liars." How dreadful is the situation of that man who cannot say, "My God," without uttering a falsehood! We pity the child who cannot say to any living person, "My father," or "My mother;" but how much more ought we to pity the soul who cannot look up to heaven and say, "My God!"

What a testimony Jesus bore to his faithful servant Abraham! He said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." The great joy of Abraham's life was not his beloved Isaac, but his more beloved Savior. it was that promised Son who was the chief object of his faith. When God said, "In your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," then he looked forward to the coming of the Savior of the world. Then "he believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness." Even Abraham was saved, not by his own righteousness, but by the righteousness of another. Like us, he was by nature a child of wrath, and it was by grace he became the friend of God, and the father of believers.

The Jews continued to distort the words of Jesus. Because he said, that Abraham had seen his day, they said, "Have you seen Abraham?" who had lived two thousand years before. And what was the Savior's reply? He did not say, "I have seen Abraham;" he said much more than that. He did not say, "Before Abraham I was." He said more than that. "Before Abraham was, I am." The expression "I am," gives the idea of an existence that had no beginning, and will have no end. Such is God--the first and the last. No human understanding can grasp the idea of existence without beginning and without ending. But let us rejoice in the thought that before we were God existed. He ever lived. No plans could be formed against us, before He had arranged everything concerning us! "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts 15:18.)