When we Christians defend the divinity of Jesus against groups who believe he is just a created being (like the Jehovah’s Witnesses), we often turn to the Gospel of John. For example, many of us like to point to John 1:1 and 20:28, two passages that pretty explicitly call Jesus God. However, there is another verse in the fourth Gospel that we often bring up in these conversations too, but this one requires a bit of an explanation. In fact, it requires a lot of explanation because the way most people use it is actually incorrect:
“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” (John 8:58)
A Claim to Divinity
At first glance, it can be tough to understand what these words have to do with Jesus’ divinity or what they mean at all. Jesus’ grammar here isn’t very good, so the verse seems to border on nonsense. However, there is a way to make sense of it. Jesus knew that his words weren’t grammatically correct, so he must have used the phrase “I am” instead of “I was” (or something like it) very deliberately. He was signaling to us that his teaching here had a deeper meaning than the mere fact that he was around before Abraham.
But what could that meaning be? The key, I would suggest, comes in the very next verse: “So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:59). Apparently, Jesus’ opponents understood exactly what this cryptic (to us, at least) saying meant, and they wanted to stone him for it.
Now, the verse doesn’t say what they understood these words to mean, but a quick glance ahead can give us a clue. Elsewhere in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ opponents want to stone him for claiming to be God (John 10:33), so it stands to reason that this could very well be their motivation here as well. We can’t be sure at this point in our enquiry, but if we can find a way to interpret Jesus’ mysterious words as a claim to divinity, then all the pieces will fall into place.
The God of the Exodus
And luckily for us, there is a very easy way to do this. Most of the time, Christians will say that Jesus was alluding to God’s name in the book of Exodus. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses asked him his name, and he responded:
“I am who I am…Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)
God revealed himself to Moses as “I am” (a shortened form of “I am who I am”), and when Jesus used that exact phrase in an awkward way that called attention to its significance, it makes sense that he would have been alluding to this Old Testament passage that also uses it in a unique, somewhat awkward way. He was saying that he is this divine “I am,” the God of the Exodus, so traditional Christianity wins the day pretty decisively…right?
“I am he”
Well, not quite. This all sounds good, but the argument has one big flaw: the Greek phrase Jesus uses in John isn’t the same one God uses in Exodus. In John, Jesus says ego eimi, which literally means “I am,” but in Exodus God calls himself ho on, which literally means “the one who is.”
So what do we do now? Do we abandon the idea that this is actually a claim to divinity, or is there a way to salvage this interpretation? I would suggest that the argument we’ve been tracing up to now isn’t entirely mistaken. It’s on the right track, but it gets the allusion wrong. Jesus’ cryptic “I am” saying doesn’t harken back to Exodus 3:14. Instead, it alludes to some other verses in the Septuagint that prominently feature the Greek phrase ego eimi (I’ve italicized the key parts):
“See now that I, even I, am he,
(Deuteronomy 32:39)
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
“‘You are my witnesses,’ says the Lord,
‘and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.Before me no god was formed,
(Isaiah 43:10)
nor shall there be any after me.’”
In the Septuagint versions of these passages, the parts translated as “I am he” in English use the same Greek phrase that Jesus uses in John 8:58, ego eimi, and this is significant because both of these texts use the phrase to teach that God is unique. They’re all about the fact that the God of Israel is the only true God, and there is none beside, before, or after him. He is the only God there is, the only God there ever was, and the only God there ever will be.
And by using a key phrase from these passages, Jesus was identifying himself with this one true God. He was alluding to these passages to teach about his identity, and his opponents heard his message loud and clear. They knew he was claiming to be God, and they wanted to stone him because in their minds, there was no way his claim could be true.
Jesus is God
Once we understand all this, we can see that groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to the identity of Jesus. His cryptic use of the phrase “I am” in the Gospel of John is tough to understand if it’s not a claim to divinity, but if it is, it makes perfect sense. He was alluding to a group of Old Testament texts that use this exact phrase to teach that the God of Israel is the only true God, and by applying these same words to himself, he was subtly telling us that he is in fact the God of Israel, the only God there ever was or ever will be.
✠
Photo by Gerhard Reus on Unsplash
