Before Abraham Was, I Am
48 Then the Jews answered him, “Don’t we say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a demon?” 49 Jesus answered, “I don’t have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 But I don’t seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges. 51 Most certainly, I tell you, if a person keeps my word, he will never see death.” 52 Then the Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If a man keeps my word, he will never taste of death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be?” 54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God. 55 You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 The Jews therefore said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.” 59 Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, having gone through the middle of them, and so passed by.
They ask who he thinks he is, and the answer is two words that end the argument in stones.
Then the Jews answered him, “Don’t we say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a demon?”
The argument has run out of substance and turned to abuse. Samaritan is a slur about origin; have a demon is an accusation of madness. Neither engages anything he has said.
Jesus answered, “I don’t have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.
He answers the second and ignores the first, which is its own kind of comment on it.
Most certainly, I tell you, if a person keeps my word, he will never see death.”
The claim is enormous and it is what provokes everything that follows. Never see death — the idiom means to experience it, and in this book death has already been redefined: the believer has passed out of death into life John 5:24, and Lazarus will be called asleep three chapters on.
What is promised is not that the body will not stop. It is that the thing everyone means by death — the end — will not be what the believer meets.
Then the Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If a man keeps my word, he will never taste of death.’
They take it flatly, as this book's hearers always do, and the objection is unanswerable on that reading. Every great man in their history is buried.
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be?”
It is the same question the Samaritan woman asked about Jacob John 4:12, and in both cases the answer is yes. The last clause assumes he is inventing a status for himself — make yourself out to be — which the next verses deny in advance.
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God.
You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word.
The sentence is blunt to the point of shocking, and it is a statement about integrity: the one thing he will not do to defuse the argument is deny what he knows.
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
The claim is that Abraham looked forward and saw. What he was given was a promise about offspring in whom all nations would be blessed Genesis 22:18, and a son restored to him from the dead in a figure — and the account says he was glad.
The Jews therefore said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?”
They have heard it backwards, which is telling. He said Abraham saw his day; they ask whether he saw Abraham. And fifty is the round number for a full working life, not an estimate of his age.
Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.”
Every word of the sentence is doing work. Two different verbs are used: Abraham came into existence, the verb for something that began, and of himself the verb of simple being. The grammar refuses the comparison it was offered — he does not say I was, which would have claimed only priority.
And the phrase is the bare I am, which this book has been placing in his mouth since the well John 4:26. Behind it stands the name given at the burning bush Exodus 3:14, and this time the hearers make no mistake about what was said.
Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, having gone through the middle of them, and so passed by.
The response settles the meaning. Stoning was the penalty for blasphemy Leviticus 24:16, and men in the temple court do not reach for rocks over a claim to be old. They understood him exactly, and they were not confused about anything except whether it was true.
settled What this mark means