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“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am . . .”

Now my test says, “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am . . .”

Now, you think about that—the word rendered ‘was’ in that phrase there, and the word ‘am’ are quite different, to say the least. The one clause means that Abraham was brought into being. Yeah, if you understand the words there in the clause, it says ‘Abraham was.’ And so, therefore, he was brought into being. The other clause signifies, ‘I exist.’ ‘I exist.’ The statement, therefore, is not that Christ came into existence before Abraham did, but that He never came into being at all, but existed before Abraham had a being. In other words, existed before Creation or eternally.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2).

Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am . . .” Before Abraham was born, I had a glorious existence with the Father, and am still invariably the same and one with Him. Our Lord here, in the strongest terms, asserts His proper divinity, declaring Himself to be—what John more largely expresses and as we see in the Book of Revelation . . .

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8).

“And 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” (Exodus 3:14).

You would think that when the Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘I am,’ it would ring some bells. If you remember when he was betrayed by Judas with that kiss—if you remember—when those people were going to try to take Him, and when they ask Him if He is Jesus He said, ‘I am,’ it says that they all fell back. Now you know it is God’s plan, because if somebody said that and I am boosted about twenty feet back—I’d think twice about putting cuffs on him. I’m going to tell that is just the way it is. So, you see God in that entire plan in the garden because the fulfillment had to be taken place.

“And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1:12).

Talking about the Lord, talking about gathering all the stars in the sky and folding them up. What an amazing thing—thinking about our Creator, and to bring it down to Abraham. Abraham is the great father for Israel—for the Jewish people—and in his Seed the entire world is going to be blessed. And that Seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. And here, Jesus Christ is present in front of them. And they questioned Him. Who did? The religious people.

Common people, a lot of them simpletons, they’d follow whatever other people say, but mainly it was the common people that ‘received Him gladly.’ And He noticed that. And not only that, He also noticed that a whole lot of Gentiles were receiving Him, instead of Israel. And thank God that we got in.

Now John had reasons for saying that “word was with God, and the word was God . . . and the word was made flesh,” if Jesus in His divine consciousness had never elsewhere spoken of having had a being before His manifestation, of having taken part with His Father from the beginning of being one with the Father, of being greater than the Temple, or the Sabbath as being the object of the eternal love in coming down from heaven, in laying down His life that He might take it again. And if the language of the Apostles had not entirely prepared our mind for the data on which such conclusions rested, a generation before this Gospel was reduced to form. We might join the effort to resist such a claim as that of eternal preexistence—in other words, believing in God.

But the whole tenor of the Gospel and the entire New Testament teaching are seen more and more to turn upon this fundamental position and this is it . . . that in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead . . .”, that He had life in Himself and in eternity. And that the manhood has not only been lifted to the highest place in human remembrance, but to the midst of the throne.

“Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17-18).

These are the words from the Lord Jesus Christ. We are talking about a greater than Abraham is here. Now they didn’t get it. Most of you, I’m looking around here—you’re born again, you’re saved, you know the Lord Jesus Christ—so this is no new news to you. But the world still approaches Christ the exact same way. He is not preexistent, He is just a human, Jehovah’s Witness believe that He is just ‘the first of creation,’ and on and on and on they do this thing. But you and I know better. And we take the words of God literally. Unless He tells you to take it any other way, we take it words of God literally—black and white—what they say is what they mean. And it’s important to understand that.

Now, God took upon Himself flesh. We know that from John 1:1 . . .

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” not ‘a’ god . . . ‘a’ god is not even in the Greek. I always want to say, ‘those stupid people’ but I’m not supposed to say that from the pulpit—those ‘stupid Jehovah’s false witnesses.’ But anyway, He was God! He is God! That’s what the Bible says, and in verse 2 it says, “The same was in the beginning with God,” and verse 3 says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” And to cap it off, over in verse 14 it says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” I mean, God took upon Himself flesh!

Now, Jesus was with the Father . . . In John 6:46 we read, “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” And in verse 62 is says, “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” Wow! That’s a question for them to answer, because they are already saying that He is blasphemous. They are already saying that He has a devil. They are already saying ‘blah, blah, blah.’

What they are saying is that they do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. They do not believe that He is the Son of God. And He keeps reaffirming it to them. ‘What if you see Me go up?’ Now guess Who is going to go up? His ministry was only three and a half years. He goes to the garden, He is crucified, before that He is scourged. Everybody’s looking at Him, the pharisees are clapping and saying, ‘See, He’s just a man!’ And in three days and three nights—BOOM! –Up from the ground He arose. And the Bible specifically tells you in Corinthians that it was before 500 witnesses also that are alive unto this day (when Corinthians was written) meaning everybody, everybody that was alive that day can concur. He stayed around how many days? Forty days, doing infallible proofs.

You don’t think the news didn’t get out? Even though the propaganda machine at work, all the fake news was going on. It’s not really Him, He merely swooned, somebody kidnapped Him, somebody captured Him. I mean, He did infallible proofs. He wanted everybody to know. Nope! That’s Me! I mean, that’s an incredible thing. It would hold up in any court. Naturally the Devil and the skeptics and everything today try to refute it and they still can’t. They still can’t find the body. And the Book is still here. And God is still saving souls, and still delivering souls, and He is still building His church. Why? Because the gates of hell is not going to prevail against it.

You can put it down, when God puts His seal on something, it works—it happens.

And so we see that Jesus was with the Father. And also . . .

“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

Uh hum, before the world was!

“But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).

In other words, the Father is working. I am working.

Remember Philip was with the Lord and said, “Man, You are all the time saying that You are doing the will of the Father. Everything You do is to please the Father. Show us the Father.” And what did Jesus say, “If you see Me, you see the Father.” Wow! I love that verse. What a thing that opens up to you and me, thinking about our prayer life, thinking about where Jesus is—sitting on the right hand of the Father—knowing that we are in the Son, knowing that when we pray to God the Father, He sees the Son there because that is who we are. That’s an amazing thing to me.

“I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

“The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33).

See, they got it. They got what He was saying. People today are reading the Scriptures and saying, ‘that’s not what it says.’ Those religious leaders got it! That’s why they wanted to stone Him because He is actually saying that He is God.

I think of that phrase, ‘I am!’ When we read that there in John 8:56-59, have you ever wondered what God’s name says about Him? If not, then you should, because His name says quite a lot about Him. In fact, you take another look at our verses today to see just how seriously the Jews took God’s name. When Jesus used it about Himself, the Jews picked up stones to kill Him. Flying into a religious, jealous rage. How dare Him be so blasphemous, because they believed in their heart that that was a divine name—that’s God’s name! How dare You claim that!

See, God’s name ‘I AM’ is important, but not just that we are passionate about His name being treated properly. What’s much more important about God’s name is that we understand what He reveals about Himself in it.

1. His name shows that He exists. Duh! It really settles that whole issue altogether—He is! Period. And there is nothing that anybody can do about it.

You cannot make God not exist. You can’t make Him go away! Why? HE IS! He’s not going away. And you in your little stinking mind you think you can get rid of Him, you think you can compartmentalize Him, you can do what you want—but you ain’t getting rid of Him. He’s in there. He’s in everything. There is no doorway that He cannot go through. No little locked room that we put in there. He’s there. He exists. You are sucking His air. What an amazing thing. He exists.

2. He’s self-contained. He isn’t dependent or indebted to anyone.

No one created Him so that He should answer to them. No one has given Him anything that He hasn’t first given to them, that He would owe anything to anybody. He has no need, in fact, He has everything that we need. I don’t know if you came across that with David and Solomon in the Temple. It’s amazing. It’s like, you are praying to God would give you something to help the work of God, help missions, and you are asking God to bless you. And you don’t know how, maybe you can see it coming, or whatever. So, you are trusting God to provide something for you, and you ask Him for it.