Before Abraham Was, I Am
When Jesus said "Before Abraham was, I am," He was saying He is the Messiah, the Lamb God planned before Abraham was born, not that He is God.
Two other clusters build on this: Brought Forth and His Own.
Scripture shows this in four steps:
“Before Abraham was, I am.” Many people read these words as Jesus saying, “I am God.” But read the whole conversation in John 8. Jesus is saying one thing all the way through: I am he, the Messiah. And He knew what that meant. He knew He was the Lamb.
John 8:24
“I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”
John 8:24
Here the words “I am he” appear for the first time in this talk. Believe that I am the Messiah, or die in your sins. The words are a claim to be the promised One, and everything hangs on them.
The little word “he” is in italics in the King James Bible. That means the translators added it to make the meaning clear. The Greek just says “I am.” They were right to add it. Jesus means: I am the one.
John 8:28
“Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself.”
John 8:28
The same words again. When they lift Him up on the cross, they will know that He is the Messiah. And notice what He says with it: “I do nothing of myself.” That is how a son who was sent speaks. It is not how God speaks.
He is talking to the same men He will speak to at verse 58. He has already told them who He is and what He will suffer.
John 8:56
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.”
John 8:56
Abraham saw Christ’s day before it came. That is seeing ahead. The men answered, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” (John 8:57). Now the question is about time: who came first?
John 8:58
“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”
John 8:58
This is the same “I am” as in verses 24 and 28. The Greek words are exactly the same. Only here the translators did not add “he.” But it means the same: Before Abraham was, I am he, the Messiah.
How could Jesus be the Messiah before Abraham? Because God knew Him and planned Him before Abraham was born. Christ stood first in God’s purpose. Jesus knew His calling. He knew He was the Lamb. And He said so to the men who argued with Him: before Abraham was, I am the Messiah, and it will happen.
He was not saying “I am God.” Just before this He said, “it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God” (John 8:54). And earlier He called Himself “a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God” (John 8:40). A man does not tell you the Father is God and then, a few breaths later, claim to be that God.
The same words “I am” did not make anyone pick up stones at verse 24 or 28. The man born blind says the very same Greek words in John 9:9, and no one thinks he claimed to be God. What made them angry at verse 58 was “before Abraham.” They had asked Him, “Art thou greater than our father Abraham?” (John 8:53). He answered yes.
Genesis 22:8
“And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”
Genesis 22:8
This is when Abraham saw Christ’s day. He was about to give up his son Isaac. And he said God would provide Himself a lamb. The ram caught in the thicket was a picture. The real Lamb was Christ. Abraham saw it ahead, and he was glad.
But God had this plan even before Abraham.
Genesis 3:15
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Genesis 3:15
Right after the first sin, God promised a seed who would crush the serpent’s head. The Messiah was promised from the very start. Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8), “foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times” (1 Peter 1:20). The plan was older than Abraham. Older than Noah. Older than Adam’s sin.
What this means
So when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” He meant: I am the seed. I am the Lamb. God knew me before Abraham, and I will do it. This has nothing to do with God’s name in Exodus 3:14. It has everything to do with Genesis 3:15 and Genesis 22:8.
This was a man confessing his calling, not claiming to be the God who called him. He knew what lay ahead, and He carried it by trusting His Father: “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39).
John wrote his whole book “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31). That is what Jesus asked of those men. It is what He asks of me. Do I believe that He is the One?
Connected chains
This cluster goes hand in hand with My Lord and My God, Sent Forth at His Baptism and Not Left Alone.