I Am

egō eimi

Here is a name for the Lord Jesus that explodes off the pages of Scripture. Speaking to the Jews, Jesus declared, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). At that comment, the Jews “went ballistic” and couldn’t pick up stones fast enough to kill Him on the spot. Why did they react that way? Because they immediately recognized precisely what Jesus was claiming, that He was no less than God in the flesh. This was without question the most unmistakable claim to deity that Jesus made while on earth.

I Am is egō eimi (1510), words that actually are not very significant in themselves. The word eimi is simply the verb “to be” and is merely the usual word of existence. To Greeks in Jesus’ day, and to our ears today, Jesus was just saying, “I exist.”

Ah, but that’s not what the Jews heard! They instantly noted Jesus’ reference to Exodus 3:14, when Moses asked God His name and God answered: “I AM THAT I AM,” which declares God “to be” self-existent, without beginning, without end. This is also expressed in the term Yahweh, “I Am the One Who Is,” the most significant name for God in the OT. So when Jesus said, “I have always been,” the Jews were enraged beyond reason or control. Similar statements on other occasions enraged the Jews because they understood that Jesus was claiming equality with God (Mark 2:5–9; John 5:16–18; 10:30–33).

That was no different, however, than it is in our day. People call Jesus “a good man,” “a wise teacher,” “a moral example,” and other such platitudes, but flatly reject Him as God. At the core of several cults is the denial of the deity of Christ, but this truth is an absolutely cardinal doctrine of Christianity; without it, Christianity collapses of its own weight. It’s also a doctrine that is clearly taught in Scripture with no ambiguity whatsoever. As John declares, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . 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. . . . No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:1, 14, 18).

Scriptures for Study: Read the following scriptures, noting Jesus’ claims to deity: Mark 2:5–9; John 5:16–18; 10:30–33.