I AM

In John 8:56-58 (NIV), Jesus says “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” This is a reference to Exodus 3:14 when God the father says “I AM WHO I AM.”

We often think of Jesus in the terms of his earthly existence and not his eternal life. It would be easy for us to think of him as just a good man. He was a man born to a mother named Mary and he grew up the son of a carpenter, I am sure that as a young boy he learned the skills taught to him by Joseph, and he may have been one of the brightest young carpenters in his town.

Jesus had friends, brothers, and cousins. He went to weddings and celebrated holidays with his family.  I’m sure he did a lot more stuff that is talked about in the Bible, in John 21:25 it says just that. I can picture him putting his carpenter skills to use helping and old man fix a leak in his roof while he shared the message of salvation and love.  On the merit of his actions alone, it would be fair to say that he was a great man.

When we go beyond the deeds that could have been performed by any ordinary man and begin to look for his wisdom and the miracles he performed that we start to see the divine nature of Jesus. It is this fully God divine nature of Jesus that testifies to his eternal existence.