Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Uncreated Mediator: Aseity, Identity, and the Great “I AM” (John 8:58)

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The Uncreated Mediator: Aseity, Identity, and the Great “I AM” (John 8:58) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm your host and I'm here as always with my good friend.
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  It's good to be back. If you're new to the show, the
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  whole idea here is pretty simple.
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  We're two friends. I'm the one who's always
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  curious, always asking the questions.
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  And I'm the one who spent maybe too much time trying to
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  synthesize all this stuff. And together we try to unpack
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  some of the, well, the density of Scripture and reformed
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  theology. So we're really glad you're
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  listening in today. We.
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  Are and we have a lot to get through today.
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  I'm actually really looking forward to this one.
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  The text we're looking at is, well, it's short.
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  Very short. Just a few words really.
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  But the weight behind them is just about infinite.
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  So yeah, getting into the details is going to be good.
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  It is. We are heading straight into the
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  Gospel of John chapter 8. And you know, when people think
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  about Jesus teaching, there's a very specific image that comes
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  to mind. We all have it.
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  It's almost like the The Thunder School felt bored version.
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  Right, grassy hills. You've got the Sea of Galilee
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  sparkling in the background. Birds chirping.
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  Lilies of the field, all of that.
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  It's a very pastoral, you know, very gentle setting.
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  Exactly the whole Sermon on the Mount vibe.
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  But the scene we're jumping into today couldn't be more
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  different. We are in the treasury of the
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  temple, a very. Public, very official place.
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  And reading through it again to get ready for this, I was just
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  struck by how hostile the room feels.
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  The atmosphere isn't gentle at all.
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  It's it's aggressive. It feels less like a classroom
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  and more like a courtroom. I was thinking the same thing.
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  Or maybe even like a cage match? Cage match is a pretty good
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  description actually if you read through the whole chapter, the
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  tension is just so thick. It's a forensic environment
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  through and through. What do you mean by forensic?
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  I mean, it's like a trial. The religious leaders are, for
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  all intents and purposes, putting Jesus on trial.
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  They're interrogating him. And the one question that's just
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  burning in the air is who are you?
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  It doesn't even start there though, does it?
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  It starts with a dispute about their heritage.
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  It does. They claim to be children of
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  Abraham and Jesus basically says your actions prove you're not.
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  But from there it just escalates, and it escalates fast
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  into this full blown crisis of divine identity.
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  And it gets so personal and heated.
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  I mean, they call him a Samaritan, which was a nasty
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  racial slur in that context. Huge insult.
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  They say he has a demon, they are just throwing everything
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  they have at him to try and discredit him.
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  It's ugly. It's very ugly.
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  But then, right near the end of the chapter, we get to this
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  pivotal moment. Jesus drops a statement that
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  just stops the whole room cold. He says that Abraham rejoiced to
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  see his day. Which to the Pharisees sounds
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  like pure insanity. You have to try and see it from
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  their perspective for just a second to get why they react the
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  way they do. OK, they're looking at Jesus of
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  Nazareth, a man. He's probably visibly weary, you
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  know, dusty from traveling. He's a finite, physical human
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  being. And they point out pretty
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  reasonably from a human standpoint, that he's not even
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  50 years old, right? They are judging entirely by
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  sight. They see a Carpenter from
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  Galilee, a contemporary, and this man is claiming to have
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  been seen by a patriarch who died almost 2000 years before.
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  It's just absurd to them. It'd be like me saying I had a
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  coffee with, I don't know, Plato this morning.
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  Precisely. It makes no sense.
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  They're stuck in a temporal mindset.
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  They're thinking about calendars and timelines and human
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  lifespans. So they ask him mockingly, Have
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  you seen Abraham? Yeah, they're just trying to
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  expose him as a lunatic. But this is where the whole
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  thing comes to a head. Jesus doesn't back down.
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  He doesn't apologize. He doesn't say, oh, you
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  misunderstood. I meant it metaphorically.
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  He doesn't even clarify his age. No, he doesn't play their game.
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  Instead, he just reveals his essence.
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  He drops what you could call the the nuclear option of Biblical
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  theology. He says the words we're going to
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  spend our time on today. Truly, truly, I say to you,
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  before Abraham was, I am John 8.58.
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  And that one short sentence is a grammatical earthquake.
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  It is, I would argue, the theological apex of Jesus's
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  entire public ministry. It's the moment where all
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  pretense is gone and the full reality of who is standing that
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  temple is just laid bare. So that's our mission for this
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  deep dive. We want to unpack that
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  earthquake. We want to understand why those
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  few words 'cause these religious experts to immediately bend down
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  and pick up stones to kill him. There's a lot to it.
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  So we're going to look at the Greek grammar, which you've
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  already hinted at. We'll look at the Old Testament
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  roots, especially in Exodus and Isaiah.
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  We'll get into the systematic theology of how God can be man,
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  and then bring it all home to why this matters for you, for
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  your assurance today. It's a road map that takes us
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  from the grammar of existence straight to the comfort of the
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  gospel. It's really all in there.
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  OK, let's start where you said the earthquake happens.
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  In the text itself, you called it a grammatical earthquake.
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  When I read it in English before Abraham was I am.
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  It sounds powerful for sure, but I feel like I'm missing a layer.
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  I want to park here for a bit because that's a huge claim for
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  such a short sentence. I mean, when I hear I am, I just
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  think, well I am here or I am hungry.
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  Why is the Greek so explosive? This is where you know the
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  precision of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle John is just
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  stunning. The whole force of the statement
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  pivots on a deliberate, I mean deliberate, contrast between two
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  very specific Greek verbs. Jesus isn't just choosing words
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  at random, He is engineering a collision between two totally
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  different ways of being. OK, so 2 verbs.
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  Two verbs. On the one side when he talks
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  about Abraham, he uses the verb Genomi, but then on the other
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  side for himself he uses the verb I me.
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  All right, let's break those down.
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  Let's start with Abraham. What does Genomi tell us?
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  The full phrase he uses is Prynne, Abram, Genestai.
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  The best way to translate that is before Abraham came into
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  being or before Abraham happened.
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  The verb Jaina my implies a beginning.
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  It means to become, to be born, to come into existence as an
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  event in history. So it's signaling that Abraham
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  is what theologians call a contingent being.
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  Exactly. He had a start date.
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  There was a point in time when Abraham did not exist, and then
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  a moment when he came to be, he was born.
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  OK, so Abraham is a creature. He's part of the created order,
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  part of the timeline. He had parents.
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  He happened. He happened.
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  That's perfect way to put it. Think of it this way.
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  Abraham is an event. He exists inside of history.
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  He has a starting point. There was a year, a month, a day
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  where there was no Abraham. And then through a normal
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  biological process, he became. He's a product of history.
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  But then you have to see the massive asymmetrical contrast he
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  creates when he talks about himself.
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  He does not say Before Abraham became, I became.
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  Which would have just meant I'm older than he is, you know, like
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  I was born in 2000 BC and he was born in 1900 BC.
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  It would just be a claim to seniority, right?
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  And if that's all he wanted to say, he just wanted to claim he
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  was an ancient Angel or a really, really old man.
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  Greek has a verb for that. It has a perfect tense for that.
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  He could have used the imperfect tense Omian, which means I was.
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  Or he could have used the aorist, A gentleman I came to
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  be. That would've been the logical,
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  grammatically parallel way to finish the sentence if you were
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  just another being on the timeline.
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  But he doesn't do that. He sort of.
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  That breaks the grammar. That breaks the timeline.
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  He uses ego, Amy, present tense, active voice, indicative mood, I
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  am M He slams A verb that implies continuous timeless
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  existence right next to a verb that implies a historical
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  starting point. So he's deliberately avoiding
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  any past tense verb. He is.
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  Any past tense verb would have anchored his existence to a
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  point in time. Instead, he uses what
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  grammarians call a durative or a temporal present.
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  He's saying that his very mode of being is on a completely
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  different plane from Abraham's. Abraham became Jesus's.
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  That is a massive distinction. It's the difference between,
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  well, a creature who is subject to time and a creator who exists
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  outside of it. It's almost like, OK, here's an
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  analogy. Imagine a timeline drawn on a
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  piece of paper. You've got a dot on that line
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  for Abraham's birth. OK, Jesus isn't putting another
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  dot earlier on the same line. He's saying he is the paper the
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  line is drawn on. That is a fantastic analogy,
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  yes. He's not claiming to be earlier
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  in time, he's claiming to be outside of time.
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  He is contrasting a created becoming with an uncreated
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  being. It's like the difference between
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  something that's manufactured and the one who did the
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  manufacturing. Abraham is the product, Jesus is
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  the source. That's a great way to put.
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  It and there's another little detail in the syntax here that
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  we can't just slide past. The phrase I am stands absolute.
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  What does that mean? Well, usually the verb to be
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  functions as a linking verb, a copula.
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  It connects a subject to a predicate.
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  I am tall, I am a teacher. In John's Gospel, Jesus says I
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  am the light, I am the bread. It links the subject I to a
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  description, the light exactly. But here there's no predicate,
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  it just stops. I am, that's it.
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  It just hangs there. It does, and this the
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  syntactical anomaly. It forces the listener to find
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  the predicate not in the rest of the sentence, but in the entire
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  theological history of Israel. It leaves the statement hanging
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  in the air, just vibrating with significance.
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  It is not I am something. It is simply I am.
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  And the Jewish leaders in that temple?
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  They knew exactly where to look for that context.
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  Their reaction tells us everything we need to know,
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  doesn't it? It really does.
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  They didn't laugh at him and say he got his grammar wrong.
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  They didn't ask to see his birth certificate to prove he was all.
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  No, they bent down and picked up stones.
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  Under Jewish law, stoning was a prescribed penalty for
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  blasphemy, and blasphemy specifically was misusing the
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  name of God or, and this is key, making oneself equal with God.
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  So they didn't think he was just claiming to be an old man.
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  Not for a second. They knew he was claiming to be
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  Yahweh. They understood the grammar and
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  its theological baggage better than a lot of modern skeptics
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  do. They heard that I am, and they
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  immediately understood he was claiming a CD.
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  Life in himself, independent, underived God's own being.
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  OK, that leads us perfectly into the next part of this, the
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  biblical theological context. We have to connect the dots that
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  the Pharisees were connecting in their heads in that moment.
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  But before we get to the divine name itself, I want to circle
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  back to something Jesus said right before the I AM statement.
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  He said your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my
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  day. He saw it and was glad, right?
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  How did Abraham see Jesus's day? That was what confused the
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  Pharisees. And honestly, it can be a bit
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  confusing for us too. It's a point of confusion if
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  you're stuck at a very literalistic way way of reading
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  the text. Which is exactly where the
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  Pharisees were. They were thinking, wait, you're
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  telling us you had a physical meeting in Canaan 2000 years
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  ago? Impossible.
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  So how should we understand it? Well, the Reformed terminotic,
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  our principle of interpretation is that Scripture interprets
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  Scripture. We have to look at this through
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  the wider lens of what we call the covenant of grace.
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  So Abraham saw with the eyes of faith, not his physical eyes.
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  Precisely. You have to go back to Genesis.
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  When God called Abraham out of UR in Genesis 12, and when he
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  cut the covenant with him in Genesis 15 and 17, what did he
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  do? He gave him promises.
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  Promises of a land descendants. And a seed he promised, a seed
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  in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.
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  Now who is that seed? The apostle Paul in the
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  Galatians 3.16 makes it crystal clear.
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  He says the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.
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  Scripture does not say and to seeds meaning many people, but
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  and to your seed meaning one person who is Christ.
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  So when Abraham was looking at the stars, or even when he was
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  looking at Isaac on the altar on Mount Moriah, he was looking
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  through the shadows of the Old Covenant administration to the
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  substance to Christ. Yes, the author of Hebrews says
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  as much in Chapter 11. He says all these patriarchs
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  died in faith, not having received the things promised,
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  but having seen them and greeted them from afar.
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  So Abraham's joy wasn't the joy of a past memory, but the joy of
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  future anticipation. That's it.
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  He saw the promise of the Messiah from a distance and was
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  glad. And the deep tragic irony in
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  John 8 is that the religious leaders are there claiming
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  biological descent from Abraham, but they have none of Abraham's
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  faith. They're honoring the messenger
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  Abraham, while trying to stone the very one the Messenger was
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  waiting for. That is a heavy irony.
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  They're defending Abraham while attacking the object of
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  Abraham's faith. OK, now let's go to the
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  connection that triggered the stones, The phrase I am.
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  You said this forces us all the way back to the book of Exodus.
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  It does. There's no way around it.
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  We have to go back to the burning Bush.
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  In Exodus chapter 3, Moses is standing on holy ground.
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  He's just been given this impossible task and he asked God
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  a very practical question. If I go to the people of Israel
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  and say the God of your Father's has sent me to you and they
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  asked me what is his name? What shall I say to them?
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  It's a reasonable question. It is, and God's reply is one of
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  the most significant moments in all of Scripture.
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  He says I AM WHOIM. In the original Hebrew, that's a
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  a Asher a a. And when that Hebrew phrase was
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  translated into Greek, what did it become?
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  Well in the Septuagint which was the Greek translation of the Old
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  Testament that most Jews in Jesus day were using Exodus 3.1
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  high is rendered using the exact phrase ego I me I am.
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  The very same words Jesus uses in the temple.
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  The very same. And that name, that title, it
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  signifies that God is utterly self existent.
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  He is self defining. His being isn't contingent on
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  anything or anyone else. He's defined by nothing outside
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  of himself. He's simply IES.
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  So when Jesus stands in the treasury and says before Abraham
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  came to be ego IMI, he is consciously and deliberately
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  taking that divine name, that title, and applying it to
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  himself. That's the lightning strike.
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  He's telling them in no uncertain terms that the voice
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  speaking to them in the temple is the very same voice that
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  spoke to Moses from the fire on Mount Oreb.
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  He's claiming to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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  It is a direct, undeniable theophantic identification.
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  But it's not just Exodus. We also have to look at the
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  prophet Isaiah, specifically that section from chapters 40 to
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  48. Some call it the trial of the
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  false gods. Oh, I love that section of
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  Isaiah. It's where God is just
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  relentlessly vindicating his own glory against all the idols of
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  the nations. It is, and over and over again
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  in those chapters, Yahweh uses a particular phrase to distinguish
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  himself from the idols that have to be made by human hands and
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  carried around. He says I am he.
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  And how does that translate in the Septuagint?
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  You guessed it, in Isaiah 43.10, for instance, God says you are
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  my witnesses, that you may know and believe me and understand
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  that I am He, the Greek. There is again ego EMI.
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  In the context of Isaiah, I am is the signature of the one and
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  only Savior. God says besides me there is no
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  Savior. Wow, that raises the stakes even
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  higher. So when Jesus uses that phrase,
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  he's not just claiming to be the God of the burning Bush, He's
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  also stepping into the role of Yahweh as the exclusive savior
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  of the world. He is claiming to be the first
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  in the last, as Isaiah says. He's claiming to be the one who
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  called Abraham out of UR in the 1st place.
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  This just bridges the testament so powerfully.
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  The incarnation, the coming of Jesus, isn't some Plan B.
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  It's not a new idea God had. It's the Ancient of Days
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  stepping into human history. That's right, the Jesus of the
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  New Testament is the Yahweh of the old.
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  He is not a second God, not a lesser deity.
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  He is the second person of the one true Triune God.
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  That is such a vital point. I think sometimes even as
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  believers we can almost accidentally drift into thinking
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  of the God of the Old Testament and Jesus as two different
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  characters with, you know, different personalities or
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  dispositions. A common and dangerous error.
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  But this text just says no, I am He.
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  The God who gave the law on Sinai is the one who fulfills it
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  in Jerusalem. It creates A seamless unity of
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  the divine plan of redemption, and it just exposes the absolute
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  horror of what the Pharisees were doing in the name of
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  defending God's honor. They were picking up stones to
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  murder God Himself. OK, so that brings us to the the
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  mechanics of this, if I can use that word, we have this
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  undeniable claim of being the eternal God, but we also have
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  the undeniable reality of the man standing in front of them.
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  So we have to get into the systematic theology here.
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  How do we explain a man who is not yet 50 being the eternal I
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  am? This is where we need our
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  careful theological categories to keep us from falling off the
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  horse on either side. We need to talk about the
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  doctrine of God, what we call theology proper, and the
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  doctrine of Christ, Christology. And the place to start is with
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  God's own nature. You mentioned the term earlier
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  assayety. Assayedi.
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  It comes from the Latin phrase assay, which literally means
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  from himself. So God's existence is from
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  himself. Correct.
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  Assayedi is the doctrine that God is the uncaused cause.
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  Every other being in existence, you, me, the angels in heaven,
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  Abraham, is derived. Our existence is contingent.
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  We depend on God for our very next breath.
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  If God stopped willing us to exist, we would just vanish.
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  We would cease to be, but God possesses life in Himself.
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  He is, as Psalm 36 calls him, the fountain of life.
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  So God doesn't just have existence like it's a property
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  he possesses that he could maybe lose.
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  He is existence. That's the doctrine of divine
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  simplicity. He is his own existence.
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  Now apply that to Jesus in the temple.
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  When he says I am, He is claiming to share this identical
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  simple self existent divine essence with the Father.
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  He's not a created super Angel. He's not the first thing God
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  made. He is the self existent 1.
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  OK, but then there's the paradox.
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  He is self existent, yet he was born in a Manger in Bethlehem.
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  He is the Ancient of Days, but he's not yet 50.
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  How do we hold those two truths together without contradiction?
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  We hold them together with the doctrine of the hypostatic
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  union. This is summarized just
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  beautifully in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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  In chapter 8, Section 2. It says that two whole, perfect
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  and distinct natures, the Godhead and the Manhood, were
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  inseparably joined together in one person.
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  OK, so 2 natures one person break that down.
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  It means that in the one person of Jesus Christ there is a full,
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  complete divine nature and a full, complete human nature, and
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  these two natures are united without mixing, without
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  changing, and without confusion. And this leads to a concept that
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  has a very technical name, right?
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  The comunicaccio idiomatim. The communication of properties.
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  It sounds complicated, but the idea is fairly straightforward.
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  It means that the attributes of both natures, the divine nature
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  and the human nature, can be properly ascribed to the single
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  person of Christ. OK, can you break that down
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  using the example from our text? Certainly it is theologically
• 18:27
  correct and true to say that the person Jesus was less than 50
• 18:31
  years old. That is a true statement.
• 18:33
  According to his human nature. He had a birthday.
• 18:36
  He grew in wisdom and stature. You got tired, he got hungry.
• 18:39
  All of it. But it is simultaneously
• 18:42
  accurate and true to say that the very same person, Jesus, is
• 18:45
  eternal and exists before Abraham.
• 18:48
  That is a true statement according to His divine nature.
• 18:51
  So we don't divide them into two people.
• 18:52
  There isn't a human Jesus who gets tired and a divine Jesus
• 18:55
  who is eternal. Never.
• 18:57
  That is the ancient heresy of Nestorianism.
• 19:00
  It is one person who acts and peeks through his two natures.
• 19:04
  The terrible mistake the Jews made was that they judged the
• 19:07
  person solely by the properties of his humanity.
• 19:10
  They saw the form of a servant, to use Paul's language in
• 19:13
  Philippians, but they were blind to the form of God that was also
• 19:17
  present. This framework helps us avoid
• 19:19
  some really major errors that are still floating around today,
• 19:22
  like for instance the canonic theory.
• 19:24
  Yes, the idea that comes from a misunderstanding of Philippians
• 19:27
  2, which suggests that in order to become a man, the Son of God
• 19:30
  had to empty himself with some of his divine attributes, like
• 19:33
  giving up his omniscience or his omnipresence.
• 19:36
  But John 8.58 just demolishes that.
• 19:38
  It does. Jesus does not say I used to be
• 19:40
  the I am before I came here. He says I am in the present
• 19:43
  tense. Right then and there in the
• 19:45
  incarnation, the sun did not subtract deity.
• 19:48
  He added humanity to himself. He veiled His glory, certainly,
• 19:52
  but He never for a moment forsook His divine nature.
• 19:55
  And then there's the other big one we touched on briefly,
• 19:57
  Arianism, the idea that the Sun is the 1st and greatest
• 20:00
  creature. Arianism always tries to find a
• 20:03
  middle ground, he says. Jesus is more than a man, sure,
• 20:06
  but less than God. But the very grammar of John
• 20:09
  8.58 that we discussed earlier forbids that you give us only
• 20:13
  two categories. You are either Jaina my you're
• 20:16
  created, you become, or you are. Am I?
• 20:18
  You are uncreated. You simply are.
• 20:20
  There's no third category. There is no middle ground, and
• 20:23
  Jesus deliberately places Abraham in the created category
• 20:28
  and himself in the uncreated category.
• 20:30
  The line is drawn in the sand. This is a perfect bridge into
• 20:33
  historical theology. I mean, we are not the first
• 20:35
  people to read this text and have these discussions.
• 20:37
  The Church has been wrestling with and defending this truth
• 20:40
  for two millennia. You mentioned Arianism, so let's
• 20:43
  go back to that first big showdown, the Council of Nicaea
• 20:46
  in 325AD. That council was in many ways
• 20:49
  the great battleground for the identity of Jesus Christ.
• 20:52
  You had Arias, a press bidder from Alexandria who was very
• 20:55
  popular and very persuasive, and his famous slogan was there was
• 20:59
  a time when the son was not. He argued that the Son was the
• 21:01
  greatest creation of the Father, but still at the end of the day,
• 21:04
  a creation. Which sounds an awful lot like
• 21:07
  what Jehovah's Witnesses teach today.
• 21:08
  It's pretty much the identical error.
• 21:10
  It is, and the Orthodox Fathers led by the great hero
• 21:13
  Athanasius. They basically wielded John 8.58
• 21:17
  like a sword against this error. Their argument was simple.
• 21:21
  If Jesus were merely a creature, even a super creature, he could
• 21:25
  not use the absolute I am am. Without committing blasphemy, a
• 21:29
  creature cannot claim to be uncreated.
• 21:31
  And the result of that council was the Nicene Creed, which so
• 21:34
  many of us still recite in church.
• 21:36
  Yes, and the key phrase hammered out at Nicaea was that the Son
• 21:40
  is begotten, not made being of 1 substance with the Father.
• 21:44
  One substance. That's the Greek word homousios.
• 21:47
  That's the one. It means they share the very
• 21:49
  same divine essence. That word was the death knell
• 21:52
  for Arianism. And as we move forward through
• 21:54
  church history, you see the great theologians just marveling
• 21:57
  at this text. Augustine, for instance, he
• 21:59
  wrote so clearly Abraham was made by Christ, and therefore
• 22:02
  Christ was before Abraham. He just keeps hammering that
• 22:05
  distinction between the maker and the thing that is made.
• 22:07
  And of course, knowing us, we have to stop and see what John
• 22:11
  Calvin had to say about it. Of course, and Calvin, as he so
• 22:14
  often is, is just brilliant and razor sharp.
• 22:17
  Here in his day, there were some like the heretic Servitus, who
• 22:22
  were trying to wiggle out of the force of this verse.
• 22:25
  They were suggesting that Jesus only existed in God's
• 22:27
  foreknowledge before Abraham. So basically God was just
• 22:31
  thinking about Jesus before he thought about Abraham.
• 22:34
  Right. And Calvin just dismantles that
• 22:36
  argument. He points out that if that's all
• 22:38
  Jesus meant, then the claim is meaningless because in that
• 22:41
  sense we all existed before Abraham, because God knew all of
• 22:44
  us from before the foundation of the world.
• 22:46
  So if it's just about being in God's mind, then the statement I
• 22:50
  am loses all its specific explosive power.
• 22:53
  Exactly. Calvin insists, rightly, that
• 22:56
  this is a claim about essence, not just for knowledge.
• 22:59
  He says Jesus is not referring to the discharge of his
• 23:01
  messianic office, which began in time, but to His eternal divine
• 23:05
  essence, which is outside of time.
• 23:07
  Now we do have to address a modern controversy that comes up
• 23:11
  around the translation of this verse.
• 23:13
  You mentioned the Jehovah's Witnesses earlier in their
• 23:15
  translation, the New World Translation, they rendered John
• 23:18
  8.58 as before Abraham came into existence.
• 23:22
  I have been. Yes, and I have to say this as
• 23:24
  clearly as possible. That is a linguistically
• 23:27
  indefensible translation. Why?
• 23:29
  What are they trying to do there?
• 23:30
  They are trying to force the text into a perfect tense,
• 23:34
  meaning the perfect tense would suggest that Jesus has just been
• 23:38
  around for a very long time, but not that he is the eternal Imm.
• 23:43
  But you simply cannot translate the Greek present indicative Amy
• 23:46
  as I have been in this context without violating the
• 23:49
  fundamental rules of Greek grammar.
• 23:50
  Any first year Greek student would know that.
• 23:52
  So they are twisting the grammar to fit their preconceived
• 23:55
  theology rather than letting the grammar of the text shape their
• 23:58
  theology. That is precisely what is
• 24:00
  happening, and the immediate context serves as the final nail
• 24:03
  in the coffin for their argument.
• 24:05
  Yeah, the Jews did not pick up stones because someone claimed
• 24:07
  to be very, very old. They picked up stones because he
• 24:10
  claimed to be God. And this is also why we have to
• 24:12
  reject the tendency in some liberal theological circles to
• 24:16
  just dismiss these statements as later editions by the church or
• 24:20
  something John made-up. We have to the consistent
• 24:23
  witness of the Church from the earliest days has been that
• 24:26
  these are the true and authentic words of Jesus Christ, revealing
• 24:29
  his true identity. It is good to know that we stand
• 24:32
  in a long, long line of faithful witnesses on this.
• 24:36
  We aren't inventing this interpretation today.
• 24:38
  We are standing on the shoulders of giants who stood firmly on
• 24:41
  the word of God. So we've we've looked at the
• 24:43
  grammar, we've gone into the Old Testament background, we've set
• 24:47
  up the systematic categories and looked at the history of
• 24:49
  interpretation. But we can't just leave this in
• 24:52
  the realm of abstract theory, as we always ask on this show, So
• 24:56
  what? What does this mean for the
• 24:57
  person listening to us right now driving in their car or washing
• 25:01
  the dishes? This.
• 25:01
  Is where it gets really personal.
• 25:03
  This text is like a double edged sword.
• 25:05
  It confronts us. It doesn't allow for neutrality.
• 25:07
  It forces a verdict. OK, let's take a couple of
• 25:10
  different kinds of people. Let's start with the skeptic or
• 25:12
  the relativist, the person who says, you know, I like Jesus.
• 25:15
  I think he was a great moral teacher.
• 25:17
  I subscribe to his ethics but I just don't buy the whole Son of
• 25:20
  God thing. John 8.58 absolutely destroys
• 25:25
  that manageable Jesus, the Jesus who is just a wise sage or a
• 25:30
  social revolutionary that you can comfortably admire from a
• 25:32
  distance. By claiming the divine name,
• 25:35
  Jesus forces the skeptic into a corner.
• 25:37
  It's the classic CS Lewis Trey Lama, isn't it?
• 25:40
  Lord Liar or lunatic? It is.
• 25:42
  You cannot say he was a good moral teacher if he falsely
• 25:46
  claimed to be the creator of the universe.
• 25:48
  Good teachers don't make claims like that.
• 25:50
  It's either the most arrogant lie ever told, the delusion of a
• 25:52
  madman, or it is the truth. There is no middle ground.
• 25:55
  There's no safe, respectable 4th option.
• 25:58
  There isn't. If he is the I am, then what
• 26:00
  right does the skeptic or any of us have to stand in judgement
• 26:03
  over him? The application here is a call
• 26:05
  to intellectual honesty and ultimately to repentance.
• 26:09
  You must bow or you must reject him as a fraud.
• 26:12
  You cannot simply admire him. OK, then there's another kind of
• 26:14
  person, the religious moralist, maybe the person who is in
• 26:19
  church every Sunday, who loves their Christian heritage, who
• 26:22
  loves the culture of Christianity, but might not
• 26:25
  actually know the Lord personally.
• 26:27
  That is a very dangerous place to be, and the Pharisees are
• 26:30
  Exhibit A. Look at them.
• 26:32
  They had the scriptures memorized, they had the right
• 26:34
  heritage, they had the temple. They were the ultimate religious
• 26:37
  insiders. And they tried to stone God.
• 26:39
  And they tried to stone God. It is a terrifying warning
• 26:42
  against loving our theology or our denomination or our heritage
• 26:47
  more than we love Christ Himself.
• 26:49
  The Pharisees were so proud of being the children of Abraham,
• 26:52
  but they despise the God of Abraham who is standing right in
• 26:54
  front of them. That one hits close to home.
• 26:57
  It's so easy for us, especially in our tradition, to love our
• 27:00
  reformed identity more than we love our Savior.
• 27:03
  It's a constant temptation, but then on the other side of that
• 27:06
  sword, we have to look at the incredible comfort this text
• 27:09
  offers to the weary St. as we called them in the outline.
• 27:13
  I love this part of the application because life is so
• 27:16
  unstable. You talked about Abraham
• 27:18
  becoming. We live in a world of Jenna.
• 27:22
  My things are always coming into being and then passing away.
• 27:24
  That is the fundamental reality of our created lives.
• 27:27
  Our health age, our jobs change, Our bank accounts go up and
• 27:30
  down, Our relationships shift. We are like Abraham.
• 27:33
  We are contingent. We have a beginning and on this
• 27:35
  earth and end. The Jesus is I me, he as I.
• 27:39
  He as I. The deepest implication of I am
• 27:42
  is stability, its permanence. It's the promise of Malachi 3.6
• 27:46
  For I am the Lord, I change not. For Hebrews 13.8, Jesus Christ
• 27:50
  is the same yesterday and today and forever.
• 27:53
  That is the anchor for our souls.
• 27:55
  When you were in that hospital bed, or when you were facing a
• 27:57
  financial crisis, or when a relationship falls apart, the I
• 28:00
  am is present. Remember God's promise to Moses
• 28:03
  at the burning Bush. It wasn't just I am.
• 28:05
  It was. Certainly I will be with you.
• 28:07
  So the God who is self existent has pledged himself to be with
• 28:10
  us who are not. That's the gospel.
• 28:12
  His love for his people is not a fickle emotion that can change
• 28:14
  with our performance. It is an eternal resolve rooted
• 28:17
  in his own unchanging being. That is incredibly grounding.
• 28:21
  It means my salvation, my hope. It doesn't rest on my
• 28:24
  fluctuating feelings or my faithfulness, but on His eternal
• 28:28
  being. Precisely.
• 28:30
  Your union with Christ means your fragile life is hidden with
• 28:33
  Christ in God. Because he lives, you also will
• 28:38
  live. And finally, this has to change
• 28:39
  how we worship and how we think about mission.
• 28:41
  It has to If Jesus is the eternal I am, then our proper
• 28:46
  response in worship cannot be mere analysis or worse,
• 28:49
  entertainment. It has to be adoration.
• 28:52
  We should be like Thomas in John 20 when the reality finally hits
• 28:55
  him and he just falls down and says My Lord and my God.
• 28:57
  Our worship services should be Christ centered, not
• 28:59
  self-centered. We are meeting with the Ancient
• 29:01
  of Days. We are, and that should shape
• 29:03
  everything we do. And then for evangelism, it
• 29:05
  gives us both urgency and clarity.
• 29:07
  Jesus said it Himself just a few verses earlier in John 8.24.
• 29:11
  Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.
• 29:13
  That is a hard truth. It's a very hard truth, but it
• 29:17
  is the truth we are witnessing to the unique Savior of the
• 29:20
  world. There is no other name under
• 29:23
  heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
• 29:27
  We aren't offering people a lifestyle enhancement or a self
• 29:30
  help program. We are offering them the only
• 29:32
  possible connection to the source of all life.
• 29:35
  This has been such a good discussion.
• 29:37
  We've traveled from that angry mob in the temple all the way
• 29:40
  back to the burning Bush, through the nuances of Greek
• 29:42
  grammar, and landed right in our own hearts and churches today.
• 29:46
  It really is a text that contains the whole of the Gospel
• 29:48
  in miniature. To kind of wrap it all up, Jesus
• 29:51
  claiming to be I am wasn't a mistake or a slip of the tongue.
• 29:54
  It was the climactic revelation that the covenant God of Israel
• 29:58
  had come in the flesh to redeem his people.
• 30:00
  And the final image that sticks with me is at the very end of
• 30:03
  the chapter they pick up stones and it says Jesus hid himself
• 30:06
  and went out of the temple. He escaped their grasp, but it
• 30:09
  wasn't a retreat out of fear, it was a divine delay.
• 30:12
  He escaped the stones in John 8 so that he could go to the cross
• 30:16
  in John 19. The Great I am would eventually
• 30:19
  lay down his life, not because men forced him to, but because
• 30:23
  he chose to lay it down for his sheep.
• 30:25
  And that leaves us and everyone listening with one final,
• 30:28
  provocative thought. It's the question Jesus asks his
• 30:31
  own disciples in Matthew 16. But who do you say that I am?
• 30:35
  That is the question that hangs over every human life.
• 30:37
  You've heard the evidence. You cannot remain neutral.
• 30:40
  The listener must answer. You must either bow in worship
• 30:43
  or turn away in rejection. The I AM demands a response.
• 30:47
  A perfect place to end. Thank you for walking us through
• 30:49
  this so clearly and thank you to everyone listening to Reformed
• 30:52
  Thinking. We really do hope this deep dive
• 30:54
  into God's Word has been an encouragement and a challenge to
• 30:57
  you. Indeed, it's always a privilege
• 30:59
  to study these things together. Until next time, keep thinking
• 31:02
  and keep looking to the great I am, Goodbye.