Abraham was. He is.
Abraham was. He is.
John 8:48–59 Did Abraham know Jesus? Encountering the I Am.
Present-Tense Faith
John 8 — Did Abraham know Jesus? Encountering the I Am.
Person of the Millennium
Every December, Time magazine names its Person of the Year. I’ll be honest, that’s the only time I pick up the magazine. But it’s always interesting to see who they choose, and why.
As the twentieth century closed, they went bigger and named a Person of the Century: Albert Einstein, with Franklin Roosevelt and Gandhi as the runners-up. From what I know of the 1900s, that tracks.
What if we went further: Person of the Millennium? Person of All Time?
Abraham would be near the top of that list. To this day, three of the major world religions trace their lineage back to him. One lone herdsman, way back in Genesis 12, is called by God, and the way God uses him changes all of world history.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day would definitely have put Abraham at the top. As they clash with Jesus at the end of John 8, the argument keeps circling back to him. It sounds like Jesus is putting himself even higher than Abraham, and they are furious. Who do you think you are?
What Jesus does next makes them pick up stones to kill him.
“Who Do You Make Yourself Out to Be?”
The conflict has been growing since chapter seven. Finally, we come to this:
The Jewish opposition said to Jesus, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham and the prophets died, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never die.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died and the prophets died, so who do you make yourself out to be?”
— John 8:52–53 (CEB)
There’s an irony in their first insult, back in verse 48: “We were right to say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon, weren’t we?” Calling Jesus a “Samaritan” was a way of saying, Your theology is all wrong. You don’t understand God. Samaritans were half Jewish, and in the eyes of the Judeans, their doctrine was a mess. But John is winking at us. Back in chapter 4, it was a Samaritan woman, and then her whole Samaritan town, who came and proclaimed Jesus as the Christ before anyone else. They think they’re insulting him. So far in John’s Gospel, it’s the Samaritans who are getting Jesus right.
Next, they denounce him as demon-possessed. And can you blame them? What Jesus is claiming, if not true, would make him a raving lunatic.
“I assure you that whoever keeps my word will never die.”
“Your father Abraham was overjoyed that he would see my day. He saw it and was happy.”
“I assure you,” Jesus replied, “before Abraham was, I Am.”
— John 8:51, 56, 58 (CEB)
Think about what he’s claiming. If you keep my word, you will never die. Abraham saw my day and was glad. Before Abraham was, I Am. Abraham lived roughly as long before Jesus as Jesus lived before us. If someone walked around today saying, I was actually there with Jesus on the streets of Jerusalem, we would all think they were out of their mind.
So either Jesus is telling the truth, in which case he is bigger and grander than anything these leaders ever expected, or they’re correct in condemning him and his teaching.
Abraham Was
How exactly did Abraham see Jesus’ day? Jesus isn’t pointing to a single proof text, but to the whole life of Abraham. And almost every page of his story points to the Messiah. Here are three places I would land:
Genesis 12:1–4, the calling. God pulls Abraham out of nowhere and says, I’m choosing you. You’re going to be the father of nations, and you’re my choice to bless the whole world.
All the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.
— Genesis 12:3 (CEB)
It was never just about Israel. Israel was to become God’s instrument to bless all people and deal with the problem of sin. That they would also need rescuing is the main plot twist of the rest of the Hebrew Bible. But right there on the first page of Abraham’s story is the first signpost toward the Messiah.
Genesis 15: the covenant. This is one of the clearest pointers to Jesus in Genesis. God is ratifying his covenant with Abraham, and they perform a ceremony that would have been commonplace in the ancient world. You didn’t sign on a dotted line. You cut animals in half, laid the pieces in two rows with a path between them, declared your commitment, and walked through. It was a solemn oath: If I break my end of the deal, may what happened to these animals happen to me.
Here’s what’s crucial. Abraham doesn’t take one step down that path.
After the sun had set and darkness had deepened, a smoking vessel with a fiery flame passed between the split-open animals. That day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram.
— Genesis 15:17–18 (CEB)
If Abraham had taken one step, he would have bound himself, and all of us, to keep our end of the covenant perfectly. We would have a religion of works, earning our way. Instead, thousands of years before Christ, God shows us all: Even when you break your end of the deal, I am the one who will pay the price. God alone walks between the pieces. He will keep his side because he is God. And when (not if) humanity breaks our side of the covenant, God alone will bear the cost.
Jesus comes, God in the flesh, and takes on himself the price all of us owe. Abraham failed. We’ve all failed. Jesus pays the price. He’s the one who fulfills Genesis 15.
Genesis 22: the mountain. This one is perhaps the most obvious. God tells Abraham, Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and offer him on a mountain in the land of Moriah. It’s a hard passage to get into. But here’s how it ends:
Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the dense underbrush. Abraham went over, took the ram, and offered it as an entirely burned offering instead of his son. Abraham named that place “the LORD sees.” That is the reason people today say, “On this mountain the LORD is seen.”
— Genesis 22:13–14 (CEB)
The point was never that God wanted Isaac dead. He was teaching Abraham, and all of us, something important: I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself or your children. At the end of the day, I’m the one who will provide.
Jesus becomes the ram caught in the brush. He takes our place and gives his life so that we can live. The price will be paid, and it won’t be Isaac, and it won’t be you or me. It will be Christ. Like a beautiful microcosm, Abraham lives out the entire story of Scripture, pointing straight to Jesus.
Abraham was. He was a great man. So were Einstein, and Roosevelt, and Gandhi, and a lot of great men and women in our own lives, some still with us and some gone. Plenty of people could contend for that list.
Jesus comes along and says, I’m not on the list.
Jesus isn’t the Person of the Millennium. He’s the one who made the list — and the one who made Abraham who he was.
He Is
Everything comes to a head in that last line: Before Abraham was, I Am.
John’s Gospel famously uses this phrase, I am — in Greek, egō eimi. Jesus says it again and again: I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the resurrection. For centuries, theologians have recognized the same words God uses when he reveals himself to Moses at the burning bush. Moses asks, When I go rescue these people, who do I tell them sent me?
God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”
— Exodus 3:14 (CEB)
That’s it. He doesn’t give Moses more than that. That’s where we get the divine name we pronounce Yahweh. It means something like the I Am, the ever-present one. It’s meant to be enigmatic. God doesn’t say I was. He says I am. He is present in the past, present now, and present in the future.
Abraham was. Jesus is.
What If God Walked Among Us?
As I reflected on this chapter, I kept coming back to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and its famous chapter called “The Grand Inquisitor.”
Ivan, one of the brothers, imagines Jesus coming back to earth in Seville in the 1500s, during the Inquisition, and performing miracles again. The church is up and thriving, and the Grand Inquisitor has Jesus arrested and thrown in prison. Then he comes down to the cell for a long conversation.
A few things stand out. The Inquisitor does not doubt that this is Jesus. And he is furious that Jesus has come back. You have no right to add anything to what you said of old. You gave us the authority. You told us to lead your people. You have no right to come back here and meddle with what we’re doing. And so, he says, he’ll have to kill the Christ, again.
The whole argument is about freedom. The Inquisitor rebukes Jesus for giving people freedom: People don’t want freedom. They want us to control them. They want us to tell them what to do. Which is exactly one of the big topics of John 8. Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin, Jesus tells the leaders, but if the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.
Jesus never says a word the whole time. At the end, he leans over and kisses the old man. The Inquisitor is startled. And instead of the second execution, he opens the door and lets him go into the dark streets of the city, telling him never to come back.
It got me wondering what would happen if Jesus walked in today. I know what I’d want my reaction to be. I know what I’d say my reaction would be. But this passage, and that chapter, make me stop and ask: would I really respond with joy and worship? Or would I react like the leaders in John 8?
Because these leaders do love God. They love God’s word. They’re just not ready for God himself to walk among them. When he does, they get upset and try to kill him. The Grand Inquisitor is happy to act in the name of the Lord, as long as the Lord stays out of the building.
From Dostoevsky to today: In college, I worked at the campus gym for about a year. It was a pretty sweet job. Very chill. We joked around, and I spent hours finishing my homework and getting paid to do it. Except every once in a while, the boss would come walk the floors. Those shifts were always more anxious, because now we had to actually look busy. I was perfectly happy to receive the paycheck from the university. I just didn’t like it when the boss was walking the floors.
Maybe our faith is sometimes like that. We’re glad to receive the benefits of the Lord. But do we actually want God to show up in our everyday lives?
He Is Risen, Not Was
Sometimes we live as if ours is a past-tense faith. Of course, the past matters. Every week we proclaim the death and resurrection of our Lord, something that happened definitively in history 2,000 years ago. It’s the reason we exist.
But that old Easter saying is He is risen. Not he was risen. His resurrection is still working, and Jesus is here, now. Our faith was always meant to be present tense.
Last week I shared a practice with you. Before you take that next action, before you post that thing online, stop and ask: Am I acting like a child of God, or like someone else’s child? That’s been a helpful challenge for me.
I think this passage takes us one click deeper. What if we acted like Jesus was actually present? What if he were in the room with me every moment of my day?
He is. He already is, and he always will be. Sometimes we close our minds to it. We forget, we ignore him, we act like he isn’t there. So this week, before you walk into that conversation or that activity, don’t only ask whose child you’re acting like. Ask, Jesus, are you right here? How would that change things?
Not a Divine Snitch
Don’t take this the wrong way. Jesus is not some divine snitch waiting for you to mess up so he can report you.
If remembering he’s in the room keeps you from engaging in some pattern of sin, then go for it. But the full truth is so much better than that.
Remember what he’s already said in this chapter: if you sin, you’re a slave to sin, but I came to set you free. The presence of Christ doesn’t just mean Jesus is coming, look busy. The presence of Christ means God is filling you, continually pouring out his grace, his forgiveness, his life, his power.
So when you’re struggling with something this week, can you ask God to make you aware of Christ’s presence? Ask him to fill you with his strength and wisdom to make the right choice. Trust that he can transform you and set you free from whatever pattern you’re stuck in.
And it doesn’t stop with you. You get to be the conduit that brings the presence of Christ to your family, your friends, your workplace. As you walk and talk and let Christ work in you, through you, and around you, you carry his presence into your marriage and into your neighborhood.
That’s what I think it means for Jesus to say I am, not I was. We don’t just come on Sunday to thank God for something he did 2,000 years ago. Because Jesus rose from the dead, he is still living, still empowering us to be rid of sin, still making us his presence and his light in the world around us.
Abraham was. But he is.
He Sets the Table
On Sunday, this sermon led us straight to communion, and the table is the perfect application. Communion is not just a memorial of something that happened 2,000 years ago. It is one of the ways Christ keeps inviting us into his living presence. When we take the bread and the cup, we enter into his grace, his forgiveness, and his presence, every time.
Christ is the one who sets this table. We don’t invite him into the room, and then he shows up. He’s always here. The table is one of the means by which he gives us his grace and forgiveness, and every time we take this meal, we enter the real presence of Christ once again.
A Prayer for Our Week
Jesus, we confess there are times we’ve acted like we don’t want you to show up. We’re happy to go along operating in your name, but we get uncomfortable when you offer your presence. Forgive us.
Help us long for a faith that is not past tense but present.
This week:
- Practice entering into Christ’s presence. Before one conversation, meeting, or decision each day, pause and pray: Jesus, you are here.
- When you’re struggling, don’t picture a snitch looking over your shoulder. Ask Christ, who is present, for strength to make the right choice.
