Part 15b – John 8
In John 8:28 Jesus says “when you have lifted up the son of man then you shall know that I am (for clarification the word ‘he’ is not in the original text).
Here in this verse Jesus is talking about his death, he came into this fallen world, as a man, with the full knowledge and understanding of His purpose. What he says here, to the Jews, the people who knew all about the one true God, but who did not know God, (every Jew would have been taught this from a very young age and know who God was. Deuteronomy 6:3 “Hear O Israel and observe to do it…” and more importantly Deuteronomy 6:4-5) is “then you shall know that I am”.
At this point let us refresh our memories and go back to Exodus 3:1-14 to the man that God chose to lead His people out of bondage and the slavery of Egypt. When God attracted the attention of Moses by means of a burning bush, a man who had fallen from exceptional grace and privilege from the Pharaohs’ inner circle to the place of a wandering shepherd in the desert where he was shepherding sheep for his father-in-law.
The burning bush in itself was not exceptional, what was exceptional was that the bush was not consumed by the fire. It was this that caught Moses’ attention and he turned to observe and it was in the ‘turning to observe’ that God spoke to him. What follows is a dialogue between the two of them that includes the phrase “I AM THAT I AM” part of the phrase that God requires Moses to say to the children of Israel in response to Moses’ question “who shall I say has sent me?” God says you say “I AM has sent me” Exodus 3:14. God then follows on in verse 15 and says “The Lord God of your fathers……has sent me” and “this is my name forever”. So we see in the passage in John 8 that Jesus is saying you shall know that I AM. It is Jesus saying I and the father are one.
It is when we begin to acknowledge and accept that Christ has been crucified and has risen that we then begin to understand that He is the I AM. It is then that Jesus says to those who believe “if you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed: and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you FREE.” So we see salvation is first about belief in a crucified and risen Christ then about continuing in Jesus’ word. It is about abiding on a daily basis, minute by minute, hour by hour, always giving God the glory and praise in everything we do and say, so that others might come to see the crucified and risen Christ. It is not about working out the theology, it is about accepting that Jesus is I AM and that I AM has come down in response to the cry of longing that has gone up for truth and freedom.
When God revealed to Moses that His name was to be I AM forever in the meeting at the burning bush God also revealed that He had seen the afflictions of His people which are in Egypt (notice I use the present tense, God always sees the afflictions of His people in Egypt, a place of bondage and slavery), He had heard their cry, He knew their sorrows and that I AM come down to deliver them, to bring them out in order to bring them in to something far greater. This ‘I AM come down’ is denoted in the original Hebrew as being permanent in the past with certainty and permanency in the future. This ‘I AM come down’ is important for all of us, it is God with us, IMMANUEL.
Do we know and appreciate Jesus today? Are we one of those who believes into Jesus in all His fullness, into the one who said before Abraham was I AM John 8:58 or are we like those Pharisees just trying to argue away the truth and in so doing blind ourselves and those around us.
Let us purpose in our lives to find this I AM and continue in his word in order that the truth will set us free.
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