John 8

⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” ⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” ⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

One of the more colorful military leaders in American history was World War II General George S. Patton. And perhaps the most colorful of his attributes was his belief in reincarnation and his repeated assertions, upon arriving in different locations in Europe during the war, that he had been on this or that battlefield or in this or that city in a previous life. On a veteran’s site, “Together We Served,” there is an article about this that explains:

Among the many warriors Patton thought he had been in a former life was a prehistoric mammoth hunter; a Greek hoplite who fought the Persians; a soldier of Alexander the Great who fought the Persians during the siege of Tyre; Hannibal of Carthage whose brutal tactics enforced loyalty among his troops and power over his enemies; a Roman Legionnaire under Julius Caesar who served in Gaul (present-day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine); the Roman Soldier who pierced Jesus’ heart with a spear; an English knight during the Hundred Years War; and a Marshal of France under Napoleon.[1]

An article at History.com offers this fascinating observation:

Before the 1943 invasion of Sicily, British General Harold Alexander told Patton, “You know, George, you would have made a great marshal for Napoleon if you had lived in the 19th century.” Patton replied, “But I did.” The general believed that after he died he would return to once again lead armies into battle.[2]

Well. Ok then.

Most of us likely find this idea either shocking or irritating or amusing or concerning, this notion of pre-existence, when it is applied to a human being. We can handle our friends’ quirks, but, honestly, what do we do with a friend who suggests he personally served under Napoleon?

And yet, all of this pales in comparison to something Jesus said once, something so shocking and, indeed, so offensive to His audience that they attempted to kill Him upon hearing it. It is found in John 8. Listen to this:

^56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” ⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” ⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

I would like to suggest to you that what Jesus is saying here is infinitely more shocking and more surprising than what Patton said. And what Jesus says here holds the key to the significance of the Christmas season.

Jesus’ words mean that Christmas is the time of His becoming flesh, not the time of His beginning to exist.

Jesus is being challenged by the Jews in John 8, and, in the midst of their confrontation with Him, they assert that they are children of Abraham. This is their national/cultural/spiritual pedigree. They are asserting that they are bona fide, the chosen people, unlike, they argue, Jesus, with whom they believe something is very wrong! In response to this appeal to Abraham, Jesus says:

⁵⁶ “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

Verse 56 is crucially important. Jesus speaks here of “my day.” There are three realities about “Jesus’ day” established here:

• Jesus’ day was foretold and known by Abraham.
• Abraham did, in fact, see Jesus’ day.
• Abraham was glad that Jesus’ day arrived.

We must understand how utterly surprising this is! If you were talking to a friend about George Washington and your friend said, “Yeah, George was really looking forward to my birth and, when I showed up on the scene, he was super excited!” you would gawk at your friend in stunned silence and then ask if they were ok.

Abraham lived some 2,000 years before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Abraham was the great patriarch of Israel. Abraham was a revered but ancient figure in whom the Jews took great pride. So, for Jesus to say “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” was for Jesus to say something truly stupefying! Their response reveals their flabbergasted state.

⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

Keener points out interestingly that the allusion to “not yet fifty years old” may have carried with it an additional barb: “Many in the Greek world considered fifty an ideal age for ruling; many Jewish offices also required a person to be at least fifty years of age, though there were exceptions.”[3] In other words, the Jews are not only establishing Jesus’ relative youth as a rebuttal to His shocking claim, they are also adding, as an aside, that in their culture He is not even considered significant enough to hold a number of positions of leadership! So, Jesus’ challengers are flummoxed by all of this. But then Jesus throws fuel on the fire.

⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

“Before Abraham was, I am.” My goodness! He could not make it plainer: Christmas is the time of Jesus taking on flesh, not the time of Jesus beginning to exist. Jesus did not “begin to be” on Christmas. He always was! But Christmas is when He “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

This is crucial to the Christian faith, the pre-existence of Jesus. Yet, there have been serious challenges to it throughout Christian history.

In the 4^th century, the Christian church was profoundly threatened by the teachings of a man named Arius. Arius’ basic point was this: Jesus was not pre-existent. He was created. He was special, to be sure, but certainly not God! Arius even wrote hymns promulgating his ideas, one of which is called “Thalia.” It reads, in part:

…And so God Himself, as he really is, is inexpressible to all.
He alone has no equal, no one similar, and no one of the same glory.
We call him unbegotten, in contrast to him who by nature is begotten.
We praise him as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning.
We worship him as timeless, in contrast to him who in time has come to exist.

He who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of created things.
He produced him as a son for himself by begetting him.
He [the son] has none of the distinct characteristics of God’s own being
For he is not equal to, nor is he of the same being as him.[4]

These songs were written to popularize Arius’ heretical view of Jesus. “The Early Church” blog notes in a post entitled, “Be careful what you sing… Arian music and the battle for the masses,” “As the men and women of ancient Alexandria sung their Arian hymns as they went about their day, they taught themselves, and others, the message that Arius was so keen to spread.”[5] This became so popular that, as Justin Holcomb notes, “Sudden chaos overtook Alexandria in 318. A riot broke out and people streamed into the street chanting, ‘There was a time when Christ was not!’”[6] That was Arius’ infamous heretical claim: “There was a time when Christ was not!”

To which we would respond with orthodox Christians, “No there was not!” Jesus spoke with shocking ease of his pre-existence.

⁵⁶ “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” ⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Jesus has always been, for Jesus is God!

Jesus’ words mean that Christmas is the time of His becoming flesh, not the time of His becoming. Arius was wrong and will always be wrong. There was never a time when Christ was not!

Jesus’ words mean that Christmas is the time of joyful fulfillment, not the time of shocking unawareness.

Jesus’ words also mean that Christmas, while certainly surprising, was foreknown to some degree by the people of God and anticipated.

⁵⁶ “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

How could Abraham and others look forward to the coming of Jesus when they did not know His name? In what sense could Abraham rejoice that “he would see my day.” That is language of anticipation, of looking forward to something. But how?

We find the answer in Genesis 17 and in other texts where God’s covenant with Abraham was articulated.

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, ² that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ⁴ “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. ⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

This promise, this covenant, was bigger than Abraham or his life span. God promised:

• That Abraham would be the father of many nations.
• That he would be “exceedingly fruitful.”
• That kings would come from him.
• That Abraham would be given a land “for an everlasting possession.”
• That God “will be their God.”

All of this is powerful and awe-inspiring, yet not all of this was fulfilled or could have been fulfilled in Abraham’s own day. It was a present covenant but also a future covenant. That means that Abraham, by faith, was looking forward to the fulfillment of all these covenant promises at a future time. And that means He was looking forward to the coming of kings and of a King. That means that Abraham, by faith, was anticipating the day when these things would come to be. So when Jesus says that Abraham rejoiced to say “my day” He means that Abraham finally saw, in Jesus, the fulfillment of all these promises made to Him earlier by God. And, in heaven, Abraham was finally able to put a name to his own anticipation, and that name was Jesus!

Want to know who loved that first Christmas? Abraham did! For, in Jesus, the King had come and the doors were opened to the nations for all to come into the Kingdom. So Abraham, Jesus tells us, “rejoiced.” Herman Ridderbos observes that “[t]he word translated ‘rejoice’ is often used in a religious sense for joy in God, especially for eschatological salvation.”[7] Indeed! And Jesus was bringing that salvation!

Jesus’ words mean that Christmas is the time of joyful fulfillment, not the time of shocking unawareness. This was foretold, and the people of God were looking forward to it, even though they did not know the name Jesus before He came.

Jesus’ words mean that Christmas is the time of unique divine visitation, not the time of unlikely human ascendancy.

Jesus’s most stunning statement is in verse 58, and it elicited a violent reaction.

⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” ⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

To get at why these words were so particularly upsetting to the Jews, we must remember Moses’ conversation with God from Exodus 3. God had called Moses to go to Egypt and set His people free.

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

God—YHWH, the God of Israel, the creator of all—refers to Himself as “I am.” So when Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am,” He was saying much more than we might realize at first. He was identifying Himself with YHWH, with God! And this was seen as an indescribable blasphemy, so they tried to kill Him!

N.T. Wright comments on Jesus’ words in this way:

Jesus is so conscious of the father with him, working in him, speaking through him, that he can speak, in a kind of ecstasy of union, in the name of the father. “I Am”: one of the central meanings of YHWH, the secret and holy of God. Jesus has seen himself so identified with the father that he can use the Name as a way of referring to himself and his mission. “Before Abraham existed, “I Am.”[8]

What this means—Jesus referring to Himself with the language of “I Am,” is that in Jesus we do not see merely a great man rising to the occasion, ascending to the status of a hero. We truly see a unique divine visitation. In Jesus, God had come to earth!

Some have suggested that Jesus’ use of “I am” in verse 58 may only mean that Jesus was claiming to be on mission from God or to be a divine “agent,” but Craig Keener is right when he says of verse 59, “It appears from 8:59 that Jesus’ opponents understand his potential implication…”[9] In other words, that they wanted to kill Jesus for saying this shows that they got the point. Jesus is claiming something that they considered outright blasphemy. He is claiming to be God with us!

They understood the implications of these words, Keener writes. And they wanted to kill Him.

Others understood the implications of these words and wanted to worship Him.

Do you understand the implications of these words? Do you understand what it means for Jesus to say that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’ day? Do you understand what it means for Jesus to call Himself the “I Am”? Do you get that? Do you get that Christmas is not simply a time for whimsy and marvel and vacation and feasting but rather is a time of gobsmacked amazement that the God who made this world would step into it in the person of His Son in order to save us from ourselves?

Jesus’ enemies tried to kill Him over this.

Abraham rejoiced over this.

What are you going to do with this? What are you going to do with this Jesus who has come and is coming again?

 

[1] https://blog.togetherweserved.com/2023/07/13/the-reincarnations-of-general-patton/

[2] https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-george-patton

[3] Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John. Volume One (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), p.769.

[4] https://www.fourthcentury.com/arius-thalia-intro/

[5] https://edcreedy.com/2020/12/11/be-careful-what-you-sing-arian-music-and-the-battle-for-the-masses/

[6] https://credomag.com/2020/08/arianism-its-teaching-and-rebuttal/

[7] Ridderbos, Herman N. The Gospel according to John. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), p.320.

[8] Wright, Tom. John for Everyone. Part One (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), p.131.

[9] Henrickson, The Gospel of John, p.770–771.