Now Jesus really makes the religious leaders mad. He says to them: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” ‘I AM’ was the name by which God distinguished himself from all other false gods when he spoke to Moses out of the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). By using this name God was declaring that he was the absolute divine being who always was and always will be. It was a title of exclusivity. So how can Jesus then apply this to himself? Isn’t that a contradiction given that the title itself is a claim of exclusivity? Jesus was not claiming to be another god, but the incarnation of the one and only God. He is not even a mere manifestation of God but a divine person of the Godhead. And this of course is where language breaks down. Whenever Scripture speaks of the divinity of Christ it is it spoken of in a way that preserves the mystery rather than resolving it. Paul said, “In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). John had said at the beginning of this gospel that Jesus was both with God and yet was God himself. And then again, he says that God created the world through him, and then became incarnate in the world in him. You will never understand Jesus logically. But you can connect with him relationally, and when you do you will find that you have embraced God. Jesus had said earlier, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (8:19) because as he says later in 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
Ask Jesus to reveal God to you.
Read John 8:48-59
