The “I Am” Statements of Jesus
One of my favorite books in the Bible is the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel is a complex set of lengthy discourses, narratives, miracles and sayings, many of which are found only in his Gospel. Bible scholars have noted that of the four Gospels, John’s contains the most unique content. Up to 90 percent of John’s Gospel is not found in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.
John’s Gospel is also where we find Jesus, the Word of God, prolifically revealing Himself through words, namely the “I Am” statements. There are two things to note about the “I Am” statements. First, whenever Jesus says, “I Am,” He is explicitly linking Himself to God’s first self-revelation to Moses in the burning bush in the wilderness, where God refers to Himself with the title, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:1-15). In Hebrew, these words, called the Tetragrammaton, are transliterated to YHWH or Yahweh (or Jehovah in older translations). In other words, when Jesus says, “I Am,” He asserts His one-ness with YHWH. Second, John records seven “I Am” statements in his Gospel, plus one incredibly explicit “I Am” statement such that the Jewish authorities attempt to stone Jesus for blasphemy.
The theological significance of the number of “I Am” statements, seven plus one, was not lost on John’s highly educated and sophisticated Jewish audience. As you might recall, the Old Testament is filled with the significance of seven and one (e.g.: seven days in the week, One God, etc.). Thus, in John’s Gospel, we see a highly sophisticated theological biography of our Lord, such that the more we read it, the more gems and precious stones we glean that transform our souls and bodies.
I hope to spend time on every “I Am” statement so that we can be transformed by the words of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14). In the meantime, I leave you with this thought. It is quite common for many of us to have heard someone say, “I like the God of the New Testament. He seems loving and compassionate, but the God of the Old Testament seems angry and judgmental!” Have you heard that before?
However, Jesus, in John’s Gospel, reveals Himself as One with the same God of the Old Testament. The Bible is not the story of two gods, but rather of one God—the same God in both the Old and the New Testament! So, as we learn more about Jesus from John’s Gospel, I hope that it transforms our knowledge of the whole Bible, such that we grow to love, worship and obey the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, revealed in this Word.
