This is the second half of my previous response (from Post #33).
Lastly, I think you are missing the point in John 8. You cite John 8:41, but just one verse prior (John 8:40), Jesus states,
“But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth I heard from God; this Abraham did not do” (John 8:40)
Pay particular attention to the language. Jesus states that, unlike the Jews of Jesus’ day,
Abraham did not try to kill Him. But there remains a question: At what point in time would Abraham even had seen Jesus to have the opportunity to do so? The immediate context, and the overall context of John’s gospel sheds quite a bit of light. In the immediate context, we find the answer in John 8:58-59,
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I am.”
In John 8:58, Jesus expresses an existence of a different order than that of Abraham by contrasting between Abraham, who “came into being” (genesthai), and He, who simply is (ego eimi). As I have expressed elsewhere on various forums,
By itself, ego eimi does not imply eternal pre-existence; however, when placed alongside genesthai and referring to a time anterior to that indicated by genesthai (“came into being”), ego eimi or its related forms (because it denotes simple existence and is a durative form of the verb “to be”) stands in sharp contrast to the aorist genesthai which speaks of “coming into being.” It is this sharp contrast between being and becoming which makes it clear that in a text like John 8:58 that ego eimi implies eternality, not merely temporal priority. Jesus’ words closely echoes Psalm 90:2, which speaks of the eternal being of God in contrast to those things that “came into being” — “Before the mountains came into being (genethenai) and the earth and world were formed, even from age to age, You are (su ei, second-person equivalent of ego eimi),” Psalm 90:2 (see LXX).
Further, in case you didn’t catch it the first time (and as expressed in my previous post), what is so ironic about the
ego eimi statement of Jesus in John 8:58, is that it occurs in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:1-10:21). The Feast of Tabernacles is the very occasion the Song of Moses was to be recited (Deut. 31:21-32:43), and it is here that we read (according to the LXX),
Behold, behold that I am (ἐγώ εἰμι),
And there is no god besides Me.
I kill, and I will make alive;
I will smite, and I will heal;
And there is no one who shall deliver out of My hand. (Deut. 32:39 LXX)
Additionally, in further answering the quesion, “At what point in time would Abraham even had seen Jesus to have the opportunity to do so?”, the overall context of John’s gospel provides us with more details.
The prologue of John’s gospel speaks of the Word existing “with” God. The term used here for “with” is the Greek word πρὸς (pros), which, when followed by a noun in the accusative case, speaks of face-to-face communion, interaction. One does not need to leave the first chapter of John to find examples in which πρὸς signifies a person near or moving towards another person (e.g., 1:29, 42, 47). Of course, this comports well with John 17:5, where Jesus speaks of His pre-existence with the Father. This πρὸς τὸν θεὸν (John 1:1b) language or some slight variation thereof, is used throughout the Testaments — some (17) occurrences of the phrase found within the NT, according to NA28 (Jn. 1:1, 2, 13:3; 1 Jn 3:21; Rev. 12:5, 13:6; Acts 4:24, 12:5, 24:16; Romans 5:1, 10:1, 15:30; 2 Cor. 3:4, 13:7; Phillippians 4:6; 1 Thess. 1:8, 9) — and another 20+ examples in the Genesis and Exodus accounts of the Greek OT/LXX (Gen. 17:18, 18:27, 18:31, 20:17, 24:49, 24:54, 24:46; Exodus 2:23, 3:11, 3:13, 8:25, 8:26, 9:29, 10:18, 18:19, 19:8, 19:21, 19:23, 19:24, 24:1, 24:2, 32:30). Also, similar phraseology (πρὸς τὸν πατέρα) is found in John 5:45; 14:6, 12, 28; 16:10, 17, 28; 20:17; 1 John 1:2. In each of these occurrences (aside from the occurrences where the neuter article τὰ is present), they explicitly refer to distinct individuals in some form of communication with one another.
Later in the prologue (John 1:18) we are met with an admittedly curious phrase, “No one has ever seen God.” Yet, throughout Scripture men are said to have seen God, even “face-to-face.” For instance, Genesis 15:1 states,
“the Word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision” (Genesis 15:1 LXX)
The language here is similar to what’s found in John 1:1b — ῥῆμα Κυρίου πρὸς Ἀβρὰμ — but instead of “the Word” being “with God”; it is “the Word of the LORD” that came to (or was “with”) Abram. Hence, Abram had a visionary experience where he saw the Word, and addressed Him as none other than YHWH (Genesis 15:2; also see Jeremiah 1). Abraham was not experiencing some mental disorder (i.e., psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder); he was not interacting with voices he heard in his head, but was interacting with someone other than himself.
In John 1:18 we are met with an OT allusion to 1 Samuel 3. In the account of 1 Samuel 3, we read,
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the Word of the Lord yet been revealed to him. So the Lord called Samuel again for the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ Then Eli discerned that the Lord was calling the boy… And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, because the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the Word of the Lord. (1 Samuel 3:7-9, 21)
Everyone who has ever seen YHWH, has in fact seen the “one and only God” through or by means of the Word; for He is the one who exposits God to men (ἐξηγέομαι) — He who is “the image of the invisible God.” Similarly, the prologue of John refers to Jesus as “the Word,” and attributes to Jesus actions performed by the mysterious “the Word of the LORD” figure in the OT. It is because Jesus (as the Word) is, as to His nature, God; He is then thereby qualified to perfectly reveal/exegete the Father (cf. John 12:45, 14:9), as He is the exact reflection of God's very being.
To further illustrate that “the Word” in John 1:1 is personal, John 1:3a uses the
δια + the genitive construct,
πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο
All things came into being through Him
The significance of this is brought out on pg. 373 of Daniel Wallace’s,
Greek Grammar beyond the Basics,
An intermediate agent, usually expressed by δια + the genitive, is an agent who acts on behalf of another or in the place of another. This agent is not, strictly speaking, used by another as an instrument would be” (Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 373)
This sort of construct (
δια + the genitive) is typically used to express or denote agency. Hence, in John 1:7, 1:10, 3:17 — it is used to express real,
personal agency.
