John 8:53-59 AS IF THERE WERE ANY DOUBT—JESUS IS GOD!

“Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by” (John 8:53-59).

“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am . . .”

Now my test says, “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am . . .”

Now, you think about that—the word rendered ‘was’ in that phrase there, and the word ‘am’ are quite different, to say the least. The one clause means that Abraham was brought into being. Yeah, if you understand the words there in the clause, it says ‘Abraham was.’ And so, therefore, he was brought into being. The other clause signifies, ‘I exist.’ ‘I exist.’ The statement, therefore, is not that Christ came into existence before Abraham did, but that He never came into being at all, but existed before Abraham had a being. In other words, existed before Creation or eternally.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2).

Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am . . .” Before Abraham was born, I had a glorious existence with the Father, and am still invariably the same and one with Him. Our Lord here, in the strongest terms, asserts His proper divinity, declaring Himself to be—what John more largely expresses and as we see in the Book of Revelation . . .

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8).

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14).

You would think that when the Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘I am,’ it would ring some bells. If you remember when he was betrayed by Judas with that kiss—if you remember—when those people were going to try to take Him, and when they ask Him if He is Jesus He said, ‘I am,’ it says that they all fell back. Now you know it is God’s plan, because if somebody said that and I am boosted about twenty feet back—I’d think twice about putting cuffs on him. I’m going to tell that is just the way it is. So, you see God in that entire plan in the garden because the fulfillment had to be taken place.

“And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1:12).

Talking about the Lord, talking about gathering all the stars in the sky and folding them up. What an amazing thing—thinking about our Creator, and to bring it down to Abraham. Abraham is the great father for Israel—for the Jewish people—and in his Seed the entire world is going to be blessed. And that Seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. And here, Jesus Christ is present in front of them. And they questioned Him. Who did? The religious people.

Common people, a lot of them simpletons, they’d follow whatever other people say, but mainly it was the common people that ‘received Him gladly.’ And He noticed that. And not only that, He also noticed that a whole lot of Gentiles were receiving Him, instead of Israel. And thank God that we got in.

Now John had reasons for saying that “word was with God, and the word was God . . . and the word was made flesh,” if Jesus in His divine consciousness had never elsewhere spoken of having had a being before His manifestation, of having taken part with His Father from the beginning of being one with the Father, of being greater than the Temple, or the Sabbath as being the object of the eternal love in coming down from heaven, in laying down His life that He might take it again. And if the language of the Apostles had not entirely prepared our mind for the data on which such conclusions rested, a generation before this Gospel was reduced to form. We might join the effort to resist such a claim as that of eternal preexistence—in other words, believing in God.

But the whole tenor of the Gospel and the entire New Testament teaching are seen more and more to turn upon this fundamental position and this is it . . . that in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead . . .”, that He had life in Himself and in eternity. And that the manhood has not only been lifted to the highest place in human remembrance, but to the midst of the throne.

“Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17-18).

These are the words from the Lord Jesus Christ. We are talking about a greater than Abraham is here. Now they didn’t get it. Most of you, I’m looking around here—you’re born again, you’re saved, you know the Lord Jesus Christ—so this is no new news to you. But the world still approaches Christ the exact same way. He is not preexistent, He is just a human, Jehovah’s Witness believe that He is just ‘the first of creation,’ and on and on and on they do this thing. But you and I know better. And we take the words of God literally. Unless He tells you to take it any other way, we take it words of God literally—black and white—what they say is what they mean. And it’s important to understand that.

Now, God took upon Himself flesh. We know that from John 1:1 . . .

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” not ‘a’ god . . . ‘a’ god is not even in the Greek. I always want to say, ‘those stupid people’ but I’m not supposed to say that from the pulpit—those ‘stupid Jehovah’s false witnesses.’ But anyway, He was God! He is God! That’s what the Bible says, and in verse 2 it says, “The same was in the beginning with God,” and verse 3 says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” And to cap it off, over in verse 14 it says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” I mean, God took upon Himself flesh!

Now, Jesus was with the Father . . . In John 6:46 we read, “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” And in verse 62 is says, “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” Wow! That’s a question for them to answer, because they are already saying that He is blasphemous. They are already saying that He has a devil. They are already saying ‘blah, blah, blah.’

What they are saying is that they do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. They do not believe that He is the Son of God. And He keeps reaffirming it to them. ‘What if you see Me go up?’ Now guess Who is going to go up? His ministry was only three and a half years. He goes to the garden, He is crucified, before that He is scourged. Everybody’s looking at Him, the pharisees are clapping and saying, ‘See, He’s just a man!’ And in three days and three nights—BOOM! –Up from the ground He arose. And the Bible specifically tells you in Corinthians that it was before 500 witnesses also that are alive unto this day (when Corinthians was written) meaning everybody, everybody that was alive that day can concur. He stayed around how many days? Forty days, doing infallible proofs.

You don’t think the news didn’t get out? Even though the propaganda machine at work, all the fake news was going on. It’s not really Him, He merely swooned, somebody kidnapped Him, somebody captured Him. I mean, He did infallible proofs. He wanted everybody to know. Nope! That’s Me! I mean, that’s an incredible thing. It would hold up in any court. Naturally the Devil and the skeptics and everything today try to refute it and they still can’t. They still can’t find the body. And the Book is still here. And God is still saving souls, and still delivering souls, and He is still building His church. Why? Because the gates of hell is not going to prevail against it.

You can put it down, when God puts His seal on something, it works—it happens.

And so we see that Jesus was with the Father. And also . . .

“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

Uh hum, before the world was!

“But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).

In other words, the Father is working. I am working.

Remember Philip was with the Lord and said, “Man, You are all the time saying that You are doing the will of the Father. Everything You do is to please the Father. Show us the Father.” And what did Jesus say, “If you see Me, you see the Father.” Wow! I love that verse. What a thing that opens up to you and me, thinking about our prayer life, thinking about where Jesus is—sitting on the right hand of the Father—knowing that we are in the Son, knowing that when we pray to God the Father, He sees the Son there because that is who we are. That’s an amazing thing to me.

“I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

“The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33).

See, they got it. They got what He was saying. People today are reading the Scriptures and saying, ‘that’s not what it says.’ Those religious leaders got it! That’s why they wanted to stone Him because He is actually saying that He is God.

I think of that phrase, ‘I am!’ When we read that there in John 8:56-59, have you ever wondered what God’s name says about Him? If not, then you should, because His name says quite a lot about Him. In fact, you take another look at our verses today to see just how seriously the Jews took God’s name. When Jesus used it about Himself, the Jews picked up stones to kill Him. Flying into a religious, jealous rage. How dare Him be so blasphemous, because they believed in their heart that that was a divine name—that’s God’s name! How dare You claim that!

See, God’s name ‘I AM’ is important, but not just that we are passionate about His name being treated properly. What’s much more important about God’s name is that we understand what He reveals about Himself it it.

His name shows that He exists. Duh! It really settles that whole issue altogether—He is! Period. And there is nothing that anybody can do about it.

You cannot make God not exist. You can’t make Him go away! Why? HE IS! He’s not going away. And you in your little stinking mind you think you can get rid of Him, you think you can compartmentalize Him, you can do what you want—but you ain’t getting rid of Him. He’s in there. He’s in everything. There is no doorway that He cannot go through. No little locked room that we put in there. He’s there. He exists. You are sucking His air. What an amazing thing. He exists.

He’s self-contained. He isn’t dependent or indebted to anyone.

No one created Him so that He should answer to them. No one has given Him anything that He hasn’t first given to them, that He would owe anything to anybody. He has no need, in fact, He has everything that we need. I don’t know if you came across that with David and Solomon in the Temple. It’s amazing. It’s like, you are praying to God would give you something to help the work of God, help missions, and you are asking God to bless you. And you don’t know how, maybe you can see it coming, or whatever. So, you are trusting God to provide something for you, and you ask Him for it.

I’m thinking about David in the Old Testament. He so badly wanted to build God a house. And he’s praying and asking God, he’s telling Him what he wants to do. He’s going to get this much money from these tribes and they are going to do all the stuff.

And then it is like he pauses—and if you look at it—he says, “but I can’t get anything without You giving it to me first.”

What a conundrum, when you think about it. Here you are trying to show God how you love Him with your efforts. You want to give Him all this stuff—but on the other hand you are saying—but I can’t give it to You unless You gave it to me first.

Does that mean you stop praying? No. That means you start to understand Who God is and your heart gets to that place where you know He is going to provide for you, so you can provide for Him and His work. Why? He gets the glory. Not your physical hands and your great mind. He’s got to get the glory. And that’s how He gets it. David understood that, we just got to pick up on that. And He’s self-contained, what are you going to give Him?

These people that are working their way unto salvation, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

What kind of work can you do greater than the cross? There is no other way. He did the work—we do the believing. That’s the way it is. Anybody that adds to that—that is blasphemy. That’s what’s heresy. How in the world can you add to the cross? ‘Well, I’ll just do good and keep the commandments.’ NO YOU WON’T! You can’t keep the commandments. Just when you said that you were going to keep the commandments—you lied. And if you break one, you break them all, DUMMY!

Think about that. What can you add to Calvary? Nothing. NOT A THING!

You can’t add anything to God. You can glorify Him and make Him greater than anybody else around. You can do that, right? Because if there is only one God—that’s Him. The greater all of us are, which is a big zero with the ring rubbed out, right? But if we get behind the One, the One gets greater—in the minds of people. It doesn’t make Him greater than what He is already, but with people with whom we come into association with—by our witness—we are adding them zeros to that One. We are making our God greater amongst the people that we know. That’s what we are supposed to do—that’s our witness. He’s self-contained. He exists.

He doesn’t change. You know a lot of things change in our world, but God never does.

His love doesn’t waver when we do things we shouldn’t. His commitment to us doesn’t change depending on His mood.

He simply is Who He is, and He never changes. I mean, He may not find us faithful all the time, but He remains faithful. Right? I hope you know them verses.

He isn’t going anywhere. What’s good about that? Well, it means that we can trust Him.

Listen, don’t trust your stocks, your bank account, your job, your looks or your popularity. All of those things can go away over night, but nothing is going to move God.

His Name proves His sacrificial love.

Jesus shows us this when He says, ‘Hey, Guess what! (I’m paraphrasing) You know that God that you claim to serve? Well, I’m Him.’ That’s what He is saying to the Jews, right? ‘You know, the God you say you are serving? The God of Abraham? I’m Him!’

He said, “I AM the I AM!”

And what Jesus showed us about the I AM is that He is a God Who sacrificed His very life so that we could live. I mean, you can’t find bigger love than that! And you think about every day why we won’t call on His Name—even sometimes during the invitation in the church service. If you are already saved, good! During the day, during the week, how many times do you call on His name—give Him thanks for what He is doing in your life? How many times your knee goes down? Why? That’s humility, before a righteous and a holy God. And you are saying, “God—my goodness—I remember when I said Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. But Lord Jesus, in this flesh I ask You every day to be merciful—please be merciful to me—today!”

He’s a gracious, loving God—but you need to expect that mercy! You get mercy when you humble yourself. And not until. Think about that.

When a minister finished speaking at a medical school, a young cynic came forward to say, “I have just digested a cadaver, but in no place did I find a soul. How can you tell people a soul exists?” “Well,” the minister asked, “When you opened the brain, did you find a thought? When you opened the heart, did you find love? When you dissected the eyes, did you find vision?” The obvious answer was ‘no!’ and the young doctor got the point.

People run around and say there is not electricity. Stupid! Put your finger in the socket. Wet it first. I mean, you know? ‘Well, if God is God, can he create a rock big enough that He can not lift?’ Wow! That’s a good question! No, it ain’t. It’s stupid! It is so stupid. ‘Well, if He is a God, why did He let men put Him on the cross?’ What would you call Him if He wiped out everybody? A bully? He wanted to prove a point about how He loved us. He already knew He could take care of everybody.

If you remember, there was a multitude of angels that were ready to come down and fight for Him if He wanted them. But that wasn’t His time yet, remember He told Pilate. Now when He does come back, He’s coming back with them at the Second Advent. Amen. But us to ever argue with people over some of this stupid stuff, know this, they must be saved. They get the Holy Ghost and then they can discern what truth is. Right now they are blinded by the god of this world.

You got tribulation? Christ had tribulation.
You got troubles in this world? He had troubles in this world.

Did Christ come to save everybody? He sure did. Will everyone get saved? Nope. Why? Because it is up to them to believe. Not everyone is going to believe. But the sacrifice was for everyone.

And here He is coming before a religious group that claims to know the Great I AM, that knows the Pentateuch, those five great books of the Bible, knows about Moses, their main prophet is Isaias. Jesus Christ quoted Isaias, I think, more than any prophet in the Scriptures, in the Gospels. He put the Bible right back to them. And here, they watched the personification of the Word of God in front of them. The very Word of God in front of them—and they rejected Him.

And here today we have the WRITTEN WORD of God, and we are saved and have the Holy Spirit of God. And Peter said he had a ‘more sure word of prophecy,’ meaning the Scriptures. He said he touched, he talked to the Lord, he had emotional contact with the Lord, but now he says we have a ‘more sure word of prophecy,’

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (I Peter 1:23).

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

So, here we are, saved people, watching multitudes of people out there disrespecting doctrine—couldn’t tell you if they had the real Word of God or not—but they can say that they have the thoughts. But see, there are perception is their thoughts. They don’t have the Word of God on it. And here we have little Bible-believing flocks being designated as cultic because they raise this ‘paper pope’ up instead of a physical one.

Well, I’ll stick with this Book! But the other part of the formula is the witnessing. If we got the Book, and the truth, then we better get the mouth in operation. And we get the tracts out and we tell people about Who we know. Who do we know? The Great I AM. We know Who He is! I’m telling you. And He is greater than Abraham. You got to be saved!

Now we know that the first prayer of Jesus was recorded in Matthew 11, and it sounds sort of strange. Yet when you consider it carefully, it is a fantastic prayer . . .

“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:25-30).

So, we look at that and we see, hmm? We see why Christianity is available to every man. Our religion is based on faith, and not intellectualism. We can never know God through our minds only. We must see Him with our hearts and our souls. Because of this, even those that have weak minds can know and love Christ, as well as the very brilliant.

Now, we too, should thank God because we can know Him through faith—rather than through intellectualism. It has been wisely said, “He who has a testimony is never at the mercy of ‘who has an argument.’”

We can know ‘about’ Christ with our mind, but to ‘know’ Christ requires the leap of faith in our hearts. What does that mean? No matter what intellectuals are out there, or skeptics are out there, you can look them right in the face and say, ‘I was once blind, but now I see. I was once lost, but now I’m found.’ They can ramble on all they want, because, why? Because you know.

You may not be able to answer all the questions and dot the ‘I’s’ and cross the ‘T’s’ but you know personally that He is your Saviour.

You don’t have to be a brilliant person and try to debate everybody out there on that issue, but you ‘know!’ and if you know, nobody can take that from you. And that thing will carry you all the way to heaven. Because after all, we are signed—sealed—and delivered. I mean, what a blessing that is.

You need to take heed to that and think about that today of what you have everybody out there don’t have. And it is a gift. And Christ is offering it. And we are ambassadors for Christ. The Bible says that’s our ministry. So, nobody gets away with saying, ‘I’m not a preacher,’ ‘I’m not a this . . . or that.’

We are all preachers. Proclaiming the truth is our business. The Gospel is our business. To everybody that we come in contact with.

I just hope that everybody we come in contact with is not at that White Throne Judgment pointing their finger at us for not delivering the goods. Go to a restaurant, what’s wrong with telling somebody, ‘Yea, I’ll pray for you. Got any problems? I’ll pray for you now.’ Pray for your food. What’s wrong with leaving a tract with a good tip. If you’re not a tipper, don’t leave no tract—I’m serious. You represent the Lord.

And you’re gonna run across all these religious people out there non-stop. Their job is to get people from other churches that have already been evangelized and saved—and get them into theirs. They don’t go out and lead anybody to the Lord and they try to get them to their churches, so they can somehow get this ‘other’ blessing. And that ain’t Bible, that ain’t in the Bible. The death, burial and resurrection is the Full Gospel. Once you get a hold of that, because that is how you got saved, you surely don’t want to push for something else. That is the Full Gospel.

So, today, remember that a ‘greater than Abraham’ is here. He is up in glory sitting on the right hand of the Father, making intercession for His church. We are here, we are His church. We need to learn to sit on the lap, next to your Father, Jesus. You need to ask Him for some fruit.

Other studies available on the site . . .

BE NOT WEARY IN WELL DOING
THE FIVE MAJOR OFFERINGS OF LEVITICUS
THE BIBLE GUIDE TO VICTORY OVER THE FLESH
WHO IS ENOCH AND WHAT DOES HE MEAN TO ME?
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF REVELATION 2-3
HAVE YOU HAD A PURGATORY?
SHOW THEM THE CROSS!
WHO IS THIS NATURAL MAN OF WHOM YOU SPEAK?
ONLY A BLOODY SACRIFICE WILL DO . . .
HOW DOES A CHRISTIAN BECOME CLEAN AND STAY CLEAN?
HOW DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT KEEP US CLEAN
ROMANS 5:6-12 THE FATHER'S LOVE FOR UNGODLY SINNERS
Ephesians 1_12-14 BIRTHPANGS OF A CHRISTIAN
Ephesians 2:5-10 WE HAVE FOUND FAVOR WITH GOD
JOHN 14:6--ONE WAY OR MANY WAYS
REVELATION 4-7 ONE RAPTURE OR TWO RAPTURES
I John 2:12-14 ABIDING IN THE TRUTH
Romans 3:19-28, 7:21-25 SIX LAWS IN ROMANS [FLESH VS. SPIRIT]
I Corinthians 6_19, 20 YE ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE
A BIBLICAL EXAMINATION OF CALVINISM
I Peter 4:5 SHEEP--SACRIFICE--SON
STEPHEN'S TIME TO SHINE - Acts 6-8
ROMANS 9 IN CONTEXT
Matthew 11:28-30 COME UNTO ME-TAKE MY YOKE
A LAMP IN THE DARK - How We Got Our Bible
Mark 5:1-20 IN HIS RIGHT MIND
EIGHTEEN QUESTIONS ON ASSURANCE
Matthew 14:22-33 WHO IS IN THE STORM WITH YOU?
What You Should Know About the Prosperity Gospel
John 10:11-15 GOD CAN ONLY LEAD THE WILLING

If everyone did this we would have a lot less denominations around.

This is fundamental stuff! Best way to arrive at truth!

By the way I've always found it fascinating how today the situation is exactly the similar as it was back then. "the COMMON PEOPLE" heard Jesus gladly.
Just like today, the people that have rotted their brains with PhDs ThDs and all kinds of education are majority atheists.
There are some really genius Christians out there with lots of education though, dont get me wrong. But it still rings true today: The common people are much easier to reach

If everyone used the King James Bible, we wold not have heretics like Joel Osteen, or the Purpose Driven Life of Rick Warren and most of the TV ministers. Right now they have the freedom to use as many versions of the Bible as they wish in order to say force the Bible to say whatever they want it to say-- whether it is biblical or not. They don't care -- it's all about the money. But when people have ONE Bible they can't manipulate the verses. Although, many essentially are doing the same thing with the secret code of Hebrew and Greek. Languages can be used to define a word with as many definitions that word happens to have.

What guiles me is how many churches 'claim' to believe the KJB but, in fact, are dependent upon the Alexandrian versions in order to 'correct' the KJB. Again, even though they say 'We are KJB on their church sign.'

Those are the vile ones.

Just as there are a lot of rich men that use their wealth toward the furtherance of the Gospel.

At least we agree on these scriptures. And, it's good to hear the King James Version--
Powerful verses--
It may not be a coincidence that today, but was sensing the power of God in answer to a prayer for a friend, and also found myself face down on the floor, on my knees. I happened to be rinsing my hair of gray color, and remembered the verse--

"Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
but let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." (Matthew 5:33; KJV).

While I didn't wind up face down on the floor or on the mountain like Peter, James and John, the Lord helped me to get there, where I needed to be--

There are so many enemies of the cross on this site that it is difficult to know which is which at times.

There are certain starting points where when you have that part right, the rest just falls into place--and the Deity of Jesus Christ is one of them. I'm amazed not only that there are so many that deny this -- but that they are even still here posting at all!

No, but hair dye can . . .

well, you can only hold off the gray for a few years-- and God was right-- it just turns gray again after awhile

BaptistBibleBeliever, you have definitely done your homework. However, it is a marvellous sermon to the choir. Most people here already believe what you stated. The nonbelievers aren’t ignorant to the content of the Bible, they question the validity of the Book. It’s like the Latterday Saints quoting the Book of Mormon. Because we don’t believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, we don’t care what his book claims. To them, they are right and we are destined for hell. With those who oppose the validity of scripture, we are no different, just foolish zealots preaching fairy tails. Our ability to convince the masses has to start with speaking their language. Christ taught with parables. He used farming terminology because...they were farmers. If you want to dethrone their gods of acedemia, then you need to challenge them as Elijah did. Show them the ridiculousness of their claims in open forums. Know their science better than they do. Then when you kick out their wicker foundation, present yours, and build upon it the truth of science and creation. The brain has plasticity. It can be reshaped, but it needs convincing, intelligent rebuttal, void of lectures steeped in perceived superstition.