²⁶ “… and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

“I Am,” Jesus said on multiple occasions, taking the very name of God. He intentionally applied the revered, unspeakable name of God which is rooted in Exodus 3:14-15, emphasized throughout the Mosaic Law and abundantly impressed upon Israel throughout the Old Testament. We see, especially in Isaiah 41-49, the stress on the unique monotheism of the God of the Bible, using the formula “I am.” For example, “I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He” (Isaiah 41:4, see also 43:10, 13, 48:12). “I am the Lord …” (41:13, 42:6, 43:3, etc.).

In fact, it was this section of Scripture (Isaiah 41-49) that would have been the seasonal reading in the synagogues when Jesus made His famous and controversial claim, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:48). The connection was unmistakable. The Greek words Jesus used, “ego eimi,” where the exact words from the version of the Scriptures in use at that time, what we call the Septuagint, written in Greek. That version of Isaiah 41:4, for example, uses the Greek “ego eimi” (“I am”) very clearly as a reference to God and closely associated it with “I, the Lord …” And it is used that way throughout Isaiah 41-19. Jesus’ timing of His “I am” statement was clearly meant to invoke that section of Isaiah which asserts repeatedly the uniqueness of God, one of the strongest passages in the Bible supporting monotheism, the theology that there is one and only one God, and that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel.

That is why the Jews knew full well what He was implying, and therefore tried to execute Him by stoning (vs. 59), typically the appropriate response to blasphemy. The point is that Jesus’ contemporaries knew that Jesus was claiming to be divine, that He Himself was the God of the Jews, the one, unique deity, besides which there is no other.

His point here in the Upper Room was that He revealed God as the one “who would be there for His people.” We see this throughout the Gospel of John. He said, “I am…” bread of life (6:35), the light of the world (8:12), the door of the sheep (10:7), the good shepherd (10:11), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way, the truth, the life (14:6) and the vine (15:1). Yes, Jesus is the embodiment of the God who is the “I Am,” who is there acting on our behalf in the way we need Him to be. Not a static God who just created and sits back passively, but dynamic and alive, at work in the world and in our lives.

Lord, I would be lost without Your active presence in my life. Thank You.