Peter wrote:
I’m still waiting to hear from someone why the Pharisees picked up stones to stone Jesus if it wasn’t for this kind of blasphemous self-identification in John 8:59.
Now here’s an offer I can’t refuse! I assume by this that you are taking the standard line on John 8:58, that Jesus was claiming to be the God of Exodus 3:14. This assertion is based on a kind of ‘translation theology’, which isn’t borne out in the original language.
In the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), at Exodus 3.14, Yahweh declares "
ego eimi o ohn". “I am
he that exists”. The addition of ‘
o ohn’ is needed to reflect the fact that it is the word
‘ehyeh’ here in the original Hebrew as opposed to
‘ani hu’. In John 8:58 Jesus only says "
ego eimi" (I am
he). On this basis it isn’t really fair to the text to force an unambiguous reference to Exodus 3:14.
Instead anyone could say ‘I am’ or ‘I am he’ without any allusion to a claim of divinity. Current Reebok adverts quote stars saying “I am what I am”. Another more Biblical example of this is found in John 9:9 where the man born blind says
‘ego eimi’. I am
he. None of these individuals are claiming to be the Exodus God.
So
‘ego eimi’ is neither God’s name nor an exclusively divine title.
But all this begs the question you originally raised:
‘If Jesus isn’t claiming to be God, what was he understood to have said that caused such offence?’ The answer lies in the dialogue leading up to his statement. In the verses immediately preceding John 8:45 we see is that this isn’t the first time Jesus has said ‘
ego eimi’ in this exchange. He has already said it in v.24.
(This calls into further question the widely asserted notion that the words
‘ego eimi’ were understood by Jesus’ hearers to be a claim of ‘divinity’. Instead of seizing upon this as the long awaited and much sought after grounds to accuse him, they respond by asking ‘who are you?’ (v.25). Obviously Jesus has not identified himself sufficiently by this statement for them to know what the ‘he’ referred to is.)
Reading on from v.25, the discourse moves to Abraham. "How can you claim to offer the life of the age to come?" they ask Jesus, "even Abraham himself is dead, surely you’re not claiming to be greater than him!" (v.51-53)
Next, they misunderstand Jesus’ statement in v.56 (Abraham rejoiced to see my day) by reading too much into it, because in v.57 they accuse Jesus of claiming to have seen Abraham! He never said that. Neither did he say that Abraham had seen him. Only that Abraham had rejoiced to see
his day.
Abraham, having believed the gospel preached to him by God (Gal 3.8) rejoiced in hope, looking forward to the ‘day of Christ’ in the same way we do.
It is in response to this misunderstanding that Jesus makes his statement "Before Abraham was, I am
he". Notice however that he did not say "I was before Abraham" or "before Abraham was, I was". The present tense ‘I
am’ in reference to the past (before Abraham
was) simply does not work as a stand-alone sentence.
It only makes sense if Jesus is referring back to some statement he has made previously about his present status with respect to the patriarch. I would suggest that Jesus is expanding on his statement in verse 56 by explaining how, in spite of his not being 50 years old, Abraham could still have rejoiced to see his day.
Bringing the two together what we get is: "Before Abraham was, I am
he… whose day Abraham rejoiced to see".
This is a clear identification by Jesus of himself as the seed promised to Abraham by Yahweh and through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Abraham’s greatness was based on his belief in the promise God made to him about his seed and the fact that, in so doing, he became the means through which God would bring his word to pass.
Jesus is greater than Abraham because he is the embodiment of God’s end purpose and the subject of the promise which Abraham rejoiced in. This is the staggering claim which so offended the Jews that they attempted to stone him.
In conclusion…
Though 1st Century Judaism regularly made us of poetic personification with regards to God’s attributes, they had no expectation that God himself would become a man. A heavy burden of proof therefore lies upon anyone who would suggest that the apostles preached any such revolutionary thing.
With regards to John’s gospel, I thought you would be interested in the statement below, expressed by respected scholar Colin Brown, himself a Trinitarian.
“The crux of the matter lies in how we understand the term Son of God… the title Son of God is not in itself an expression of personal Deity or the expression of metaphysical distinctions within the Godhead. Indeed, to be a ‘Son of God’ one has to be a being who is not God! It is a designation for a creature indicating a special relationship with God. In particular, it denotes God’s representative, God’s vice-regent. It is a designation of kingship, identifying the king as God’s Son… In my view the term ‘Son of God’ ultimately converges on the term ‘image of God’ which is to be understood as God’s representative, the one in whom God’s spirit dwells, and who is given stewardship and authority to act on God’s behalf… It seems to me to be a fundamental mistake to treat statements in the Fourth Gospel about the Son and his relationship with the Father as expressions of inner-Trinitarian relationships. But this kind of systematic misreading of the fourth Gospel seems to underlie much of social Trinitarian thinking… It is a common but patent misreading of the opening of John’s Gospel to read it as if it said, ‘In the beginning was the Son, and Son was with God, and the Son was God’ (John 1:1). What has happened here is the substitution of Son for Word (Gk. logos) and thereby the Son is made a member of the Godhead which existed from the beginning.”
Trinity and incarnation: towards a contemporary Orthodoxy Ex Auditu, 7, 1991, pp.87-89.
