Jesus had a habit of scandalizing the moralistic types of his day. Sometimes he went out of his way to press in on their tidy interpretations of the Sabbath by healing those in need on the Sabbath (Luke 6; John 9). Other times, he associated with sinners who any truly holy man would shun (Luke 7:39). Still further, Jesus claimed prerogatives that seemed to go beyond the authority of any mere man, even a would-be messiah. Nobody could forgive sins but God alone (Mark 2:7). And who can take authority over God’s house but God himself (Luke 19:44-20:2)?

Nothing offended first-century religious sensibilities more than Jesus’s extravagant, explicit claims for himself. Jesus claimed the “Son gives life to whomever he wishes” (John 5:26), that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and “No one can know the Father except through the Son” (Matt. 11:27). Easily the most startling of these of these pronouncements was his bold claim in the face of his critics, “Before Abraham was ‘I AM’” (John 8:58), for which the crowd picked up stones to execute him.

The crowds knew that by claiming this name, Jesus identified himself with the divine name “I AM” (Yahweh, or the LORD), the covenant God of Israel, revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3). When God revealed his name to Moses, he said that the peole would know him forever by this name (Ex. 3:15). By this name they would know the one who saved them, that the commands of God would be authorized (Ex. 20:1; 18; Lev. 1:2; Num. 5:1-2). It was scandalous for Jesus to take this name because a “sinful” mortal had identified himself with the holy, perfect God of Israel. If he wasn’t right, he was blaspheming.

We know Jesus backed up his talk. When the Father raised the Son in the power of the Spirit (Rom. 1:4; 1 Tim. 3:16), he was fully vindicated in all of his claims, established as the true LORD of the world, and yes, proven to be the eternal Son of the Father. So, after a couple thousand years of church history, some councils, creeds, and confessions, the scandal of these words has somewhat dissipated.

But for many today, it seems that Jesus’s confession still scandalizes our reigning moral sensibilities.

You can read the rest of this article and learn what the new “Modern Scandal” of the I AM is at The Gospel Coalition.

Soli Deo Gloria