51 ¶ Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep
my saying, he shall never see death. 52
Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham
is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall
never taste of death. 53 Art thou
greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom
makest thou thyself? 54 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: 55 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. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day:
and he saw it, and was glad. 57 Then
said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 59
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.
Death in verse 51 is clearly not a reference to physical
death. Christ is not promising immortality of your existing body. We know this
is true, not just from the context, but also from the use of the word, “death,”
at other times. For instance, in its very first use the idea of death does not
refer to the immediate cessation of bodily functions. Speaking to Adam, the
pre-incarnate Christ* said, in the Garden of Eden;
Ge 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die.
However, Adam’s physical body lived to be 930 years old,
well beyond the day of his disobedience.
5:5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine
hundred and thirty years: and he died.
The essence of Jesus’ promise is spiritual life, the eternal
aspect of our existence as souls created by God not biological flesh corrupted
by Adam’s sin and our, perhaps genetic, inheritance of it.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
His audience was clueless to this as they referred to the
physical state of Abraham and the prophets as being dead and buried. They ask a
question, “whom makest thou thyself?” that Christ is about to answer.
Jesus states that His honor comes from the Father, whom the
Jews say is their God. He accuses the Jews of not knowing God and states, as
well, that He knows God and if He were to say He didn’t He would be a liar like
them who say they do. He knows the Father and obeys Him, unlike the Jews.
Then, Jesus makes the stunning statement that Abraham, long
dead, saw His day and rejoiced and was glad. This would seem an absurdity to
say that Abraham saw something that was to occur long after his time on earth.
The Jews understood that Jesus was claiming that Abraham saw Him and they make
that statement about Jesus not even being fifty years old and could not have
been anywhere with Abraham. That makes sense from our human perspective. But,
Jesus has set them up for the next declaration that before Abraham was, Jesus
says that, “I am.” This is the identification of Himself that God made to
Moses.
Exodus 3:14 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.
This claim is that Jesus Himself is the very God who spoke
to Moses. Another clear statement from Christ that He is God cannot be
tolerated and in their rage and perhaps confusion they try to stone Him but
Jesus made Himself invisible and passed right through them. It was not time
yet.
Christ is the body of God, as explained earlier, the visible
image of God. God simply is. There is no way to ask, where did God come from or
is there something greater than God. It is impossible to pursue that line of
reasoning without coming to a dead end where all questions become meaningless
expressions of confusion. God is, “I am,” the ever present, always existent,
never beginning or ending, someone completely outside of our ability to grasp
apart from His revelation of Himself in the Bible. We can see that He, as the
ultimate designer of the universe we see, exists by the irreducible complexity and glory
of all there is. But, there is no explanation of God that fits our finite minds
and experience. God simply was, is, and will be. He is first and He is last. And
He came to earth and lived as one of us for a short time in a finite body that
needed food, drink, and rest. It staggers the mind.
*Genesis 4:8 “And they heard the voice of the LORD God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” The Lord God was walking in the
garden in the cool of the day. The Holy Ghost is never said to walk and God the
Father is a Spirit and invisible to us. It doesn’t seem likely Adam and Eve
were being addressed by a disembodied voice that walked.
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