Before Abraham Was (8:48–59)
When Moses asks the name of the God who speaks from the burning bush, the answer comes back in the first person: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14). The Greek translation renders this ἐγώ εἰμί ὁ ὤν, the self-existent one whose being depends on nothing outside himself. Centuries later, Isaiah records Yahweh returning to that same name in a courtroom scene in which the nations are summoned to produce witnesses for their gods. Yahweh’s own testimony is decisive:
“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me" (Isa 43:10).
The Hebrew אֲנִי הוּא, rendered in the Septuagint as ἐγώ εἰμι, marks Yahweh’s absolute uniqueness across Deutero-Isaiah (41:4; 43:25; 46:4; 48:12). From Sinai to the exile, the name belongs to Yahweh alone. No creature shares it.
Then Jesus claims that name.
The exchange leading to v. 58 has the character of a hostile interrogation. Jesus’s opponents open with a double insult:
“Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (8:48).
Jesus does not defend his honor. He defers it entirely to the Father (8:50) and advances a claim his opponents find more dangerous than any slur: that keeping his word delivers a person from death (8:51). When they protest that Abraham himself died, Jesus does not yield. He names Abraham as a witness: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (8:56). John does not specify where Abraham saw it. However, Second Temple traditions associated the patriarch with prophetic sight of future redemption. What matters is that Abraham saw and rejoiced, while Jesus’s opponents see and rage.
The crowd hears a man not yet fifty claiming acquaintance with a patriarch dead for centuries, and they press him: “You have seen Abraham?” (8:57). The answer is the climax of the chapter and of the entire interrogation:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, ἐγώ εἰμι” (8:58).
The words ἐγώ εἰμι are not a grammatical accident. They are the name from the burning bush and the name from the Isaianic courtroom, spoken now by Jesus without qualification or apology. He does not claim merely to predate Abraham. He claims the mode of existence that belongs to Yahweh alone, the uncreated, self-existent being before whom no other god stands.
The crowd understands perfectly. They pick up stones (8:59). In moving to execute him for blasphemy, they become the most honest witnesses in the chapter. The name that Yahweh spoke from Sinai and that Isaiah said belonged to no creature has been claimed by the carpenter from Nazareth.
January 9, 2026
You might notice (or have noticed yesterday) the double brackets around John 7:53–8:11, along with a note indicating that the earliest manuscripts do not include this well-known passage. This is true, and it has led some to argue that the story of the woman caught in adultery should be removed from our Bibles and not preached on because it was likely not part of the original composition of John.
But consider this: many of the early church fathers were aware of this story and cited it authoritatively, and someone in the early church was so convinced that it was an authentic account from the life of Jesus that they felt compelled to include it in John’s Gospel (as well as Luke’s, actually; some even argue it fits more appropriately in Luke).
The question here concerns authority. Are the sayings and actions of Jesus authoritative because they are in the Bible (meaning the original writings of the books), or because Jesus said and did them?
The story of the woman caught in adultery is likely not original to John but is nevertheless still an authentic Jesus tradition. Should we cut this remarkable story of forgiveness from our Bibles, or give thanks for the mercy that Jesus showed the woman and model that same mercy in the world?