6. The “I AM” Sayings
A SIGNIFICANT FEATURE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL IS a series of sayings in which Jesus uses an emphatic “I AM” to bring out important teachings about his person. In Greek, of course, the personal subject of the verb is not normally expressed: the form of the verb makes clear what the subject is. But if it is desired to emphasize the subject, then the appropriate pronoun may be used. What makes this so important in John is that we find a similar usage in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.1 There we find that the translators used this emphatic form of speech when they were rendering words spoken by God. This sort of thing has been widely acceptable among religious people. In the not so distant past, for example, the Ten Commandments were normally cited in the form “Thou shalt not.…” It was a form of speech that was not much used in ordinary conversation or writing, but it seemed appropriate for the words of God. The point of all this is that when Jesus used the “I AM” construction he was speaking in the style of deity. How much this would have been perceived by his hearers is a difficult point because the construction was sometimes used in ordinary human conversation. But there is general agreement among Johannine scholars that this kind of language is a significant pointer to what John is telling us about the person of Jesus.
The construction is occasionally used in the other Gospels, though they lack statements with such a predicate as “I AM the bread of life” (6:35). Thus Matthew tells us that Jesus quoted the words of God: “I AM the God of Abraham …” (Matt. 22:32, quoting Exod. 3:6). This Old Testament usage shows us how the expression was used for divine speech. Matthew also has the expression for those who claim, “I AM the Christ” (Matt. 24:5), where solemn, divine speech is obviously appropriate, and a couple of times in the interrogative form as the disciples ask, “Is it I?” (Matt. 26:22, 25). Mark has the expression for those who claim to be the Christ, saying “I AM” (Mark 13:6), and twice on the lips of Jesus: when he came to the disciples walking on the water (Mark 6:50) and when he affirmed his messiahship before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:62). In all three we can see why speech that accords with deity should be used. Luke has the expression on the lips of Zacharias and Gabriel (Luke 1:18, 19), and of the claimants to being the Christ (Luke 21:8). He quotes Jesus’ words to the Sanhedrin, “You are saying that I AM” (Luke 22:70), and his affirmation of his identity in a resurrection appearance (24:39).2 Again it is not difficult to understand why this manner of speech should have been used by Jesus.
Outside the Gospels the expression occurs only in Acts and Revelation. In Acts three times we read “I AM Jesus”, all being the words of the risen Christ in Paul’s vision at his conversion (Acts 9:5; 22:8; 26:15), once it is used of Peter’s affirmation of his identity (Acts 10:21), once of John the Baptist’s denial that he was “I AM” (Acts 13:25), and once of Paul’s solemn affirmation that he wished that his hearers were “as I am” (Acts 26:29). In Revelation the expression occurs four times, and every time it is the utterance of the Father or the risen Christ (Rev. 1:8, 17; 2:23; 22:16).
This quick survey shows that the expression is used sparingly in the New Testament. It may be used of ordinary human life, but this use is not frequent. “I AM” mostly represents the speech of the heavenly Father or of the Son. The overtones of deity that we find in its use in the Old Testament are not lost when we move to the New.
When we turn to John, two groups of sayings must be considered. In one group Jesus adds a predicate to his “I AM”, such as “I AM the Good Shepherd”, while in the other the “I AM” stands by itself. We examine them in order, beginning with those with predicates. J. H. Bernard lists these passages and proceeds, “This is clearly the style of Deity.… Its force would at once be appreciated by any one familiar with the LXX version of the O.T.”3 Both constructions are somewhat unusual, and they form a Johannine distinctive. They have contacts with other New Testament teaching, as we have seen, but they bring before us what is fundamentally new. Leonhard Goppelt draws attention to Jesus’ use of “I AM” in Mark 14:62 and proceeds: “The meaning of the Johannine formulas stood, nevertheless, in contrast to this usage. In them the ‘I am’ did not identify Jesus with something already known. It unveiled for man something otherwise unknown and inaccessible.”4
“I AM the Bread of Life”
In the discourse that follows the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, Jesus tells the people, “I AM the bread of life” (6:35).5 The saying is set in the context of a question from the people, “What sign do you do so that we may see and believe you?” followed by the statement: “our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, even as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’ ” (6:30–31). Jesus pointed out two errors: it was not Moses that gave the bread from heaven, but God, and further God not only gave but “gives” the true bread from heaven. He goes on, “For the bread of God is he who (the Greek could mean ‘that which’) comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (6:33). The people express a desire for this bread, and Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life. To the “I AM” saying he adds, “he who comes to me will certainly not hunger, and he who believes in me will certainly not thirst, ever” (6:35).
In the miracle of the feeding John has made it clear that Jesus is able to supply people’s physical needs in miraculous fashion, and in the discourse that follows he shows that Jesus does more than that. Deep down, people have an intense spiritual hunger. John is making it clear that Jesus satisfies that hunger, and further that that hunger can be satisfied in him alone. So he turns people’s attention away from their concentration on the manna that was given of old, and points out that the God who keeps on supplying the needs of his people is still at work. In that Jesus himself is the bread of life, he is the bringer of life to the spiritually dead. The definite article with “bread” (“the bread”, not “a bread” or simply “bread”) is perhaps unexpected because predicate nouns usually do not take the article.6 A. T. Robertson pointed out that “when the article occurs with subject (or the subject is a personal pronoun or proper name) and predicate, both are definite, treated as identical, one and the same, and interchangeable.”7 The identity is important. If there were no article we could understand that there were others who could claim to be “bread of life”: Jesus would be “a bread of life”, one among others. The article means that Jesus, and Jesus only, is the bread of life. A similar comment should be made about the equivalent article in each of the other “I AM” sayings.
We should bear in mind that for the ancients bread was the principal element in the normal diet.8 People did not have available the variety of foods that we take for granted, and bread could stand for prosperity (Deut. 8:9; Prov. 12:11, etc.) and the lack of it for adversity (Lam. 1:11). On quite a few occasions it was referred to as “the staff of bread” (Lev. 26:26; Ps. 105:16; Ezek. 4:16, etc.), that is, that which supported the whole of life. It thus forms a natural simile for what is at the heart of spiritual life. Jesus is not speaking of something peripheral but of what is essential to life eternal when he refers to the “bread” of life.
The saying is repeated with variations: “I AM the bread that came down from heaven” (6:41); “I AM the living bread who (or which) came down from heaven” (6:51); and with impressive simplicity, “I AM the bread of life” (6:48). The first of these is muttered by the Jews as they complain that Jesus said these words: the quotation is not exact, but it is close enough and gives his meaning. In the Johannine manner we should understand all these slightly different sayings as meaning much the same thing. The repetition brings out the force and the importance of the saying. Jesus is making clear his heavenly origin and the fact that he alone supplies the spiritual need of his hearers.9 Both are important for an understanding of John’s thought about Jesus.
“I AM the Light of the World”
Light is one of the great concepts of this Gospel.10 John tells us that Jesus said, “I AM the light of the world” (8:12). On another occasion he said, “I am the light of the world” (9:5), which is identical with the former saying except that it does not have the emphatic form. It conveys much the same idea, though not quite as forcefully as the first example. On another occasion Jesus said, “I have come a light into the world” (12:46; this passage has the emphatic egō, though without eimi; it is a solemn and significant statement). Light is one of the great topics of this Gospel, for John uses the term phōs 23 times, more than twice as often as the term occurs in any other New Testament book (next is Acts with ten). Light is a natural figure of speech for what is good and upright, and it is often found in contrast with darkness, equally natural as a symbol of evil; John makes this contrast from time to time (e.g., 3:19). It is significant that he uses such a powerful figure of speech and one which means so much to him as a way of bringing out important truths with respect to Jesus and his mission.
John does not tell us exactly when Jesus spoke these words, but he does say that they were spoken “in the treasury” as he was “teaching in the temple” (8:20). Since Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles for the events of chapter 7, it is a reasonable inference that that Feast is the background to the “light of the world” saying, especially as the illumination from the great candelabra was an important feature of the celebration. It is pointed out that if Jesus spoke just after the Feast, when the illumination no longer took place, the contrast between “the light of the world” and the darkness of Jerusalem would have been impressive. Another view is that the saying may contain a reference to the light given by the pillar of fire during the Exodus period. If either of these possibilities was in mind, the saying would have an interesting background. But it is scarcely necessary to look for anything of the kind. After all, “the light of the world” is a striking expression and conveys a very full meaning whenever it is spoken.11
The note of universality emerges as early as the Prologue. There we find that life was in the Word, “and the life was the light of men” (1:4). This does not use the “light of the world” terminology, but it conveys much the same meaning. All the light that men have comes from the life that is in the Word. The usage with light corresponds to John’s teaching in other language that Christ is the significant figure in whom alone is there hope for all the human race. He is aware that people do not always welcome the light of the world as they should. There are people who “loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). There are evildoers who hate the light and do not come to it (3:20). By contrast the person who “does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they have been wrought in God” (3:21).
The idea that the way people react to the light is important comes out elsewhere. There is an interesting passage in the story of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus speaks of the importance of walking “in the day”, and goes on: “if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him” (11:9–10). We would have expected, “because he is not walking in the light”, but the reference to the light not being in him shows that we have moved from physical illumination to spiritual truth. Jesus is telling his hearers that those who reject him, who do not take him into their lives, are in grave danger. There will be something of the same thought when he later tells “the crowd” that the light is among them only for a short time (12:35),12 surely a reference to his imminent death. He also calls on the people to “believe in the light, in order that (they) may become sons of light” (12:36). The demand for faith shows that it is not a question of physical illumination; Jesus is calling for faith in himself, and his use of “light” points to the illumination of life that he brings. The speedy withdrawal of the light points to the truth that Jesus’ saving death is not far away.
The explicit phrase, “the light of the world”, does not occur in these passages, but it is surely implicit. In each of them the thought is that Jesus is the only light and that people must respond to the coming of the light by giving him a welcome and believing in him. Apart from that they are lost eternally. That Jesus is the light of this whole world and that people’s eternal destiny depends on their reaction to him tell us something very important about Jesus.
“I AM the Door”
In the chapter in which he employs some vivid imagery about the sheep and the shepherd, Jesus twice speaks of himself as “the door” (10:7, 9), the first time referring to “the door of the sheep” and the second time simply to “the door”. The chapter has begun with a reference to a sheepfold in which the sheep find safety and to which there is access by a door (anyone who climbs over the wall and does not use the door is up to no good, 10:1). The shepherd goes in through the door (10:2), which poses a little difficulty later in the chapter, for Jesus is spoken of both as the door and as the shepherd. But this is no great problem. We are able to understand one important truth by seeing him as the shepherd who has the right to enter by the door (in contrast to thieves and robbers who climb over the wall), and quite another by seeing him as the door through which people enter salvation.
When he says, “I AM the door”, Jesus is saying that he himself is the means by which the “sheep” enter life. He says “the” door, not “a” door. There is something exclusive about the door. The normal sheepfold of the time had just one door, and Jesus is saying that the way into life goes through him, and him alone.13 He is the door. When he repeats the thought he adds, “if anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and go in and go out, and find pasture” (10:9). He does not explain “saved” (which is a concept used much more often in the Synoptic Gospels than in this one), but we should understand it of the entrance into life eternal (cf. v. 10). The concepts of being “saved” and of having “life eternal” are linked in 3:16–17, and we should understand a similar linkage here. This is further brought out with the reference to going in (for security) and out (for food), further explained as finding pasture.
Thus once again we encounter the thought of an exclusive salvation, exclusive in the sense that it can be entered only through the one door, Jesus Christ. If there is but one door for all the race, then once more we are reminded of something very important about Jesus. Like the other I AM sayings, this one leads us to think of deity.
“I AM the Good Shepherd”
Following on from the conversation about the door, Jesus says, “I AM the good shepherd” (10:11). Since the word for “good” (kalos) has about it the notion of beauty as well as goodness,14 some suggest that we should translate it here as “beautiful” (cf. E. V. Rieu, “I am the shepherd, the Shepherd Beautiful”). William Temple sees this meaning and proceeds, “Of course this translation exaggerates. But it is important that the word for ‘good’ here is one that represents, not the moral rectitude of goodness, nor its austerity, but its attractiveness. We must not forget that our vocation is so to practise virtue that men are won to it; it is possible to be morally upright repulsively!”15 Temple’s warning is one that we do well to heed, but in the present passage the emphasis is not on the way we are morally upright, but on the attractiveness of the Good Shepherd. Whatever be the case with his followers, Jesus is the Beautiful Shepherd as well as the morally Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd, Jesus says, “lays down his life16 for the sheep.” This is most unexpected. A shepherd was expected to live for his sheep, not to die for them. It was his task to lead them to pasture and to water, and to defend them from wild animals. Sheep are particularly vulnerable animals; through many generations they have been bred to serve the needs of the human race, and they are not much good as foragers (goats are much better). Does not the shepherd psalm say that the Lord “makes me lie down in green pastures” and that he “leads me beside still waters” (Ps. 23:2)? The sheep can be trusted to find neither green pastures nor still waters; they depend on their shepherd. And sheep have no significant defence mechanism: they easily fall prey to predators. In early days there were wild animals in Palestine which have since died out; thus David spoke of lions and bears attacking his flock (1 Sam. 17:34–37). It is plain that the task of the shepherd was not an easy one and that it could lead the man who cared for his sheep into serious danger.
But a shepherd would reckon that he could cope with the dangers. If he thought he could not, then he would not be a shepherd. He had no intention of dying simply in order to defend some sheep. He might run into danger, but he would always be of the opinion that he would come out on top. To die for the sheep must have been very rare and seen as very tragic.
But that which is rare and tragic among human shepherds is characteristic of the Good Shepherd. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (10:11). This is another way in which John brings out the truth that the death of Jesus was no tragic accident, but the divinely appointed way whereby salvation would be brought to those who trust him. Sheep are helpless animals, and sinners are helpless to bring about their salvation. But the Good Shepherd lays down his life, and the sheep are saved.
A second time John reports that Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd”, this time adding, “and I know my own, and my own know me, even as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” Then he says again, “and I lay down my life for the sheep” (10:14–15). A feature of the life of a first-century Palestinian shepherd was his knowledge of his sheep and their knowledge of him. These days when flocks may be numbered in thousands an individual sheep is unrecognizable, but people at that time had smaller numbers. Jesus spoke of a man with a hundred sheep (Luke 15:4), while the prophet Nathan referred to the irreducible minimum for a flock, “one little ewe lamb” (2 Sam. 12:3). Shepherds thus knew individual sheep, and, of course, the sheep would know the shepherds who provided for them. Earlier in the chapter Jesus had spoken of sheep who knew the voice of their shepherd and would follow him, whereas they would not follow a stranger, for they did not know his voice (10:3–5). It is important for John that Jesus has knowledge of his own, and that his own know him.
Nor should we miss the point that a second time Jesus says that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. This is not an incidental, more or less unimportant fact, but the great central truth.17 The heart of the gospel is concerned with the provision that God has made for the salvation of his sheep, and this involves the death of the shepherd.
“I AM the Resurrection and the Life”
Thus far all Jesus’ “I AM” sayings have been addressed to the Jews in general rather than specifically to his followers. But the rest of these sayings are spoken to those who have committed themselves to him. When Jesus spoke to Martha after her brother Lazarus died, he told her that Lazarus would rise, which she took as a reference to “the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus then said to her, “I AM the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, even if he dies, he will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will certainly not die eternally” (11:23–26). Jesus does not say simply that he will give resurrection and life, but that he is resurrection and life. This is not an easy expression, but we should understand Jesus to mean that raising people from the dead and giving them life is not, so to speak, a routine activity that he performs in an uninvolved way. He is thoroughly involved in the bringing of life of which he speaks, and he identifies himself with it. That he is the resurrection means that death, which to us appears so final, is no obstacle, and that he is the life means that the quality of life that he imparts to us here and now never ceases.18
Jesus speaks these words in the context of the death of Lazarus, whom he was about to raise, and John clearly means us to see them in the light of that demonstration of Jesus’ power over death. He is writing about one who is supremely great and who has a breathtaking superiority to death. It is common to the human race that in the end we all face death and that there is nothing we can do about that. We may stave death off for a time, but when it takes place it is final. John writes about a Lord for whom it is not final. He is such a great person that even death gives place to him.
“I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life”
In the upper room on the eve of the crucifixion, Jesus spoke of his imminent departure, finishing with “and where I am going you know the way” (14:4). Thomas rejoined with, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?” to which Jesus replied, “I AM the way and the truth and the life”, adding, “no one comes to the Father except through me” (14:5–6). The “I AM” in the style of deity marks this as another very solemn statement, but it is not easy to see the precise meaning of the words. Some think that all three nouns should be given their full force, while others regard a couple of them as in effect adjectives. Thus Moffatt translates, “I am the real and living way”, and Moule wonders whether “I am the Way, I am Truth, I am Life” would be better.19 Some omit one or more of the definite articles, for example, Goodspeed, “I am Way and Truth and Life.” I see no reason for such devices, and it is much better to take the words as originally written, articles and all. It seems as though Jesus is affirming three things about himself.
First he says, “I AM the way”. Like the claim to be the door that we were examining earlier, there is an exclusiveness about this. He does not say that he is one of several ways, but that he is “the” way; and since he goes on to say that no one comes to the Father other than through him, it is clear that by “the way” he means “the way to God”. John is insisting that Jesus is the one way to the Father. He will not allow for one moment that the way of the Jewish priestly leaders with their insistence on the place of the law and the significance of circumcision is another possible way to God. Whatever the leaders might say, John is affirming that the person of Jesus is such that he and no other can bring us to the heavenly abode. He is not saying that Jesus shows the way, but that he is the way. This points us to the significance of his saving death. By dying for sinners he brings them to God.
“I AM the truth” brings out more than one significant piece of teaching. It reminds us first of all of Jesus’ utter reliability. John has recorded a good deal of teaching which he ascribes to Jesus, and this declaration means that it is all true; it can all be relied on. And in this Gospel truth is a quality of deeds as well as of speech (3:21), so that we should conclude that Jesus’ whole manner of life expresses what is true. He speaks the truth and his deeds accord with that truth. “Truth is not the teaching about God transmitted by Jesus but is God’s very reality revealing itself—occurring!—in Jesus.”20 John is saying more than that Jesus proclaims the truth. Of course he does that, but to say that he is the truth means, as Kümmel puts it, “that he belongs to God. But then it says above all that in Jesus God has become quite personally audible and that through the encounter with this truth that has appeared personally, salvation is to be imparted to men” (Kümmel proceeds to cite 8:32).21
“I AM the life” takes us into the same area as the saying, “I AM the resurrection and the life”. Once more Jesus is associating life very closely with himself. It is he alone whose life is unique, self-existent like the life of the Father (5:26). He is the life, and the source of life to others (3:16).
This comprehensive saying, then, claims an exclusive position for Jesus. He is the one way to God, he is thoroughly reliable, and he stands in a relation to truth such as no one else does. The same, of course, is true of his relationship to life.
“I AM the True Vine”
Twice in the discourse in the upper room Jesus declares that he is the vine. On the first occasion he says, “I AM the true vine”, and adds, “My Father is the vinedresser” (15:1). On the second occasion the link with believers is stressed as Jesus says, “I AM the vine, you are the vine canes”, and goes on to refer to the mutual indwelling of the Savior and the saved (15:5). We should bear in mind that there are passages in the Old Testament that speak of Israel using vine imagery (e.g., Ps. 80:8–16; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15). Each time, however, it seems that God is pointing out Israel’s sin. Thus we should understand the thought that Christ is the “true” vine as marking the contrast with faithless Israel.
In the Old Testament the vine is often a symbol of Israel, sometimes of degenerate Israel. For example, in Jeremiah we read, “I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?” (Jer. 2:21). We should see Jesus’ claim to be the “true” vine against such a background. The people had failed to produce the fruit that would have been expected; they were false to their God, who had done so much for them. The psalmist could say, “Thou didst bring a vine out of Egypt; thou didst drive out the nations and plant it …” (Ps. 80:8). But although God had done so much, they had failed to live up to their vocation, or, to keep the metaphor, to produce the fruit that they should. But where Israel failed and had become a false vine, we now see the true vine, the vine in which the purpose of God would be worked out.22
Both verses stress the link between Christ and his people, and both bring before us the importance of fruitfulness. Salvation in Christ is not a process that leads us into magnificent laziness. Salvation in Christ is meant to result in the saved producing qualities of character that accord with their Christian profession and in their having a horror of fruitless lives. After saying that he is the true vine and the Father the vinedresser,23 Jesus goes on to make the point that fruitless canes24 on a vine are discarded. The purpose of growing vines is to produce grapes, not foliage. So, Jesus says, those canes that do not produce fruit are taken away, and those that do are treated in such a way that they produce more fruit. This is often understood in the sense “prunes” (as GNB, among others). But the word does not mean “prunes”, but “cleanses”,25 and this is important in the context. Jesus proceeds to say, “You are already clean on account of the word that I have spoken to you” (v. 3). They have responded to his message and are believers. We should perhaps notice that the word for “clean” is used of those in the upper room, with the exception of Judas, for Jesus said, “You are clean, but not all”, which John explains: “For he knew who was betraying him; for this reason he said, ‘You are not all clean’ ” (13:10–11). This appears to mean that the canes that are cut out are people like Judas, those who had professed discipleship but without the commitment that makes a genuine disciple. The first “vine” saying, then, emphasizes that those who are not “clean” are not part of the true vine.
The second saying emphasizes the importance of vital contact with Christ. “He who remains in me, and I in him,” says Jesus, “this man bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (15:5). It is an error to suppose that in the energy of the flesh we are able to do anything that pleases God. For that we need the strength that he alone can supply. The condition of fruitfulness in Christian service is vital contact with Christ.26 On our own we can do nothing. In living fellowship with him all things are possible (cf. Phil. 4:13). Exactly what the “fruit” is is not explained, but usually in the New Testament the word means qualities of Christian character (Matt. 3:8; 7:20; Rom. 6:22; Gal. 5:22, etc.) and we should probably see this as primarily in mind here. We become fruitful Christians when we remain in vital contact with Christ and manifest the effects of that vital contact in our character and our deeds.
“I AM” without a Predicate
A number of times John reports that Jesus used the “I AM” construction without qualifying it with a predicate as in the examples so far noted. This occurs, for example, in the conversation Jesus had with the woman at the well. When she says that matters of which they are speaking are matters to be dealt with by the Messiah when he comes, Jesus replies, “I AM, who am speaking to you” (4:26). Ethelbert Stauffer denies that this is “an indirect messianic affirmation”, and insists “that John wishes Jesus’ answer to be understood as the theophanic formula ANI HU.”27 Edwin D. Freed, by contrast, points out that the Baptist uses the I AM formula in his denial that he is the Christ (1:20; repeated in 3:28). Freed points out that the next occurrence of the formula is in 4:26, and he says, “Certainly one way, if not the only correct way, to convey the meaning of the Greek egō eimi in this context is to understand messias/christos of the sentence before it as the predicate with which ho lalōn soi is in apposition. In contrast to the Baptist’s negative statement, Jesus is reported as affirming his messiahship through the use of egō eimi.”28 Freed’s appeal to the context is certainly impressive, but Stauffer has certainly done us a service in drawing attention to the fact that the words are the solemn words of deity.29
And this is surely the way we should understand the words of Jesus when he came walking on the water to the storm-tossed disciples. They were terrified at the sight as Jesus approached them (the Synoptists tell us that they thought they were seeing a phantom). He calmed them with the words, “I AM, don’t be afraid” (6:20). This may be no more than a way of self-identification (as C. K. Barrett thinks),30 but the style is the style of deity and it accords with this that Jesus came walking on the water. A somewhat similar passage is that in which Jesus says, “I AM he who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me” (8:18). It is possible that Jesus means no more than “I bear witness”, but this does not seem likely. He is surely affirming in the style of deity that he stands closer to the Father than do people in general.
Jesus further said to some of the Jews, “Unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins” (8:24). The meaning of “dying in sins” is not spelled out, but clearly it is a dreadful fate. And people are saved from this, Jesus says, only when they come to have faith in him as I AM. Later he says to the disciples, “I tell you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM” (13:19). In both passages we find the Johannine emphasis on the importance of believing, and in both it is linked with Jesus’ own person. In both Jesus is saying that it is important that those addressed come to trust him as the I AM, which looks very much like a claim to sharing in the nature of deity. People must see Jesus as one with the Father and trust him as such. Perhaps this is the place to notice further that in his prayer in the upper room Jesus says that the Father has given him his own name (17:11), which looks like an affirmation that he shares in all that the name of God stands for.31
It is not easy to escape something of the same conclusion when Jesus says, “then you will know that I AM” (8:28),32 and especially when he says, “Truly, truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM” (8:58).33 The claim to have been in existence before Abraham must be either delusion or a statement that the speaker was sovereign over time. In both passages John is telling us something about the nature of Jesus. He is not to be thought of as simply another man. He was a man, but he was more, and passages like these bring out the “more”. It is significant that when the Jews heard Jesus say, “before Abraham was, I AM”, they tried to stone him (8:59); they regarded the statement as blasphemous. Harner links this with the attempt to stone Jesus in 10:31: “They attempt to stone Jesus when he has said ego eimi in 8:58, and also when he has said ‘I and the Father are one’ in 10:30. In this way John indicates that the two statements are identical in meaning. As in 13:19, the absolute ego eimi in 8:58 expresses the unity of the Father and the Son.”34 Since stoning was a serious business, it is not easy to see why the Jews should have attempted it on these two occasions unless, as Harner suggests, they thought Jesus guilty of blasphemy. His claim was far-reaching.
We should also notice the series of references to “I AM” at the time of the arrest. Jesus twice elicited from the soldiers the information that they were looking for “Jesus of Nazareth” (18:5, 7), and both times he responded with, “I AM”. In between John has another “I AM”, in which he tells his readers that when Jesus “said to them, ‘I AM’, they went away backward and fell to the ground” (18:6). John pictures a scene in the gloom of the garden, imperfectly lit by the torches carried by the arresting posse. But instead of the terrified fugitive they expected would be hiding in the shadowy recesses of the garden, the soldiers find themselves confronted by a majestic figure who advances to meet them and addresses them in the language of deity. Once again John is saying something to his readers about Jesus’ kinship with the heavenly Father. This is not the speech or the action of one who is nothing more than just another man. The falling to the ground seems to be John’s way of saying that there was a special significance in the words; the soldiers reacted like men in the presence of deity.
John has “I AM” again when Jesus says, “where ‘I AM’, there also will my servant be” (12:26), and when the blind man to whom Jesus had given sight affirms his identity (9:9). But neither of these seems to be significant for our present inquiry. They are the normal human response in the situations described, and we should not look for more. But in the other passages it certainly seems that John’s use of the expression is distinctive. We get nothing like it anywhere else in the New Testament (except for a handful of passages in the Synoptics); thus we must recognize that John is using the hallowed expression to bring out the truth that his Master was one with a special relationship to the heavenly Father, a relationship in which he must be thought of as partaking in the nature of deity,35 and a relationship which does not compromise the truth that there is but one God.36
1. A. Deissmann holds that a similar usage is to be found in nonbiblical religion, and he can say, “Most striking of all, however, is the similarity between the utterances of the Johannine Christ in the first person, spoken with the solemnity proper to a cult, and certain ancient examples of the same style as we find it in widespread use for the purposes of non-Christian and pre-Christian religion” (Light from the Ancient East, London, 1927, p. 136). This means that the usage would be widely recognized in the first century, but we should not regard it as the source of John’s usage. That is rather the use of the expression in the Old Testament. It is significant that, while parallels have been adduced from a variety of nonbiblical sources, no one seems to have found any real parallel to John’s absolute use of “I AM”.
2. Raymond E. Brown examines this Synoptic usage and concludes that John is not “creating from nothing” in his “I AM” sayings. Rather, “Johannine theology may have capitalized on a valid theme of the early tradition” (The Gospel according to John (i–xii), I, New York, 1966, p. 538).
3. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, I (Edinburgh, 1928), pp. cxviii-cxix.
4. Theology of the New Testament, II (Grand Rapids, 1982), pp. 294–95. He also says, “In these formulas Jesus offered himself exclusively as that which man sought without knowing it: as the life!” (p. 295).
5. The expression ho artos tēs zōēs could mean “the bread that is alive” or “the bread that gives life” (as Goodspeed translates). The article with life (“the life”, not “a life”) may well point to everlasting life rather than life in general (cf. William Hendriksen, “tēs zōēs, qualitative genitive, referring not to any kind of life but to spiritual, everlasting life” (New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel according to John, I, Grand Rapids, 1953, p. 233).
6. BDF #273.
7. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (London, n.d., p. 768).
8. A. van Selms remarks, “Among the peasants in Palestine and elsewhere, bread is primary, other articles of solid food merely accessory.… ‘Bread’ therefore often stands for solid food in general, not only because this is the original meaning of the word but also because bread is food par excellence” (ISBE, I, p. 540).
9. C. K. Barrett has an important note on the background of this and similar sayings in which he concludes, “We have here what Brown and others have described as the sapiential interpretation of the bread of life. God feeds men by his word; Jesus is his word. The Jewish and pagan elements in the background are thus joined and cemented by the Christian tradition, especially in the form of the feeding miracle and the record of the last supper” (The Gospel according to St. John2, Philadelphia, 1978, p. 293).
10. O. A. Piper says that John “has a rather elaborate theology of light” in which “he stands close to the Qumran ‘Hymns of Praise’ ” (IDB, III, p. 132).
11. Donald Guthrie says, “A statement like ‘I am the light of the world’ makes no sense except on the lips of one who was agent in the creation of the world” (New Testament Theology, London, 1981, p. 331). And in comparison to the creation of the world matters like the candelabra in Jerusalem and the pillar of fire in the wilderness pale into insignificance.
12. “The special mode of revelation embodied in Jesus’ life and ministry will soon be withdrawn. If not accepted now, the chance of salvation will be lost” (Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John, London, 1972, p. 435).
13. W. G. Kümmel remarks, “the rarely encountered figure of the door as the entrance to the sphere of salvation says that Jesus alone provides access to salvation, to the Father.… Thus it emphasizes that Jesus is the exclusive mediator of salvation” (The Theology of the New Testament, London, 1974, p. 286).
14. G. Abbott-Smith’s Lexicon says “primarily, of outward form” and cites Cremer, “related to … agathos as the appearance to the essence”; he gives the first meaning of the word as “fair, beautiful”.
15. Readings in St. John’s Gospel (First and Second Series) (London, 1947), p. 166.
16. The expression tēn psychēn tithenai is unexpected. John uses it a number of times (e.g., vv. 15, 17, 18; 13:37, 38; 15:13; 1 John 3:16), but it is not easy to find examples outside his writings. Something very much like it is found in LXX (Judg. 12:3, etc.), but there the meaning is to risk the life, not to give it as here. That meaning is more usually conveyed by using dounai, as in Mark 10:45.
17. R. H. Lightfoot says that the good shepherd’s laying down of his life, “is His right and is in no way forced upon Him” (St. John’s Gospel, Oxford, 1956, p. 207). This striking way of putting it emphasizes the voluntary nature of what the good shepherd does for his sheep.
18. Cf. G. R. Beasley-Murray, “The revelation to Martha thus is an assurance of resurrection to the kingdom of God in its consummation through him who is the Resurrection, and of life in the kingdom of God in the present time through him who is the Life. Both aspects of the ‘life’ are rooted in the understanding of Jesus as the Mediator of the divine sovereignty in the present and in the future” (John, Waco, 1987, p. 191).
19. C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge, 1953), p. 112.
20. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, II (London, 1955), p. 19. Bultmann also says, “the basic meaning of ‘truth’ in John is God’s reality, which, since God is the Creator, is the only true reality” (p. 18).
21. The Theology of the New Testament, p. 286.
22. Cf. John Painter, “In the conflict between Jews and Jewish Christians everything turns on christology. Given that the Jewish religion was true, Jesus was a blasphemer. Given that Jesus had the significance John ascribed to him then Judaism was both false to her foundations in the Scriptures and no longer an expression of the knowledge of God. In John the emphasis is christocentric; it is Jesus against the Jews. This is nowhere clearer than in John xv” (NTS 25, 1978–79, p. 111).
23. The word is geōrgos, a general word for a tiller of the soil, a farmer. It has no necessary connection with vines; it simply means a worker on the land. But in this passage it certainly refers to a man whose business is with grapevines, so we must understand it in the sense “vinedresser”.
24. A small point is that most translations have “branches”, which would normally be expressed by klados. Klēma means the flexible cane so characteristic of grapevines.
25. The word is kathairei; no examples appear to be cited in which it has the meaning “prune”. It is apparently not a viticultural word, and in the context it is important that it is related to katharoi in the next line.
26. Kümmel says, “the figure of the vine is not so much a description of Jesus’ relation to the Father—15:1b does this by an allusion—but rather of Jesus as the revealer who communicates the Father’s will to the disciples” (The Theology of the New Testament, p. 287). This is not quite it, for more than revelation is involved. The figure of the vine points not so much to revelation as to the communication of life and power. John is telling his readers that fruitful lives proceed from vital contact with the source of life. That Jesus is the revealer is true. That this is what the figure of the vine is conveying is not.
27. Jesus and His Story (London, 1960), p. 152. ANI HU is the Hebrew underlying “I AM”. Stauffer proceeds to give six reasons for holding this view, and concludes, “Jesus chooses intentionally the veiled formula of self-revelation from Isa. 52.6, without taking account of the messianist terminology of the Samaritans. His saying of self-revelation is a mystery, a sign, a mashal.” Stauffer thinks that this “I AM” is “the clearest, boldest and deepest self-affirmation of Jesus” (p. 158); it means: “where I am, there is God, there God lives, speaks, calls, asks, acts, decides, loves, chooses, forgives, rejects, hardens, suffers, dies. Nothing bolder can be said, or imagined” (p. 159; Stauffer’s italics).
28. CBQ 41 (1979), p. 290.
29. Stauffer is often held to take up an extreme position; therefore not many agree wholeheartedly with him. But Philip B. Harner points out that the Old Testament use of ’ani hu is part of the background of the use of the expression in John, and of this he says, “The phrase ’ani hu signifies that Yahweh alone is God, in contrast to the so-called gods of the various peoples of the world”. He speaks of it as “This assertion of exclusive monotheism” (The “I Am” of the Fourth Gospel, Philadelphia, 1970, p. 8).
30. The Gospel according to St. John, p. 281. He goes on to say, “If in the present passage there is any hint of the epiphany of a divine figure it is not because the words egō eimi are used but because in the gospel as a whole Jesus is a divine figure.”
31. Brown finds examples of the use of “I AM” as the name of God in the Old Testament (as Isa. 43:25) and rabbinic sources, and goes on, “The use of ‘I AM’ as a divine name in late Judaism may explain the many Johannine references to the divine name that Jesus bears” (The Gospel according to John (i–xii), p. 537; he cites passages like 5:43; 10:25; 17:11, 12).
32. On 8:28 C. H. Dodd remarks, “The egō eimi carries with it the solidarity of Christ with God” (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge, 1953, p. 96). Barrett, however, finds the expression to mean no more than “Jesus is the obedient servant of the Father, and for this reason perfectly reveals him. Egō eimi does not identify Jesus with God, but it does draw attention to him in the strongest possible terms” (The Gospel according to St. John, p. 342).
33. On this verse Dodd points to “the contrast of the verbs, genesthai, to come into being, in the aorist, and einai, to be, in the continuous present. The implication is that Jesus does not stand within the temporal series of great men, beginning with Abraham and continuing through the succession of the prophets, so as to be compared with them. His claim is not that He is the greatest of the prophets, or even greater than Abraham himself. He belongs to a different order of being” (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, p. 261). F. Büchsel says of 8:58, “This is the only passage in the NT where we have the contrast between einai and genesthai. The verse ascribes to Jesus consciousness of eternity or supra-temporality” (TDNT, II, p. 399).
34. The “I Am” of the Fourth Gospel, p. 39.
35. G. E. Ladd can say, “Most scholars think that Stauffer defends an extreme position, but it seems beyond question that in the use of the absolute egō eimi, Jesus is in some real sense identifying himself with the God of the Old Testament” (A Theology of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, 1974, p. 251).
36. Cf. Harner, who claims that in the egō eimi passages John “expresses his belief that Christian faith does not violate the integrity of monotheism in holding the Son to be one with the Father” (The “I Am” of the Fourth Gospel, p. 57).