I AM
John 8:58
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered,
"before Abraham was born, I am!"
John 8:58
Literally, considering that passage alone, it can be understood as obvious that Jesus really existed before Abraham - in the very sense that He was born before Abraham. Consequently, Trinitarians use this particular passage to support their claim that Jesus Himself already existed from the very beginning in order to prove the allege deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. They also claim that He was the God whom Moses and others have seen as recorded in the Old Testament [Exodus 24:9-10; Judges 13:22].
Let's bear in mind that the true God is Spirit, which means, as clarified by Christ Himself, that God cannot be seen in His form [John 5:37, I Timothy 1:17].
So how did Moses and others claim they saw God? Did they see God in His very form? The Bible has the answer.
For since the creation of the world
God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature -
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that men are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 NIV
Clearly, the way God manifests Himself to man is by means of His power though the things that He made.
The Trinitarians, however, argue that it was not God the Father whom these people have seen - it was God the Son in His very form which is flesh.
Now, they claim that Jesus existed in the beginning as God and later incarnated and lived among us. If that so, when did Jesus become flesh? By the time of Moses or by the time Jesus was born of Mary? Inconsistency, that is.
The Bible, however, does not teach about Christ having pre-existence. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not exist during the time of the patriarchs and the prophets; He was not there before He was born [Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:20-24]. Hence, people who lived during the dispensation of the patriarchs could not have seen Christ in the flesh because the promise, or the God’s plan, concerning Christ was not yet fulfilled Romans 1:2-3.
Since when did God make a promise about His plan concerning Christ?
So the LORD God said to the serpent:
‘Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field; …
And I will put enmity Between You and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel!
Genesis 3:14-15, NKJV
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee
and thy seed after thee in their generations
for an everlasting covenant, to be God into thee,
and to thy seed after thee.
Genesis 17:7, KJV
And who is this seed?
Now to Abraham and his Seed
were the promises made. He saith not,
And to seeds, as of many; but as of one,
And to thy seed, which is Christ.
Galatians 3:16, KJV
Christ is the seed of Abraham. And God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham that God would be God unto Abraham and to his Seed. It means that the covenant stipulates that Abraham and his Seed shall deify God; God shall be God unto them, both to Abraham and his Seed, who is Jesus Christ. Far from being a God, Christ is someone who was destined to recognize the true God.
So there was no pre-existent Christ. There was no Christ prior to the fulfillment of the plan of God concerning Him. What was there with God in the beginning was the “Word” or the thought or the plan concerning Christ, not Christ Himself.
The concept of parallelism
Trinitarians also use the particular passage in John 8:58 to prove that Jesus is claiming to be God.
And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM".
And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel,
'I AM has sent me to you'".
Exodus 3:14, NKJV
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered,
"before Abraham was born, I am!"
John 8:58
Using the concept of parallelism, Trinitarians conclude that Jesus is God simply because Christ spoke the same terms uttered by God. According to them, it was Christ who spoke to Moses because of the term "I AM".
They further imply that the term "I AM" [Gk. ego eimi] can only be used of God.
Okay. Is Jesus Christ the One who said "I AM" in Exodus 3:14? The answer is NO. it was God. When Jesus uttered "I AM" [ego eimi] in John 8:58, was He indicating His alleged divinity? Definitely not.
Now, what was He affirming in this verse? That He was before Abraham. How is He before Abraham when He was born later?
The Bible has the answer:
For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world,
but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.
I Peter 1:20
God has foreknown Christ before the foundation of the world. To foreknow means to know something before it happens: to have knowledge or awareness that something is going to happen.
The Greek word used in this verse is "proginosko" which is defined in Perschbacher's The New Analytical Greek Lexicon as "to determine on beforehand, to foreordain." (p.345)
In New International Version the verse was rendered as:
He was chosen before the creation of the world.
Some Trinitarians also use this to point out that Christ existed before the creation of the world in the sense that He was there when He was chosen or He was foreordained. That alone is a strong proof.
However, it would also appear that God's chosen people already existed before the foundation of the world since these people were already chosen by God (Ephesians 1:4).
The claim therefore is baseless.