Before Abraham Was, I AM
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thousands of years before the incarnation of Christ, God promised Abraham that one of his descendants would redeem the world. Today, R.C. Sproul depicts the dramatic moment when Jesus announced His fulfillment of this promise.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before Abraham was, I am. |
| 0:04.0 | This is one of the purest, unbornest declarations of deity that Jesus ever makes during his ministry, |
| 0:12.0 | and it was not missed by his audience, because they took up stones to throw at him. |
| 0:17.0 | But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple going through their very midst, and so passed by. |
| 0:30.0 | Some have said that Jesus never claimed to be divine, that they may believe in the historical Jesus, but he certainly wasn't God. |
| 0:38.0 | Well, to state that is to reveal that they have never read or at least never understood the words of Jesus himself. |
| 0:44.0 | I am Nathan W. Bingham, and thank you for joining us today for renewing your mind. |
| 0:49.0 | As we conclude this week's I AM SANGS, we come to an essential self declaration of Jesus, that he is God himself, |
| 0:57.0 | a truth that we must never waver on or compromise. |
| 1:00.0 | If you have ever wondered how Christians defend the deity of Jesus from the Bible, |
| 1:05.0 | our C-Sprall answers that in today's message. Here's Stockton Sprull. |
| 1:11.0 | We come now to our last session in our series of studies of the I AMs of Jesus. |
| 1:19.0 | In fact, this represents the eighth of the I AMs, and that may trigger something in your minds. |
| 1:27.0 | If you've read the commentaries and heard other presentations of the I AMs of Jesus, because normally in the church, |
| 1:37.0 | when we talk of the I AMs of Jesus, they are listed as including seven of these pronouncements, which seven we have already counted and included. |
| 1:52.0 | But today represents the eighth one that many commentators add to the list, |
| 1:59.0 | even though the manner in which Jesus makes this pronouncement differs structurally from the other I AMs. |
| 2:09.0 | All the other I AMs begin with the words ego-emey, I AM the vine, I AM the good shepherd, I AM the door, and so on. |
| 2:19.0 | But in this case, in the eighth of the series, the pronouncement ends with these words. |
| 2:26.0 | And it has to do with Jesus' declaration to the Pharisees wherein he said before Abraham was, I AM. |
| 2:38.0 | Now, I believe that this should be included with the lists of the I AMs, and in fact, I personally think this is the most dramatic of all of them. |
| 2:50.0 | And to get the force of this declaration that Jesus makes, we'll turn our attention now to John's gospel to the eighth chapter. |
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