HILLFAITH STUDIES: The Seven Great ‘I Am’ Claims of Jesus

A typical conversation among two congressional aides meeting for the first time will often begin with three questions: What is your name, who do you work for, and where are you from?

Your given name is your most personal identifier, of course, followed closely by where you are from as the indicator of your cultural norms and early life experiences, in terms of your personae. But on Capitol Hill, who your boss is ranks right up there, in determining both your  professional identity and your perceived position in the semi-official “Pecking Order.”

“Hi, I am Mark Tapscott, I’m with HillFaith, and I’m originally from Oklahoma and Texas, though I first came to D.C. in 1976, back in the Neo-Lithic Age” is how it would go for me when we meet.

Then I would likely disclose who I had worked for on Hill staffs (Bauman, Collins, Hatch), which would also tell you my party affiliation and my titles, which would reveal more about me. You would share the same information about yourself and we could then proceed with a conversation, based upon some useful information about one another.

Jesus did the same thing when introducing Himself, but in the process He disclosed infinitely more about Himself, and about each one of us as well, with just two words – “I Am,” followed by a succession subsequently during His ministry here of seven illustrations of what He is.

Check out this passage from the Gospel of John, at chapter 8, verses 56-59. This passage is part of a longer one describing a confrontation (there were many) in the Gospels between Jesus and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Israel during His lifetime on Earth. Their essential claim to leadership was based on their ancestry stemming from Abraham, the earthly progenitor of the Jewish people:

^“‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”

They picked up stones to kill Jesus because they were outraged that He used that term, “I Am,” which in the Old Testament is the name of God, according to Exodus 3:14, to describe Himself. That’s where Moses asked God who he should say sent him to Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery: ^“God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ And He said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Unless Jesus really was who He thus claimed to be, God, His use of that name was indeed utterly blasphemous and under Jewish law the penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning. He escaped the angry Pharisees because that was not the appointed time for His death, which would come some months later on a Roman Cross.

Lord, Liar or Lunatic?

Why is this of any significance to you as a congressional aide? Because after claiming to be God, the great I AM, Jesus thereafter expounded upon what that title meant to every human being in seven different ways. These are the “I am” claims of Jesus, each one of which demonstrates a unique aspect of who He is.

But it’s one thing to claim to be Joe Blow from Peoria, and something else entirely to claim to be God, the creator of the universe and everything and everybody in it, including you and me.

That’s not something either of us can simply ignore. As C.S. Lewis famously said:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’

“That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

So, with Lewis providing a suitable framing of the issues, the purpose of this inaugural series of HillFaith Studies is to examine the seven “I am” claims of Jesus to see how each sheds unique light of who He is and what that means for each of us as individuals. Each Tuesday for the next seven weeks, we will examine one of the “I ams” on the following schedule:

July 13: “I am the bread of life.” John 6:35

July 20: “I am the light of the world.” John 8:12 and 9:5

July 27: “I am the gate for the sheep.” John 10:7

August 3: “I am the good shepherd.” John 10:11

August 10: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” John 11:25-26

August 17: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” John 14:6

August 24: “I am the true vine.” John 15:1

Make a note on your calendar to be sure and check back here each Tuesday, Regardless if you are already a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ working on Capitol HIll, or a congressional aide who is curious about Jesus, skeptical about Jesus or just plain apathetic about Him, I promise you will gain some valuable new insights and understanding  as a result of following this study.

And it might change your life forever.

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