The Timeless Beauty of Jesus' Paradoxical, Grammatically Challenged Statement
I came across a somewhat enigmatic phrase in the Bible some time ago, said by none other than Jesus himself. In the gospel of John, Chapter 8, Jesus had one of those heated run-ins with the unbelieving Pharisees and teachers of the Law that he often had, where they would try to find fault with him, and he would in turn adroitly turn the table on them and confound them with his response.
Towards the middle of the chapter we find the unbelieving Pharisees challenging Jesus' seemingly extravagant claims (he claimed to be 'the light of the world', which naturally didn't go down well with his theological critics) as well as the validity of his testimony. And nearing the end of the chapter, we find their debate turning to Abraham and his identity as the father of the Jewish people. Jesus challenged their claim to be Abraham's children on the grounds that if they had been the patriarch's children, they would not have tried to kill me, because Abraham would not have done such a thing. Instead, he implied, they were children of the devil.Then the Pharisees sort of changed their story; now they claimed that "the only Father we have is God himself." (verse 41). Again Jesus said that if that were true, they would have loved him, because he came from the Father.
At this point the Pharisees decided to turn the accusations towards Jesus, and claimed that he was demon-possessed and was a Samaritan (which was probably like calling someone a 'raghead terrorist' today). In response, Jesus denied this accusation and said that his words are so true that anyone who keeps it will never die. Baffled and outraged, the Pharisees pointed out the apparent absurdity of that claim; their ancestral patriarch Abraham had died, as had the prophets, and yet this young man Jesus claimed that his words could give eternal life. They asked him if he was greater than Abraham himself. Jesus responded by saying that Abraham had seen Jesus' day and rejoiced. To the Pharisees, more absurdity. They pointed out to him that Jesus was not yet fifty, but claimed to have seen Abraham.
Then came Jesus' cryptic response - and yet, in my opinion, paradoxically one of the most profound and revealing things Jesus ever said regarding his identity: (wait for it...)
"I tell you the truth," Jesus said, "before Abraham was, I am." (Verse 58, NIV)
Whoa, hold on. What? Rewind, please.
N0w, I've been helping a couple of boys with their English. One of the biggest aspects of the English language that I feel they both often have problems with is tenses. It seems that their problem with using tenses in their written work is related to how they speak; in colloquial speech, correct use of tenses are often ignored. After all, most people write like they talk. Fortunately, they're both improving in their use of tenses, both written and spoken.
I also used to be their Sunday School teacher, and I would have loved to discuss Jesus' amazing statement with them there for its dense and intense meaning. But I don't think I would want to use it as an example of good grammar when I teach them English. Why?
The sentence is grammatically unsound and its use of tenses is poorly inconsistent. Correctly said, the sentence should have been "before Abraham was, I had been." The tense in which we use the word 'to be' or its various derivatives - of which 'am' is the first person singular form in the English language - is also important. The difference between 'I am' and 'I was' is when 'I' am present or is doing something. Which is why Jesus' phrase is grammatically incorrect; it is rationally (and grammatically) inconceivable that something is taking place now before something else took place in the past. (Feel free to take some aspirin at this point.)
But it reveals something a couple of very important things. First of all, by saying this Jesus revealed his identity to his listeners. In fact, it was more of a claim than a revelation. Upon hearing Jesus' final response, the Pharisees snapped and sought to stone him to death. This was not because he, a teacher, was using poor grammar (sorry, students). This was because of the extremely sacrosanct significance of the phrase 'I am' itself. In the Scriptures, the phrase 'I am' is the closest that we have been told of God's name. It was a special word, a coded indication of God's identity. Moses, for example, when he asked for God's name upon being sent to free the Israelites, had received as a respond, "I am who I am" and "I AM has sent you" (Exodus 3:14). Thus by using that phrase when talking about himself, Jesus was indicating that he was God himself (so let it never be said again that Jesus never claimed to be God!). The Pharisees, of course, didn't believe this, and was outraged enough to want to stone him for blasphemy.
The second thing that Jesus' response revealed about himself was his eternality. Aside from identifying himself with God, who is eternal, the phrase itself indicated his claim to be timeless and eternal. First, there was the plain context of the phrase, especially the preceeding verses where he claimed that Abraham had seen Jesus' time and rejoiced. But the tense of his phrase on its own is a revelation of his eternality; the 'jumbled up' nature of the tense is a testament to the Speaker's timelessness. Only someone who exists outside of, and is not bound by, linear time, can utter words that imply their constant presence in defiance of the logical flow of time. In fact, if there were a grammatical tense that implies a speaker's timelessness, then Jesus would probably have used that tense instead instead of the present tense form of the word 'to be', i.e. 'I am'.
What this confirms to us is that, although as a human being he was subject to the laws of time and space, as God Jesus remained eternal, unbounded by linear time - hence, unlike the rest of us, he was also free from grammatical rules resulting by our need to indicate our existence in that linear time. For our the purposes of our present life, we can see this as a comfort. As I once heard a scholar recently said, "God is not surprised by history". Even as we live bound by the flow of history, both that of the world and our own personal history, God is - Jesus is. In defiance to grammatical rules but in reflection of the eternality of Christ, I would say that as we live our lives from beginning to the end: Jesus is there when we were born, Jesus is here with us today, and Jesus is there at the end of our Earthly lives. He sees our lives and history not as we see it, as threads being woven together, one by one, into a tapestry, but together as a full picture.
A final thought regarding Jesus' phrase that I would like to share draws more from the meaning of the word 'I am' itself in plain English grammar than from its theological or philosophical meanings, though not completely divorced from them. I now draw your attention to what the word 'I am' itself actually means, regardless of the tense. It is interesting that the word 'to be' (the root word of 'am', 'are' and 'is') , the main copular verb in the English language, has more than one meaning or usage (which might have enabled the English translation of the Bible to carry through the multiple layers of meanings of the phrase from the original text). The first is to indicate mere presence or mere existence. The first person 'I am' on its own simply means 'I am present now' or 'I exist now'. Another usage of 'to be' precedes another verb, especially in a continuous tense, situation or condition. For example: 'I am eating' means 'I am doing eating', and 'I am tired' means 'I am in the condition of tiredness'.
What does it mean for God to say 'I am' in this case, then? Can it mean that his declaration is not just a declaration of presence but also a declaration of action? That his mere presence inevitably implies his action? That simply by being, he is also doing? That when God is present with us, he is also actively doing something in relation to us? That his mere presence is an indication of his power and love moving through us and for us?
In all honesty, after much thinking, I still find Jesus' phrase so difficult to grasp, to understand completely. It is so beyond the scope of reason, in a cosmic scale, transcending time and space, yet so indicative of an ever-relevant and ever-present God. The more I think about it, the more questions I find than answers; and I can scarcely find the words to even express these questions, let alone find their answers. My mind is simply too finite to grasp such an infinite concept embodied in such a short sentence.
In the end, at least, one conclusion I have managed to crystalize and put in words is a simple one. It is that no other human being was, is and will ever be worthy to utter that delightfully enigmatic, mind-bogglingly wonderful, and grammatically challenging phrase about himself. "Before Abraham was, I am": only Jesus himself is the most tangible evidence that God is present and is active in the midst of us. Only Jesus himself is the embodiment that whenever we have been, are or will be, "God is".
Towards the middle of the chapter we find the unbelieving Pharisees challenging Jesus' seemingly extravagant claims (he claimed to be 'the light of the world', which naturally didn't go down well with his theological critics) as well as the validity of his testimony. And nearing the end of the chapter, we find their debate turning to Abraham and his identity as the father of the Jewish people. Jesus challenged their claim to be Abraham's children on the grounds that if they had been the patriarch's children, they would not have tried to kill me, because Abraham would not have done such a thing. Instead, he implied, they were children of the devil.Then the Pharisees sort of changed their story; now they claimed that "the only Father we have is God himself." (verse 41). Again Jesus said that if that were true, they would have loved him, because he came from the Father.
At this point the Pharisees decided to turn the accusations towards Jesus, and claimed that he was demon-possessed and was a Samaritan (which was probably like calling someone a 'raghead terrorist' today). In response, Jesus denied this accusation and said that his words are so true that anyone who keeps it will never die. Baffled and outraged, the Pharisees pointed out the apparent absurdity of that claim; their ancestral patriarch Abraham had died, as had the prophets, and yet this young man Jesus claimed that his words could give eternal life. They asked him if he was greater than Abraham himself. Jesus responded by saying that Abraham had seen Jesus' day and rejoiced. To the Pharisees, more absurdity. They pointed out to him that Jesus was not yet fifty, but claimed to have seen Abraham.
Then came Jesus' cryptic response - and yet, in my opinion, paradoxically one of the most profound and revealing things Jesus ever said regarding his identity: (wait for it...)
"I tell you the truth," Jesus said, "before Abraham was, I am." (Verse 58, NIV)
Whoa, hold on. What? Rewind, please.
N0w, I've been helping a couple of boys with their English. One of the biggest aspects of the English language that I feel they both often have problems with is tenses. It seems that their problem with using tenses in their written work is related to how they speak; in colloquial speech, correct use of tenses are often ignored. After all, most people write like they talk. Fortunately, they're both improving in their use of tenses, both written and spoken.
I also used to be their Sunday School teacher, and I would have loved to discuss Jesus' amazing statement with them there for its dense and intense meaning. But I don't think I would want to use it as an example of good grammar when I teach them English. Why?
The sentence is grammatically unsound and its use of tenses is poorly inconsistent. Correctly said, the sentence should have been "before Abraham was, I had been." The tense in which we use the word 'to be' or its various derivatives - of which 'am' is the first person singular form in the English language - is also important. The difference between 'I am' and 'I was' is when 'I' am present or is doing something. Which is why Jesus' phrase is grammatically incorrect; it is rationally (and grammatically) inconceivable that something is taking place now before something else took place in the past. (Feel free to take some aspirin at this point.)
But it reveals something a couple of very important things. First of all, by saying this Jesus revealed his identity to his listeners. In fact, it was more of a claim than a revelation. Upon hearing Jesus' final response, the Pharisees snapped and sought to stone him to death. This was not because he, a teacher, was using poor grammar (sorry, students). This was because of the extremely sacrosanct significance of the phrase 'I am' itself. In the Scriptures, the phrase 'I am' is the closest that we have been told of God's name. It was a special word, a coded indication of God's identity. Moses, for example, when he asked for God's name upon being sent to free the Israelites, had received as a respond, "I am who I am" and "I AM has sent you" (Exodus 3:14). Thus by using that phrase when talking about himself, Jesus was indicating that he was God himself (so let it never be said again that Jesus never claimed to be God!). The Pharisees, of course, didn't believe this, and was outraged enough to want to stone him for blasphemy.
The second thing that Jesus' response revealed about himself was his eternality. Aside from identifying himself with God, who is eternal, the phrase itself indicated his claim to be timeless and eternal. First, there was the plain context of the phrase, especially the preceeding verses where he claimed that Abraham had seen Jesus' time and rejoiced. But the tense of his phrase on its own is a revelation of his eternality; the 'jumbled up' nature of the tense is a testament to the Speaker's timelessness. Only someone who exists outside of, and is not bound by, linear time, can utter words that imply their constant presence in defiance of the logical flow of time. In fact, if there were a grammatical tense that implies a speaker's timelessness, then Jesus would probably have used that tense instead instead of the present tense form of the word 'to be', i.e. 'I am'.
What this confirms to us is that, although as a human being he was subject to the laws of time and space, as God Jesus remained eternal, unbounded by linear time - hence, unlike the rest of us, he was also free from grammatical rules resulting by our need to indicate our existence in that linear time. For our the purposes of our present life, we can see this as a comfort. As I once heard a scholar recently said, "God is not surprised by history". Even as we live bound by the flow of history, both that of the world and our own personal history, God is - Jesus is. In defiance to grammatical rules but in reflection of the eternality of Christ, I would say that as we live our lives from beginning to the end: Jesus is there when we were born, Jesus is here with us today, and Jesus is there at the end of our Earthly lives. He sees our lives and history not as we see it, as threads being woven together, one by one, into a tapestry, but together as a full picture.
A final thought regarding Jesus' phrase that I would like to share draws more from the meaning of the word 'I am' itself in plain English grammar than from its theological or philosophical meanings, though not completely divorced from them. I now draw your attention to what the word 'I am' itself actually means, regardless of the tense. It is interesting that the word 'to be' (the root word of 'am', 'are' and 'is') , the main copular verb in the English language, has more than one meaning or usage (which might have enabled the English translation of the Bible to carry through the multiple layers of meanings of the phrase from the original text). The first is to indicate mere presence or mere existence. The first person 'I am' on its own simply means 'I am present now' or 'I exist now'. Another usage of 'to be' precedes another verb, especially in a continuous tense, situation or condition. For example: 'I am eating' means 'I am doing eating', and 'I am tired' means 'I am in the condition of tiredness'.
What does it mean for God to say 'I am' in this case, then? Can it mean that his declaration is not just a declaration of presence but also a declaration of action? That his mere presence inevitably implies his action? That simply by being, he is also doing? That when God is present with us, he is also actively doing something in relation to us? That his mere presence is an indication of his power and love moving through us and for us?
In all honesty, after much thinking, I still find Jesus' phrase so difficult to grasp, to understand completely. It is so beyond the scope of reason, in a cosmic scale, transcending time and space, yet so indicative of an ever-relevant and ever-present God. The more I think about it, the more questions I find than answers; and I can scarcely find the words to even express these questions, let alone find their answers. My mind is simply too finite to grasp such an infinite concept embodied in such a short sentence.
In the end, at least, one conclusion I have managed to crystalize and put in words is a simple one. It is that no other human being was, is and will ever be worthy to utter that delightfully enigmatic, mind-bogglingly wonderful, and grammatically challenging phrase about himself. "Before Abraham was, I am": only Jesus himself is the most tangible evidence that God is present and is active in the midst of us. Only Jesus himself is the embodiment that whenever we have been, are or will be, "God is".
posted by jct at 1:55 AM
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