…you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. —Jesus Christ of Nazareth, John 8:24

Some people, particularly Onenessians, believe Jesus claimed to be “I am that I am” of Exodus 3:14 because he used the phrase “I am” (which is translated in Greek as “ego eimi”). But is that connection to “I Am that I Am” what Jesus really meant? Is that what Jesus is really expecting us to believe for salvation? Is that what the Scriptures teach when we dig a little deeper and let the Scriptures, and Jesus, explain these statements? Or do we find something completely different when we simply let Jesus explain himself?

The simple answer is that when Jesus is allowed to speak for himself he completely refutes that he is what the term “I am that I am” means. When we allow him to explain himself, all he really told them was to believe what he had been telling them to believe about himself all along: that he is the Son of God.

To explain, let’s first consider whether or not it is automatically true that the phrase “I am” is a unique title for God. It is written in Luke 1:19 that an angel said, “ I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God.” In John 9:9, a man who was healed of blindness said, “I am.” In Acts 10:21, Peter said, “Behold, I am he whom you seek.” All of these used the exact same phrase that Jesus used. Were any of these expecting their hearers to believe they were God, the “I am that I am”? Not any more than any of us would expect someone to believe we were the great “I am” if we said, “I am.” The meaning of “I am” depends on the context in which it is used. And Jesus, as we shall see, was quite clear in his context. The real “problem,” as usual, is that people simply don’t hear him. And if anywhere that was the case, it was with the Jews.

So let’s let Jesus explain to us what he was actually saying. For this we back up just a few verses from our opening verse and read these words:

¹⁶Even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. ¹⁷It’s also written in your law that the testimony of two people is valid. ¹⁸I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me. (John 8:16–18)

In verse 16 Jesus says he (eimi) is not alone but that he (ego) is with the Father who sent him. Thus Jesus was claiming to be a separate “I am” from the “I am” of the Father. Again Jesus said, in verse 18, “ I am one who,” and then he said, in distinction to him, there is, “and the Father who.” One “who” plus one “who” equals two “whos”; thus, 1+1=2. Not two natures but two “whos.” In verse 17, Jesus explicitly referred to himself and his Father in the context of two “people.” Jesus was very consistent with his math in this passage, as he always was. In this case it was actually division, since he always kept himself and the Father divided into two distinct persons (by keeping his “I am” distinct from the person of the Father):

v. 26 There is a sender who (the Father), and there is a sent who (Jesus).
v. 26 There is a speaker who (the Father), and there is a hearer who (Jesus).
v. 28 There is one who does nothing of himself (Jesus), and there is another who (the Father) that taught the first who what to do.
v. 29 There is one who (the Father) that is with the doer who (Jesus) that is never alone.
v. 29 There is one (Jesus) who pleases the other who (the Father).

These are all according to Jesus. We believe he knew what he was talking about. We believe that those who say he meant something other than what is recorded in the Bible are not truly hearing Jesus when he describes himself! Nowhere does the Bible say that he was referring to his dual natures. That idea came into Christianity not by the apostolic Scriptures, but by way of the antichristians who invented the idea via the Trinitarians who adopted the Gnostic/antichristian doctrine of the Trinity.

Look at how the Jews responded in verse 25 to his statement in verse 24.

²⁴“I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” ²⁵ They said therefore to him, “ Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.” (John 8:24–25)

It should be obvious that the Jews did not interpret Jesus to mean that he was clearly claiming to be “I am that I am,” as many suppose. In fact, those who teach you that is what he meant, and the Jews understood that, are simply lying to you. They have either been misled themselves, or they are intentionally false teachers. The important part is that these Jews, just like many today, simply ignore Jesus’ own explanation!

To the contrary of what many claim, what Jesus was saying was very unclear to the Jews, and that is why they asked, “who are you?” It was not “clear” to these Jews, by any means, that he was “claiming to be the Father.” But let’s give these Jews the benefit of the doubt; perhaps the Jews were just so incredulous they couldn’t accept what Jesus really said. So let’s assume Jesus had to tell them what he was saying. And what did he say in explanation of himself? His reply was to repeat to them the same things he had been saying from the beginning. Clearly, he wasn’t trying to bring them to a new truth or sneak in a new revelation. So let’s look at those things that he actually did say, or we should say, had said, for in that way we will have Jesus’ answer, instead of the answer of men.

In the beginning of the passage, he told them he was the “light of the world.” We know that he said we also will be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). Does that mean we are also “I am that I am”? That would have been a fine way to try to tell them he was their God: by claiming that he was something he expected all of his disciples to be.

If we back up even more and look at what Jesus “had been saying,” we come across what he said three chapters earlier. In this case some Jews had taken up stones to kill him because he had broken the Sabbath and thus, in their opinion (according to John’s telling of the account), made himself equal to God. As an aside: in point of historical fact, neither breaking the Sabbath nor calling God “Father” would have been considered a “claim” to “being” God or “equal to God” according to Jewish culture. The likely issue the Jews had was that in claiming to be the heir to David’s kingdom, Jesus was threatening the harmony of the entire Jewish community because of the Romans who ruled over them. They did eventually experience just such a crisis in both the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD) and the Bar Kochba Rebellion (132–135 AD). Another issue, just as likely, which is strongly implied in Matthew 12, was their jealousy of his spiritual presence, power, and influence with the people.

What we do know for a certainty is Jesus’ explanation of himself, in which he told them plainly who he was:

Jesus therefore answered them, “Most assuredly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise. For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that He Himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires. For the Father judges no one, but He has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.” (John 5:19–23)

This is the consistent explanation, in distinction and separation between himself and the Father, that Jesus had been saying from the beginning, which he referred to in John 8:25. As we’ve pointed out earlier, saying he could do “nothing of himself” is the exact opposite of claiming to be “I am that I am.” In this way Jesus himself refuted the idea that he was claiming to be “I am that I am.”

The fact is, Jesus always kept himself personally distinct from God the Father. He himself was a man sent by God. Again, these are the kinds of things Jesus “had been telling them from the beginning” and that he continued to reiterate to them after he had said to believe in who he is.

³⁹…Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. ⁴⁰ But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this. ⁴¹ You do the works of your father.” (John 8:39–41)

Jesus went on to tell them that they were of their father the devil, and thus they were doing the works of their father the devil.

An example of jumping to conclusions can be seen in the Onenessian interpretation of these words:

²⁵Jesus said to them… ²⁶…“he who sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these I say to the world.” ²⁷ They didn’t understand that he spoke to them about the Father. (John 8:25–27)

Here Jesus was talking about the two different “whos,” himself and the one who sent him. Onenessians claim that Jesus was trying to tell these Jews that he was both the Father and the Son, but that is not what he said here at all. The correct way to understand Jesus is to hear what he actually said in places like this:

²⁸Jesus therefore said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he [i.e., “the Son of Man” as he just said], and I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I say these things. ²⁹ He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him .” (John 8:28–29)

The wrong way to understand Jesus is to take his statements like this and claim “he was trying to explain the differences between his dual nature and his human natures.” No, that would be interpreting by imposing traditions of men and also bearing false witness because Jesus did not say that.

Jesus simply did not claim to be personally both the Father and the Son in two natures but still one personality. Rather, he went on to explain, very clearly we might add, that the one who sent him, who was the other “who,” was none other than God the Father. In verse 54 Jesus tells them, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God.” So Jesus wasn’t saying he was the Father; rather, he was refuting it. And he wasn’t saying he was God (as in a future Trinitarian sense either), because Jesus consistently maintained his personal separation from God and the Father!

When Jesus said “I am,” this is what Jesus was claiming to be, as it is written: “The son of man” (vs.27), and again, “ a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God” (vs. 39). That is a brief sum total of his “I am” statement in John 8:24 when read in context. Jesus clearly and concisely refuted the idea that he was claiming to be “I am that I am” by simply saying:

Most assuredly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself. (John 5:19)

The great “I am that I am” simply could not say that without lying, and lying is one of the extremely limited few things that the great “I am that I am” cannot do. Onenessians make a liar out of Jesus in one of the very same places they attempt to make him into God!

Jesus’ message was summed up quite well in John 8:28: “When you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I say these things.” By this Jesus clearly stated what he meant by saying “I am he,” because he told us: he is the Son of Man.

We will deal with John 8:58 in the next chapter.

The Snake-Handler Factor: The idea that Jesus claimed to be “I am that I am” is a classic case of handling the Scriptures the way the snake handlers do. Very simply, Jesus did not say, “I am that I am” (any more than he said to purposely take up snake handling). Furthermore, what Jesus did clearly and explicitly say was that “the Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19). These two concepts, one that is clearly spoken out of the mouth of Jesus and one that can only be artificially imposed upon his intentions, are two completely contradictory ideas. By saying what he did say, Jesus himself refutes directly the Onenessian doctrine that Jesus is God, the “I am that I am.”

Jesus did not say, “I am that I am.” Jesus did say he could do nothing of himself. Jesus spoke explicitly about “himself.” Onenessians say he meant “natures.” Either Onenessians are liars about Jesus’ identity, or Jesus is a liar; there simply is no common ground.

Jumping to Conclusions. As we can see, never once did Jesus clearly explain that he is really God the Father incarnated into a man. Only by jumping to conclusions and putting words in Jesus’ mouth can people come up with that idea. The Jews did not understand him to mean that, and Jesus was very consistent in saying that he was a distinct who (never a distinct human nature, etc.) from the Father.

The OT Schoolmaster. The OT never taught, and no true Jew ever believed, that the Messiah would be “I am that I am” incarnated as a human.

Teach No Other Doctrine. Nowhere did the apostles expound on the idea that Jesus claimed to be “I am that I am,” nor did Jesus. That idea is definitely a later invention, and so adding that teaching is forbidden by the Scriptures. What that conclusion does do is negate and obscure Jesus’ clear explanations that he was a separate and distinct “who” that was not left alone, but that the Father “who” was with him and in him.

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