John 8:56-59

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day Ηγαλλιασατο ινα ιδη την ημεραν, exulted with desire, to see my day. “The words ινα ιδη, that he might see, immediately following the verb, show,” as Dr. Campbell observes, “that it cannot mean here, rejoiced, but rather signifies, desired earnestly, wished, longed.” Indeed, the expression may with the strictest propriety signify, “leaping forward with joy to meet the object of our wishes, as well as exulting in the possession of it.” By his day, our Lord seems to mean, the time when the promised seed should come, in whom all nations were to be blessed by being converted from idolatry to the knowledge and worship of the true God; and put in possession of all the blessings attendant on true religion. He earnestly desired, as if our Lord said, to see the great transactions of my life, by which these blessings were to be procured for all nations, and to take a view of the happy state into which the world would be brought, when they were bestowed upon them. And he saw it, and was glad His faith was equivalent to seeing. By the favour of a particular revelation, Abraham had a distinct foresight of these things, and was exceedingly transported with the prospect. If then you want to know my person and character, you may form some notion of both from the disposition with which Abraham regarded me. Our Lord, therefore, plainly enough assumed the character of the Messiah on this occasion. Then said the Jews, Thou art not yet fifty years old, &c. Understanding what he said in a natural sense, they thought he affirmed that he had lived in the days of Abraham; which they took to be ridiculous nonsense, as he was not arrived at the age of fifty; for they had no conception of his divinity, notwithstanding he had told them several times that he was the Son of God. Jesus saith, Verily, &c., before Abraham was, I am Greek, πριν Αβρααμ γενεσθαι εγω ειμι, “before Abraham was born, I am, that is, I had a glorious existence with the Father, and am still invariably the same, and one with him.” So Doddridge. Thus also Dr. Campbell, who observes, “I have followed here the version of Erasmus, which is close, both to the sense and to the letter: Antequam Abraham nasceretur ego sum. Diodati renders the words in the same way in Italian. Heylin and Wynne translate in English in the same manner. Εγω ειμι, (which we translate I am,) may indeed be rendered I was. The present for the imperfect, or even for the preterperfect, is no unusual figure with this writer. However, as an uninterrupted duration, from the time spoken of to the time then present, seems to have been suggested, I thought it better to follow the common method.” Our Lord here, in the strongest terms, appears to assert his proper divinity, declaring himself to be, what St. John more largely expresses, (Revelation 1:8,) the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, who is, was, and is to come, the Almighty. See also Exodus 3:14; Hebrews 1:12.

As to rendering this clause, Before Abraham was born, I was: notwithstanding the nicest critical distinctions, it must at least be acknowledged that this is a very unusual sense of εγω ειμι, and the less necessary, as the proper and common translation affords us a just and important sense, and one to which none but the enemies of our Lord's divinity can object. It is indeed striking to observe the unnatural construction to which they have recourse who stumble at this text. The Socinians, with the most perverse impropriety, render the passage thus: “Before Abraham was made Abraham,” that is, the father of many nations, in the spiritual sense of the promise, “I am the Messiah.” Grotius and others, of too much learning not to discern the proper force of the words, are of opinion that our Lord only affirms of himself that he was before Abraham in the divine decree. But 1st, Christ says this in answer to the objection of the Jews, which had no respect to the priority of these two persons in the decree of God, but as to actual existence. 2d, This sense of the passage is trifling indeed, if our Lord was no more than a man, it being certain that all creatures, of whatsoever order, existed equally soon in the divine decree. Besides, that our Lord did really exist at the time mentioned in the text, is plain likewise from John 17:5. Nor is it to be imagined that, if our Lord had been a mere creature, he would have ventured to express himself in a manner so nearly bordering on blasphemy, or have permitted his beloved disciple so dangerously to disguise his meaning; a meaning indisputably clear to every plain and unprejudiced reader; a full proof whereof is the manner in which his hearers now received it: for, filled with rage, upon the blasphemy, as they thought it, of his claiming divinity to himself, they immediately prepare to inflict the punishment of a blasphemer upon him, by stoning him. But Jesus hid himself Greek, εκρυβη, was hidden, or concealed, probably suddenly be came invisible; and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, unobserved, and so passed by Or passed on, with the same ease as if none had been there.