But he goes beyond this.
He testifies that he has been from all eternity the manifestation of the very selfhood of the Father. Hear what he says:
“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
He traces his personality backward beyond the hour when the world was launched into space, before the stellar systems were created. He goes beyond time, he takes us into eternity, and in that unbegun and measureless distance declares with all the calm assurance of accustomed truthfulness that he had the glory, the visibility, the outward manifestation and splendor of the Father’s own essential selfhood; that his relation to him was that of one who was from all eternity his determination, definition and utterance.
Such claims as these are the claims of one who declares himself to be, and without restraint, nothing less than Almighty God.
On one occasion when talking to the Jews he said that Abraham had rejoiced to see his day, had seen it and was glad. They turned upon him and reminded him that he was not yet fifty years old, how then could he have seen Abraham, or Abraham him—that Abraham who had been dead nearly two thousand years?
He faced them and said:
“Verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.”
The striking thing in the statement is not the claim of pre-existence—great as that is—not that he claimed to have been in existence already—not fifty years merely, but two thousand—no! all these utterances are remarkable enough, but these are not the astounding thing he said. The astounding, the unspeakably extraordinary thing he said is found in just two words:
“I am.”