JESUS.........I AM!

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
Thus we have the beginning of the first book of the Bible, which is the book of Firsts, the book of beginnings, introducing us to the Creator of the universe, Almighty God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:1-5
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. vs 5 NLT
At the commencement of John's Gospel, we are again introduced to our Creator God. However, in this chapter, as we read on, it is apparent that the writer is speaking about the eternal Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians believe that the Bible makes very clear that there is one God; however, this one God exists as, what is known as the Trinity - God in three persons, God the Father, God the Son - Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit. They are all different aspects of the one true God.
Of the four gospels in the Bible - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it is believed by most scholars that the Gospel of Mark was the first to be written, and the Gospel of John was the last. Matthew, Mark and Luke's gospels are referred to as synoptic gospels because they include many of the same stories and parables, often in a similar sequence and in similar wording. They stand in contrast to John's Gospel whose content is comparatively distinct.
One of the major tenets of the Christian faith is that Jesus Christ is one with the Father, as He Himself said while on earth. 
I have over the past couple of weeks been reading a wonderful book by Nabeel Qureshi, a young man who was brought up in a Muslim family by parents who loved him dearly, but who also were diligent to train him up in their Muslim traditions and to have a solid foundational knowledge of the Quran and the Hadith and other Islamic books. As a young man growing up, he and his sister were taught to memorize Islamic scripture, and to revere the prophet, Muhammed as the perfect example of a true Muslim.
Nabeel became good friends with David Wood, while they were studying together in college. David, a strong committed believer in Jesus Christ - a dynamic Christian, challenged Nabeel's Islamic beliefs, and through a time of serious questioning and honest searching, Nabeel eventually came to see the reality of Islam's serious flaws, and discovered that the picture perfect portrait of Muhammed crumbled also under careful and honest scrutiny. At the same time, his study and dialogue with scholarly Christians led him to embrace the God of the Bible, as he came to know the Jesus of the Bible - not just a prophet, a mere man like Muhammed, but in reality the second person of the triune God, the God-man who came to earth to live as a man, and die a cruel death on a Roman cross, a subsitutionary death for all sinners, that the wrath of God against sin might be appeased, and the way be made for sinful man to be reconciled to a loving Creator God, and Heavenly Father.
In his autobiographical book about his journey of faith, "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus", Nabeel Qureshi, in chapter 30 (all chapters are quite short), headed "The Divine Son Of Man", quotes from Josh McDowell, a seasoned apologist for the Christian faith, who has authored many popular books, including "Evidence That Demands a Verdict", and "More Evidence That Demands A Verdict".
Actually Nabeel opened up a copy of "New Evidence That Demands a Verdict" and made some astonishing discoveries about Jesus in his quest to know if Jesus was and is deity and who Christians claim Him to be.
Quoting from Nabeel's book, page 182:
If Jesus truly claimed to be God, we would expect His claim to be found in the earliest gospel, not just the last one. I needed to see Jesus' claim to deity found in the gospel of Mark. Without hesitation, I opened straight to the chapter on Jesus' deity and got started.
As if McDowell had read my mind, the very first evidence that he offered was "Jesus' own legal testimony concerning Himself" in Mark's gospel. When the high priest asked if He was the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus testified to the Sanhedrin: "I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."
The priests of the Sanhedrin thought that He made a statement about His identity that they considered blasphemous, warranting execution. There was only one identity claim that deserved such a harsh penalty: claiming to be God.
McDowell quoted a New Testament scholar, Craig Blomberg, who explained, "This reply [by Jesus] combines allusions to Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13.
In this context, 'Son of man' means far more than simply a human being.
Daniel 7:13,14 prophetically speaks of the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ - some six hundred years BC. "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence.
He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." NIV

In chapter 8 of John's gospel, in disputing with some Jewish leaders His divine credentials, Jesus stated that because they sought to destroy Him, they were of their father, the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning and there was no truth in him. in contrast, Jesus stated that He honoured His father, and kept His word - the word of truth. The Jews told Jesus they were children of Abraham by descent, to which Jesus replied: "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham." Further on in the discussion, the Jewish leaders challenged Jesus authority again, saying: "Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do you make yourself out to be?"
Jesus answered, "If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God.
Yet, you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, 'I do not know Him,' I shall be a liar like you, but I do know Him, and keep His word.
Your father rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad."
Then the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?"
Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, "before Abraham was, I AM." John 8:53-58.
Jesus again, as in the gospel of Mark, in stating of Himself: "I AM!" was clearly attesting to both His divinity and that He was eternal - His life had no beginning. The writer to Hebrews says of Him: Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Hebrews 13:8
To bring this first part of this blog theme "JESUS.....I AM" to a close, let us look back to the third chapter of Exodus in the Old Testament. Moses was eighty years old, and he was tending his father-in-law Jethro's flock in Midian, when he came to mount Horeb. It says in Exodus 2:2 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
The Angel of the Lord said to Moses, in verse 5: "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground."
Moreover He said, "I am the God of your father - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look upon God. vs 6.
The Lord went on to tell Moses that He had seen the oppression the children of Israel had suffered the previous four hundred plus years as slaves in Egypt and had come down to deliver them into a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey. He was calling Moses as their deliverer.
When Moses asked the Lord what he should tell the people of Israel was the name of the God of their fathers who was commissioning him to lead them out of bondage and slavery in Egypt, the Lord told him: "I AM WHO I AM."  And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you." Exodus 3:14
Early in the chapter when the Bible says the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses from the midst of the burning bush, the fact that the word Angel is capitalized indicates that this was no ordinary angel. This was what is called a theophany or more particularly a Christophany, an appearance of the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ - long before the Incarnation, when He would be born as a baby in Bethlehem and grow into a man whom we know from the Bible as Jesus, the Saviour of the world.
That is why, in the gospel accounts when Jesus was asked about His divine credentials, He as able to rightly say: "I AM."

The Seven "I AMs" OF JESUS in the Gospel of John is the subject of my next blog post coming soon. God Bless!

For info on how to become a Christian, please go to www.vision.org.au Click on the 'Grow your faith' tab, then 'Looking for God' or livingwaters.com then the Resources tab, then 'Save yourself Some Pain'.