Tuesday, May 04, 2010

I Am

John 6:20 But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."

20 ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἐγώ εἰμι· μὴ φοβεῖσθε.

The disciples had gone ahead of Jesus in a boat.  They were a few miles from shore and suddenly Jesus came to them.  Since this was night they were understandably afraid.  They thought that they were seeing a ghost of some kind.  Jesus reassures them with this short statement.

This is one area where it really helps to know at least a little Greek.  Jesus makes the statement ἐγώ εἰμι.  He could have simply said εἰμι, but He chose to add the pronoun.  This would likely make the disciples think of:

Exodus 3:14 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Μωυσῆν ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν καὶ εἶπεν οὕτως ἐρεῖς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ ὁ ὢν ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑμᾶς

See what God told Moses?  His name is simply ἐγώ εἰμι.  The same goes for Jesus.  While this is not necessarily an explicit claim to divinity it is certainly an implicit one.

What does this mean for us?  It means that we need to get Jesus right.  We need to rightly understand who He is if we are to worship Him.  Either He is divine and part of the Trinity or the Arians are right.  You can't have it both ways.  Choose this day whom you will serve.

1 comment:

Ρωμανός ~ Romanós said...

I serve the Living One who says, I am the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:8). Yes, that got the Lord in trouble for sure with the authorities. No one but Him can say that about Himself. Egó eimí...