John 8:58 - Did Jesus Really Say, "I AM"?

Many Bible versions render John 8:58 this way: "Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

And Ex. 3:14 this way: "God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

(Because of this, Trinitarians often refer to this as 'proof' that Jesus is the Hebrew GOD of the Old Testament.)

But are the words "I am" supposed to be God's name? Even if it were so, would it make sense in John 8:58 for Jesus to say the equivalent of, "Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was...JEHOVAH?!?"

Looking at the context, the correct phrasing of this sentence should be "I was" instead of "I am" when used after the word "before." Also in verse 57, the question to which Jesus was replying had to do with age, not identity.

During the exchange with the Jews leading up to John 8:58, nowhere does Jesus claim to be God. And as we've already seen, the words "I am" at John 8:58 (including the blatant unwarranted use of capitalization) is not only inaccurate but nonsensical.

Several translations phrase John 8:58 the correct way by which Jesus was actually illustrating how long he has existed. One, for instance:

"Jesus answered, "The truth is, I EXISTED BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS EVEN BORN!" (NLT)

Besides that, numerous Trinitarian authorities even have to admit that "I am" in Ex. 3:14 is not even correct and should be rendered more like "I will Be" (the meaning of God's name rather than God's personal name itself...Jehovah):

Encyclopedia Britannica:

"The writer of Exodus 3:14-15 ... explains it [the meaning of God's name] by the phrase EHYEH asher EHYEH (Ex. iii., 14); this can be translated `I am that I am' or more exactly `I am wont to be that which I am wont to be' or `I will be that which I will be.'" - p. 995, 14th ed., v. 12.

For much more, see:

I AM (John 8:58 / Ex. 3:14) - Links to Information (Search For Bible Truths)

John 6:52-68: Why Did "Many" of Jesus' Disciples Stop Following Him? Is There a Lesson Here For Christians Today?

John 6:52-68: Why Did "Many" of Jesus' Disciples Stop Following Him? Is There a Lesson Here For Christians Today?

This instance is where Jesus wanted his listeners to understand that the eating of his flesh and drinking his blood would be done in a figurative way. He was emphasizing that all who receive everlasting life must exercise faith in the sacrifice that he is to make when he offers up his perfect human body and pours out his lifeblood. Yet, even many of his disciples made no attempt to understand his teaching and so objected by saying: “This speech is shocking; who can listen to it?”

After many of his disciples left and no longer wished to follow him, Jesus asked his 12 apostles: “You do not want to go also, do you?” What Peter said next is key and is something that Christians can learn from:

"Who shall we go to? You have the MESSAGE OF ETERNAL LIFE." - John 6:68 (The Jerusalem Bible)

Today, which organization provides the ESSENTIAL Scriptural teachings for true Christians such as:

--- Exactly who is God? (John 17:3 and 2 Thess. 1:7, 8, among others, show how essential such knowledge really is.)

--- Who, alone, is proclaiming God's Name as He says must be done in the last days? (Ezek. 39:6, 7; Jer. 17:19-21)

--- Who, alone, is actively preaching the kingdom in the entire world as Jesus said must be done in the very last days? (Matt. 24:14; 28:19). Not all the nearly 1 billion members of Christendom combined are as active in "all the nations" as is the Watchtower Society, and no other organization even begins to approach the Watchtower organization in publications which further that "Great Commission." And certainly none of Christendom's organizations are actively preaching the kingdom message at all.

-- Who alone has actually made a reality of the "one body ... one spirit ... one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all"? - Eph. 4:4-6. Who has really embodied a great crowd who sincerely strive for "complete lowliness of mind and mildness, with long-suffering ... earnestly endeavoring to observe the oneness of the spirit in the uniting bond of peace"? - Eph. 4:2,3.

This very solid unity or "oneness" which is so often criticized is, in itself, a necessity according to Scripture (and reason). It is also unique among all the organizations claiming to be Christian today.

Obviously there are other important Scriptural teachings which this organization lives by that other organizations either completely ignore or give only lip-service to. But when considering only these few essentials even, it becomes obvious that there is either only one organization today being guided by Jehovah's spirit or there is none.

Many who became Jehovah's Witnesses came to the same conclusion Peter came to in John 6:68 in spite of some doubts about the certainty of various other teachings and Scriptural interpretations by the Watchtower Society. Some of these teachings can seem quite important, but, EVEN IF wrong, these are not really the "messages of eternal life".

Shouldn't these Witnesses hope to follow the God-appointed leadership on earth which has "the message of eternal life" even if it tells them a few things they personally find difficult to accept or understand? Even if they believe they can prove it is probably wrong in certain of these secondary areas? After all, "Who else is there to go to?" Who else has the message of eternal life?

It's not worth being "right" and losing everlasting life for it. There must be priorities in all things. Being right in one area does not compensate for being wrong in a greater area. Who would choose an operation to remove a small non-harmful blemish which may be causing some slight irritation when there is a distinct possibility that the operation itself will lead to death?

Jehovah's servants are commanded to be "fitly united in the same mind and in the same line of thought." (1 Cor. 1:10; Php. 2:2; 1 Pet. 3:8) This means, of course, being united where the interests of pure worship are involved - the important things - not in minor matters that will be resolved as maturity is reached. (Rom. 14:2-6, 17) They are to be "of the same mind in the Lord." (Php. 4:2), not to be quarreling, but to "think in agreement." (2 Cor. 13:11)

For more, see:

Unity - Links to Information (Search For Bible Truths)

John 6:64 - In What Sense Did Jesus Know "From the Beginning" Who Would Betray Him? Did Judas Not Have Free Will?

“From the beginning Jesus knew . . . who was the one that would betray him.” (John 6:64)

Jesus was obviously familiar with the Hebrew Scripture prophecies in Psalms 41:9 and Psalms 109:8 and so he knew that he would be betrayed by a close associate, though the Scriptures did not specifically name anyone. It could have even been any of his other disciples, (remember the 70 that was sent out at Luke 10:1) or even an unbelieving family member.

And when Jesus selected the men to be his Apostles, he didn't choose a "bad" one just to "fulfill" the prophesy. He spent a night in prayer, showing that he relied on his Father's direction. Since James says that God has nothing to do with 'evil', He would have guided his Son to pick faithful men. (James 1:13)

Even though God can use His foreknowledge, it is inconsistent with God’s qualities and past dealings to think that Judas had to fail, as if he were predestined. At the beginning of Judas' apostleship, Judas was faithful to God and to Jesus. So what Jesus may have meant that “from the beginning” of when Judas started to go bad, Jesus recognized it.

Note the Bible also describes the Devil as being sinful “from the beginning.” (1 John 3:8) But this does not mean from his creation as a faithful son of God, but from the start of his course of rebellion against God. Likewise in the case of Judas Iscariot, Jesus knew “from the beginning,” or at the outset of Judas’ wrongful course, that Judas was the one who would betray him.
(Also See: How Did One of God's Spirit Sons Become Satan the Devil, and What Was His Motive?; Search For Bible Truths)
 
For more, see:

Predestination / Destiny / Fate / Foreordination - Links to Information (Defend Jehovah's Witnesses)

Is Your Future Predestined?

Does God foreordain our life course and ultimate destiny? What does the Bible say? (g 2/09 pp. 12-13; Watchtower Online Library)

Can You Control Your Destiny?

Freedom of choice precludes predestination. ... Predestination is linked with the idea that God must have a detailed plan for the universe... (w05 1/15 pp. 4-7; Watchtower Online Library)

What Controls Your Future?

There is also the doctrine of predestination, which promotes the view that “the ultimate salvation or damnation of each human individual has... (w05 1/15 pp. 3-4; Watchtower Online Library)

What Do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe About Jesus' Body Being 'Dissolved' Before He Was Resurrected as a Spirit?

Original Q and A's

The term “dissolved” was last used of Christ’s dead body in the 1953 Watchtower (w53 9/1; 518). Today we do not use that term to explain how God disposed of Christ’s human body. There (does not appear to be) anything inaccurate in using the word since one of its definitions is “to separate into parts or elements; disintegrate. Its just that “dissolve” also has unwanted connotations such as a slower process.

Witnesses believe exactly what the Bible states and they can also draw valid conclusions from those clear statements.

First, every explicit Scripture says that Jesus was resurrected with an invisible "spirit" body and not a visible fleshly body (1 Tim. 6:16; Eph. 1:17,18; 1 Pt. 3:18; 1 Cor. 15:42-50; Acts 13:34; 2 Cor. 5:16; Lk. 17:20; Mt. 24:3-39; 25:31; Jn. 6:51; Heb. 2:7-9, Phil. 2:7-10).

"Even Christ died once for all time concerning sins ... he being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit."

Heb. 1:3 says that Jesus is now "the exact representation of [God's] very being." God is a Spirit and has never been flesh.

Christ's own words specifically said: "The world will see me no more... (Jn. 14:19).

Now we are given several facts in God’s Word from which we can draw reasonable conclusions as to what happened to Christ’s human body.

1.) The Bible says of Christ: “... concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption” (Acts 2:31; Ps. 16:10).

Death and corruption was the punishment for sinful humans and so was NOT appropriate for the perfect man Jesus. It Christ body was not allowed to see corruption or decompose like sinful humans then God must have disposed of it in some instantaneous manner. So it is only logical to conclude that God miraculously caused Jesus’ body to disappear without corruption by being disintegrated (dissolved) back into the elements from which all human bodies are made.

2.) Next, Jesus Christ gave his flesh as a ransom for us (Jn. 6:51). Having given us his flesh if he ever took it back again he would nullify his sacrifice. If Christ had kept his body then there was no ransom!

According to Heb. 10:5-10 Christ's physical body was "prepared" so that it could be "offered," once and for all time. So when it had been "offered" then it had served it's purposed. Then, just as the animal sacrifices under the Law were disposed of so likewise would the body of Jesus would be disposed of (Heb. 13:10,11).

3.) Additionally, Moses foreshadowed Christ. When Moses died God took his body away (Deut. 34:5,6). Similarly, God removed Jesus' body just as he had removed Moses' body. While Moses’ body returned to the dust by process of decay, Christ’s body could not see corruption.

We also can draw several other logical conclusions as to why God removed Christ’s body.

Removing the body also helped Jesus' disciples to understand that he had been raised from the dead. A body would hamper the belief of the disciples in the fact that Jesus had been resurrected.

The body could have made it difficult to prove that Jesus had been resurrected. Opposers of the Christians could point to the body of Jesus after he was resurrected and claim that as evidence against his resurrection.

God's disposing of the body would prevent it being used as an object of worship as is done by the apostate church with the supposed bones of "saints." Again, this was prefigured with Moses. Jude writes that the Devil desired to get the body of Moses to use it as an object of worship.

Therefore, the conclusion that God miraculously disposed of Christ’s dead human body by simply disintegrating it is a reasonable conclusion. It logically follows from the evidence found in God’s Word.

On the other hand, the teaching that Christ was raised with a physical body must break every major rule of exegesis and demand that we have an ignorance of Greek grammar, of word definitions, and of the context..

Further, such an idea must contradict EVERY explicit statement in the Bible regarding Christ's heavenly body.

The only way we could believe that the heavenly Christ has a body of flesh would be to rip figurative language out of context and twist it to agree with our personal theology.

"Corporeal visibility to men in the present life is a dream, altogether unsanctioned in the New Testament, and calculated from age to age to involve feeble believers in disappointment."— Glasgow; The Apocalypse, Translated and Expounded, p. 126. Edinburgh, 1872.

(Source: This is the chosen best answer given by Bar_Anerges to this question.)

Addressing the Trintarian Claim That MonoGENES ("Only-BEGOTTEN") Means "The Only One of a Class or Kind"

Some Trinitarians try to claim that the last half of the word monoGENES "only-BEGOTTEN" is not from ginomai ("to come into being" ['born']) but from genos ("kind"). Hence, they claim, the term refers to "the only one of a class or kind." Thus some trinitarian translations speak of Jesus as the "only Son" (see RSV, NEB, JB, AT quotes at beginning) rather than the "only-begotten Son" of God (John 1:14; 3:16, 18; 1 Jn 4:9) - KJV, ASV, NASB.

However, even if we accept the claim that genos is the correct source word for monogenes, we need to examine the claim of some trinitarians that genos does not include the meaning of "begotten"/"made." The Greek word genos has "offspring" and "birth" as some of its meanings even in the trinitarian NT Concordances (Young's Analytical Concordance of The Bible; Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible; and New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, p. 1640).

The very trinitarian W. E. Vine in his highly-regarded An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 805, ADMITS that genos is "(akin to ginomai, to become), [and] denotes an offspring."

Yes, even the trinitarian RSV and NEB (noted above as rendering monogenes as "only" in certain verses relating to Jesus - including Jn 1:18) were forced to use the proper meaning of "offspring" for genos itself at Rev. 22:16 - "I Jesus....am the root and offspring [genos] of David." Compare Acts 17:28, 29 - "'For we indeed are his offspring [genos].' Being then God's offspring [genos], we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, silver or stone..." - RSV.

According to certain trinitarians, then, the above Scriptures plainly state that Jesus must be one of the kind [genos] of David [or of the David kind]- Rev. 22:16, and Christians and non-Christian Athenians must be of the God kind [genos] - Acts 17:28, 29. This is obviously ridiculous and the proper meaning of "begotten" or "made/produced" cannot be avoided in these Scriptures. Christians (and the men of Athens whom Paul was speaking to) were made or created by God and are His genos ("offspring" or "begotten") in that sense.

Anything that is "begotten" or "born" (or a "son"), then, is something that at one time did not exist and then was brought into existence. (E.g., Adam, the creation of God was called the "SON of God" - Luke 3:38.) This does not refer simply to Jesus' earthly existence but also to his original heavenly existence as shown by 1 John 4:9 which refers to the time when Jesus was "in the beginning with God," even "before the world was." - (John 1:1, 2; 17:5, 24). At that time he was already "the only-begotten [monogenes] Son." - 1 John 4:9, NASB, ASV, KJV. Even the highly trinitarian NT Greek scholar, W. E. Vine, in his An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 813, admits that Jesus was the Father's "only-begotten Son" before he came to earth.

For much more, see:
Only-begotten god (OBGOD) (Examining the Trinity)

Only-Begotten (Monogenes) - Links to Information (Search For Bible Truths)

Luke 19:40 - What Did Jesus Mean By Saying, "The Stones Would Cry Out"?

Luke 19:40 - What Did Jesus Mean By Saying, "The Stones Would Cry Out"?

When the Pharisees objected to the crowds’ hailing Jesus as “the One coming as the King in" God’s name, he said: “I tell you, If these remained silent, the stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:38-40)

The commission to preach and make disciples given by Jesus Christ over nineteen centuries ago was to continue “until the conclusion of the system of things.” (Matt. 28:19, 20) Because the work is not man’s but God’s, individuals themselves may fail, but nothing will prevent God’s purpose from being carried out to reach people to the extent He desires before the destruction of the present system of things. God could, if necessary, cause the ‘stones to cry out.’ (Luke 19:40)

Likewise, if God’s people today were to fail in exposing the wickedness that exists in this world, ‘out of the wall a stone itself would cry out plaintively.’ (Habakkuk 2:11)

However, the stones will not have to cry out. Today, God’s people realize that God has asked his faithful servants to be His Witnesses and to tell others about Him:

"Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen;" (Isa. 43:10) - ASV

And at the time of this writing, this preaching activity is going on in at least 236 lands worldwide.

What Did Jesus Mean When He Said That Only God is Good? (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19)

What Did Jesus Mean When He Said That Only God is Good? (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19)

Jesus is not saying here that he isn't "good". The point Jesus was making here was that God is good in the absolute and consummate sense. Jesus recognized God as the ultimate standard of what is good. (Ps. 25:8; Zech. 9:17) Though Jesus Christ had this quality of moral excellence, he would not accept “Good” as a title. That is why he said to the one who addressed him as “Good Teacher”: “Why do you call me good? Nobody is good, except one, God.” (Mark 10:17, 18) So Jesus was saying that no one is as good as God is, not even Jesus himself. God is good in a way that separates him from Jesus.

Mark 10:18 (and similarly Luke 18:19) are just two of hundreds of Scriptures where Jesus clearly referred to himself as a distinct and separate person from God. The Bible repeatedly shows that Jesus is not God but is exactly as the Bible said he was - God's Son. (John 1:18; John 10:36)

Additional Reading:

Mark 10:17, 18—Why did Jesus correct a certain man for calling Him “Good Teacher”? (w08 2/15 p. 28-p. 30 par. 9; Watchtower Online Library)

Why did Jesus correct the man who addressed him with the words “Good Teacher”? (cl chap. 27 pp. 270-279; Watchtower Online Library)

SCRIPTURE INDEX (Watchtower Online Library)

The Bible’s Viewpoint - Was Jesus Really the Son of God? (g 3/06 pp. 12-13; Watchtower Online Library)