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| Source: Heartbeats of Hope |
John 8:51-59
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” 52 The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?” 54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.55 But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it[a] and was glad.” 57 The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[b] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”[c] 59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.
Footnotes:
- 8.58 The present tense indicates Christ’s eternal existence as God.
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 473, 574 and 590 [see link below; we are having tech trouble with links]
http://www.catholiccrossreference.com/catechism/#!/search/John 8:51-59
Commentary
“Before Abraham was, I am” (8:52–59)
8:51–53. “He will never see death”: our Lord promises eternal life to those who accept and remain faithful to his teaching.
Sin, as the Fourth Gospel teaches, is death of the soul; and sanctifying grace, life (cf. Jn 1:4, 13; 3:15, 16, 36; etc.). Through grace we enter eternal life, a pledge of the glory we shall attain beyond this earthly life and which is the true Life. Blinded by their hostility, the Jews do not want to listen to the Lord and therefore they fail to understand him.
8:55. The knowledge our Lord is speaking about is more than intellectual knowledge. The Old Testament speaks of this “knowing” in the sense of love, faithfulness, generous self-surrender. Love for God comes from the certain knowledge we have of him, and the more we love him, the better we get to know him.
Jesus, whose holy human nature was intimately united (though not mixed) with his divinity in the one Person of the Word, continues to assert his singular and ineffable knowledge of the Father. But this accurate language of Jesus is absolutely incomprehensible to those who close themselves to faith: they even think he is blaspheming (cf. v. 59).
8:56. Jesus presents himself as the fulfilment of the hopes of the Old Testament patriarchs. They had stayed faithful, eager to see the Day of Salvation. Referring to their faith, St Paul exclaims: “These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:13). The most outstanding of those patriarchs was Abraham, our father in faith (cf. Gal 3:7), who received the promise of being father of an immense people, the chosen people from whom would be born the Messiah.
The future fulfilment of the messianic promises was a source of great joy for Abraham: “Abraham, our father, who was set apart for the future accomplishment of the Promise, and who hoped against hope, receives when his son Isaac is born the prophetic firstfruits of this joy. This joy becomes transfigured through a trial touching death, when this only son is restored to him alive, a prefiguring of the resurrection of the one who was to come: the only son of God, promised for the redeeming sacrifice. Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing the Day of Christ, the Day of Salvation: ‘he saw it and was glad’ ” (Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino, 2).
Jesus moves on a plane superior to that of the patriarchs, for they only saw prophetically, from “afar”, the Day of Christ, that is, the actual event of the Redemption, whereas it is Christ who brings it to pass.
8:58. Jesus’ reply to the sceptical remarks of the Jews contains a revelation of his divinity. By saying “Before Abraham was, I am” our Lord is referring to his being eternal, because he is God. Therefore, St Augustine explains: “Acknowledge the Creator, discern the creature. He who was speaking was a descendant of Abraham, but that Abraham might be made, before Abraham he was” (In Ioann. Evang., 43, 17). The Fathers recall, in connexion with the words of Christ, the solemn theophany of Sinai: “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14), and also St John’s distinction, in the prologue to his Gospel, between the world which “was made” and the Word which “was” from all eternity (cf. Jn 1:1–3). The words “I am”, used by Jesus so absolutely, are the equivalent therefore, of his affirming his eternity and his divinity. Cf. the note on Jn 8:21–24.
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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