“Before Abraham was born, I am.” What did Jesus mean by it? He was countering the Jews of his time who were insisting they were descendants of Abraham, as John 8 records, and they did not like his teaching in which he in turn insisted that to call themselves this was missing the point if they were liars, since it is Satan, not Abraham, who is father of liars, and Jesus was upsetting them even more by insisting his own real father is God Himself. I suggest Jesus meant to point to this having God as his own Father when he stated “Before Abraham was born, I am.” I believe he was showing how much greater it is to have God as true Father, even more so than having Abraham as father, since God is and was and will be, and is therefore the one who is before Abraham.
