Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?" 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. 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. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad." The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." John 8:53–58 (RSV)
Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 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.' " Exodus 3:13–14 (RSV)
C. S. Lewis, the Christian author, and apologist, once noted that: "Jesus is either a lunatic (or worse), or He is who He says He is.
There is no way that the Jews listening to Jesus did not get what He had just said. They may not have believed their ears at first, but it soon was all too clear, Jesus had called Himself by the Name.
You may have noticed in the Old Testament places where the word LORD appears in all capital letters. God's people had become so concerned about misusing God's Name that whenever they came upon it as they read, they would say 'Lord', rather than I AM.
For Jesus to say, 'Before Abraham was, I am.' could not be misunderstood. Jesus has claimed the divine Name for Himself. Those who heard Him would not have thought anything other than Jesus is a blasphemer. It lay beyond their ability to comprehend that Jesus could be God.
We stand at the far end of the equation. We would say, 'Of course, Jesus is God! How could He be anything else?' We struggle with Jesus being a human. We prefer Him only divine.
Neither place is where we would find life with the Father. Like the Jews, those who cannot imagine God to act in any other way than we like will not believe Jesus' witness to the Truth. Those who are too comfortable with Jesus also refuse to believe in His divine nature, which redeems us all.
As Luther pointed out: "We cannot know or feel saved, we can only believe it." We confess Jesus to be true God and true Man. We need not comprehend this Truth. We believe it.