<p>8:58 <i>Jesus said to them: Truly, truly, I say to you: I am of higher status than Abraham ever was</i>- When the Jews mocked Him for saying that He had seen Abraham, the Lord didn&rsquo;t respond that of course that wasn&rsquo;t what He meant; instead He elevated the conversation with &ldquo;before Abraham was I am&rdquo; (AV). These words are often misapplied to teach that the Lord Jesus existed before Abraham did. However, closer investigation reveals the opposite to be true. He did not say &lsquo;Before Abraham was, I was&rdquo;. He was the promised descendant of Abraham; we make a nonsense of God&rsquo;s promises to Abraham if we say that the Lord Jesus physically existed before the time of Abraham. The context is the discourse with the Jews concerning Abraham. As far as they were concerned, Abraham was the greatest man who would ever live. The Lord Jesus is saying &ldquo;I am now, as I stand here, more important than Abraham&rdquo;. As they stood there, He was the one to be honoured rather than Abraham. He is saying &lsquo;I am now, more important than Abraham ever was&rsquo;. It is possible to understand &ldquo;before&rdquo; in Jn. 8:58 with some reference to time, in the sense that before Abraham existed, Christ had been in God&rsquo;s plan right from the beginning of the world. It was because Jesus was &ldquo;before&rdquo; Abraham in this sense that he was &ldquo;before&rdquo; him in terms of importance. But the more comfortable reading is to understand &quot;before&quot; as referring to importance rather than time. In 2 Sam. 6:21 there&rsquo;s a good example of &ldquo;before&rdquo; meaning &lsquo;before&rsquo; in importance rather than time. David tells his wife: &ldquo;The Lord chose me <i>before</i> your father Saul&rdquo;. Actually, in terms of <i>time</i>, God chose Saul well before He chose David. But God chose David <i>above</i> Saul in terms of importance and honour.</p><p>&quot;I am&quot; may indeed be a reference to the Divine Name which Jesus, as the Father's Son, carried (Jn. 5:43). But &quot;I am&quot; is also used by the healed blind man in Jn. 9:9 with no apparent reference to the Name. The same Greek words are also used by Asahel in the LXX of 2 Sam. 2:20. Jesus and the Father were &quot;one&quot; and so for Jesus to bear the Father's Name is no reason to think that 'Jesus = God&quot;. Note however that the unity between Father and Son spoken of e.g. in Jn. 10:30 is the same kind of unity possible between the Father and all His children (Jn. 17). The use of the neuter form for &quot;one&quot; (<i>hen esmen</i>) in Jn. 10:30 shows that the Father and Son aren't interchangeable- they are at one with each other, not one and the same. And sharing such unity it is quite appropriate for them to share the same Name. A related misunderstanding is often applied to the comment of John the Baptist about Jesus- that &ldquo;He was before me&rdquo; (Jn. 1:30). John the Baptist was actually older than the Lord Jesus; he therefore meant that Jesus was &ldquo;before&rdquo; him in the sense of being more important than him. C.H. Dodd interprets this passage as meaning: &ldquo;There is a man in my following who has taken precedence over me, because he is&hellip; essentially my superior&rdquo; (C.H. Dodd, <i>Historical Tradition In The Fourth Gospel </i>(Cambridge: CUP, 1976) p. 274).</p>