should be exempt from
death. Did He pretend to exalt Himself above Abraham and the prophets?
"Whom makest thou thyself?" they demanded. The Lord's reply was a
disclaimer of all self-aggrandizement; His honor was not of His own
seeking, but was the gift of His Father, whom He knew; and were He to
deny that He knew the Father He would be a liar like unto themselves.
Touching the relationship between Himself and the great patriarch of
their race, Jesus thus affirmed and emphasized His own supremacy: "Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." Not
only angered but puzzled, the Jews demanded further explanation.
Construing the last declaration as applying to the mortal state only,
they said: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen
Abraham?" Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was, I am."

This was an unequivocal and unambiguous declaration of our Lord's
eternal Godship. By the awful title I AM He had made Himself known to
Moses and thereafter was so known in Israel.[864] As already shown, it
is the equivalent of "Yahveh," or "Jahveh," now rendered "Jehovah," and
signifies "The Self-existent One," "The Eternal," "The First and the
Last."[865] Jewish traditionalism forbade the utterance of the sacred
Name; yet Jesus claimed it as His own. In an orgy of self-righteous
indignation, the Jews seized upon the stones that lay in the unfinished
courts, and would have crushed their Lord, but the hour of His death had
not yet come, and unseen of them He passed through the crowd and
departed from the temple.

His seniority to Abraham plainly referred to the status of each in the
antemortal or preexistent state; Jesus was as literally the Firstborn in
the spirit-world, as He was the Only Begotten in the flesh. Christ is as
truly the Elder Brother of Abraham and Adam as of the last-born child of
earth.[866]

BODILY AND SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS--SIGHT GIVEN TO A MAN ON THE
SABBATH.[867]

At Jerusalem Jesus mercifully gave sight to a man who had been blind
from his birth.[868] The miracle is an instance of Sabbath-day healing,
of more than ordinary interest because of its attendant incidents. It is
recorded by John alone, and, as usual with that writer, his narrative is
given with descriptive detail. Jesus and His disciples saw the sightless
one upon the street. The poor man lived by begging. The disciples, eager
to learn, asked: "Master, who did sin, this man, or h