That this was a claim to be the great I AM of the Old Testament is made clear by the immediate reaction of the

Jews, `Then took they up stones to cast at Him'. One of the sins that was punished by stoning was that of

blasphemy, and this was the interpretation which the Jews put upon the words, and which was not corrected either

by the Lord or by the evangelist.

We have already drawn attention to the fact that the normal rules of grammar were broken by Moses when he

construed a singular verb with a plural noun in writing Genesis 1:1. Here again, in John 8, the subject is beyond the

experience, the logic, or the language of man to express. Had the Saviour merely meant His hearers to understand

that He was born before Abraham, a claim that of itself would be impossible to any ordinary man, he would have

been obliged to use the past tense of the verb, saying `Before Abraham was, I WAS', but to say, `Before Abraham

was, I AM' does not make sense if uttered by an ordinary man. Here, the choice of words, ego eimi points to the

Deity of the Speaker. Can we imagine John the Baptist using any other language than that recorded in John 1:30

`He was before me'?

Referring once again to Isaiah 43:10 we continue the subject of the witnesses of Jehovah:

`Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me'. The immediate context of these words

places `no strange god' over against `no God formed', and in Isaiah 44:10 speaks of one `who hath formed a god, or

molten a graven image'. Calvin says of the words `Before Me there was no God formed' - `This contains a kind of

irony as if it had been said that there was no other god that had not been made and formed by mortals'. Had the

passage stayed there, no difficulty would have presented itself, but it continues `neither shall there be after Me'. If

this is taken to mean, that after the revelation given by and through Isaiah, no one would ever make an idol any

more, it is manifestly untrue. Again, it does not say `After' a revelation, etc. but `After Me'. The full sentence

therefore is:

`Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall (there) be (a god formed) after Me'.

The Hebrew word yatsar `to form' is found four times in Isaiah forty-three:

` ... He that formed thee, O Israel';

` ... every one that is called by My name ... I have formed him';

` ... before Me there was no God formed';

`This people have I formed for Myself'; (Isa. 43:1,7,10,21).

From Isaiah 44:2 and 24 we discover that this word `form' can refer to childbirth, and before any of these lines

were written Isaiah had uttered the great Messianic prophecy:

`For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His

name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father (lit. The Father of the

Ages), The Prince of Peace' (Isa. 9:6).

`A child BORN ... The MIGHTY GOD (El Gibbor Hebrew). Were ever such momentous words written before or

since? There can be no possible doubt as to the intention of Isaiah here, or possibility of watering down this

extraordinary revelation, for in the next chapter the same prophet who had revealed the glorious mystery of the First

Advent, takes us to the Second Advent, and uses the same title:

`And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob,

shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in

truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto The Mighty God' (El Gibbor) (Isa. 10:20,21).

The first occurrences of the Hebrew word yatsar `form' are in Genesis 2:7,8 :

`And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground ... the man whom He had formed'.

This man was made in the image and after the likeness of his Creator, and in Genesis 5:1-3 that `image' was

passed on to Seth who was begotten in his father, Adam's likeness. We must consider this revelation further, but

before we do let us consider a related theme. The three outstanding passages in the New Testament where creation

is ascribed to Christ are the three passages where we have the title `Word', `Image' and `Express Image'; namely in