El Olam
“Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.”
The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!” John 8:56-58
As I read this scripture in the Bible Plan the other day I found myself intrigued at the way in which Yahshua the Christ answered these questions. In the verses prior He was expressing the eternal life that was being made available to those with whom He was speaking. Unsurprisingly, they did not like His answers. His answers flowed out of the space of eternity not past, present, or future. Because those asking were positioned in the finite mind rather than the infinite, they were not asking the right questions, nor did they have the right heart so they could not comprehend His statements of eternity.
His answer, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!” He did not say, “I was….” In a natural mind it would have made more sense for Him to say, “Before Abraham was even born, I was.” His statement was present tense because He knew Olam, ever before and ever after, all at once, happening right now. He declared the right now, present. Regardless of what they asked or thought of the answer, Jesus answered in truth.
Jesus knew that Abraham understood the infinite and everlasting, and Christ was honoring what Abraham identified in the earth with His answer to these people.
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. Genesis 21:33
Christ was standing in this place, eternal and everlasting. In the moment when Abraham called upon Yahweh as the eternal, everlasting, infinite God. Abraham recognized the infinite facet of our Father and honored and worshipped Yahweh God as the El Olam or Eternal, Everlasting God.
As we now have a greater understanding of Olam, these moments were not happening years apart, but rather they were taking place at the same time and Yahweh is in all of them. As Abraham was calling on the name of the eternal God in Genesis 21, Christ was declaring that He is I Am that is before Abraham was born in John 8:58 yet He knew Abraham was witness to the day He was in in John 8:56. His answer was a now answer!
Yahweh’s word takes on a whole new context when you read them with the mind of Christ and acknowledge that God is the eternal, ever before, ever after God. Life abundant and infinite life.