In context: John 8:51 "Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death." 52 The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, 'If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.' 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?" 54 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. 55 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. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad." 57 The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" 58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." 59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple."
Jesus speaks in verses 55, 56 and 58 as if his present ministry on earth stretches back to the time of Abraham and even before. The Jews rejected that. Jesus did not mean that Abraham had actually experienced his appearance on earth and seen it literally. Jesus was referring to Abraham's spiritual vision of his appearance on earth. At the birth of Isaac, Abraham had foreseen at the same time, the promised Messiah who would be a descendant of Israel. This was God's plan for the redemption of mankind.
So is it your doctrine, then, that Abraham and all those before Christ "tasted death?"
Or is your argument that Jesus says anyone who believes in Him will never die in the physical sense?
You say Abraham "didn't see Jesus' day." Well, perhaps not in the flesh, but according to Jesus, God is "not the God of the dead, but of the living." In fact, He uses this statement in support of the resurrection, stating that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He is not the God of the dead but of the living. So Abraham did see Jesus' day - quite literally.
This is not Jesus saying in some roundabout way that He was prophesied in Abraham's day. He made many bold (and outright) claims to be the Messiah of prophecy. Had this been His intention here, that is what He would have done.
Incidentally, claiming to be the Messiah also would not be a crime worthy of stoning, so the argument doesn't hold up there either.
Abraham had rejoiced to understand/see that. Jesus could make the claim to be greater than Abraham and the prophets because his blood reached back to Adam and reaches forward to us today. He reconciled man back to God. Galatians 3:29 "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."
Jesus could claim to be greater than Abraham because Abraham was created by/through Him (see John 1, Colossians 1, 1 Corinthians 8).
The gospels were written to make believers in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. When Jesus says "I am he," and "I am the one," he was the one that the Jews were looking for and expecting. He was the one that the OT prophets wrote about. "I am the Good Shepherd." "I am the way, the truth and the life."
A good study of the Old Testament Scripture is necessary if we are serious about understanding the New Testament Scripture.
Indeed - and we have looked at many Old Testament Scriptures to this end. We know that God alone is Israel's redeemer (Isaiah 43 & 44), that God will share His glory with no other (Isaiah 42), that we are to worship/fear the Lord our God and serve Him only (Deuteronomy 6, Luke 4), that Jesus was "found in the very form/nature of God" (note: Greek scholars have noted that neither of these expressions fully express the strength of the original Greek language in showing the divinity of Jesus), etc.
We know that Jesus was the Word that was God (John 1:1-14), that by Him and through Him all things were created (John 1:1-14, 1 Corinthians 8, Colossians 1), that He shared God's glory before the world came into being (John 17), that He will be worshipped as God by the angels and the saints (Revelation), that He will be called the "mighty God" (Isaiah), and that He is called God by the Psalmist, who is speaking through the Spirit (Psalm 45).
I could keep going. These are only a few of the tie-ins between the old and new testament. But in the same way that the New Testament can't be rightly understood without the context of the old, the Old Testament can't be rightly understood without the context of the new.
