"Who are you?"

“So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.” (John 8:25 ESV)

Chapter 8 of John’s gospel contains one of the interesting discourses of Jesus’s ministry. It forensically proceeds as a trial. In this trial, the Pharisees attempt to convict Jesus of blasphemy. During this trial, Jesus goes from being the accused to becoming the accuser. He ends this “trial” with the Ego Eimi (I am) statements in which He tells the Pharisees He is God.  “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (v58). Jesus was saying He existed before Abraham, and that Abraham rejoiced at seeing His day. Jesus used a term He used frequently, “I am.” The exact words God spoke to Moses on Sinai, “God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)

Jesus used the phrase I am a lot. I am the truth and the life (John 14:6), I am the vine (John 15:5), I am the gate (John 10:6). Who are you? What a question. Some believe we all (the elect) have a God given desire to know God. Calvin wrote: “Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” [1] B. B. Warfield wrote of Calvin, “Calvin is thoroughly assured. He lays it down as incontrovertible fact that "the human mind, by natural instinct itself, possesses some sense of a deity" (I. iii. 1, ad init. et ad fin.; —sensus divinitatis or deitatis).[2]

Sensus divinitatis is the idea that we all have a gifted inner knowledge of God.

I believe it is God who awakens that inborn knowledge—the knowledge that makes us aware of the God-shaped hole in our hearts—the hole that sends us seeking fulfillment, a sense of the need to be made whole. Yet, it is not until God sends the gospel to us that we are blessed with His grace. Through grace, we find faith, and through faith in Christ Jesus, we are saved, made righteous, before the one holy God.

Although most Pharisees were elders, they chose to ignore that inner knowledge if they had it at all. Instead of humbling themselves before God, they sought power, money, stature, and notoriety. This was a vicious cycle found in Israelite history.

Is there an emptiness within you? A longing for something more fulfilling in life? Is there something missing? Do you wonder about God? Where He is? Does He know you? God may have awakened the hidden divine knowledge within you. It is His calling card—a sense that provides motivation to seek Him. God is patient, and He waits to call us, often until we are broken and have nowhere else to go.

We will all cease to exist at some point physically. Scripture tells us there are two alternatives for eternity. One for those who do not know or reject the Son of God as their Savior, this is hell. It is real, and surprisingly, Christ tells us more about hell than anyone else in the Bible. Second, and for most of us, the preferred destination is heaven. There, in a new eternal body, free of pain and illness, we will worship God forever. You can decide which one to choose. As Brother Zengler says, I pray you “Choose Life and Get Saved”.

If you need more information on Christ Jesus and salvation through faith in Him and His finished work on the cross, please contact us at In Messiah Ministries.

Grace and Peace

[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.1.1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 4.

[2] B. B. Warfield on Calvin as quoted in: warfield_calvinknowledge.pdf