‘I AM He’

 

‘I AM He’

I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hell and of Death.

Revelation 1:18

We have been considering, for the past several days, the post-resurrection revelation of Christ to the Apostle John. We have considered that Christ proclaims His Vitality, His Mortality, and His Authority. As we have meditated upon the text, one more proclamation has presented itself. Here Christ proclaims His Divinity. Christ desires that we know Him as He is. He proclaims Himself often by using the ‘I AM’ formula. Let us, for a few moments dwell upon these Self-Revelations by which Christ makes Himself known to us. To the woman at the well, who referred to the Messiah, He said, ‘I AM He.’ He said, within the context of the feeding of the 5,000, ‘I AM the Bread of Life.’ He went on to declare, two chapters later, ‘I AM the Light of the world,’ and in controversy said, ‘Before Abraham was, I AM.’  To the grieving sisters of Lazarus He said, ‘I AM the Resurrection and the Life.’ To His Disciples He said, ‘I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’ To them He also said, ‘I AM the True Vine.’   To John in the Revelation, He said, ‘I AM Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending…the First and the Last.’ At the last, He proclaims, ‘I AM the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright and Morning Star.’ All these work together with our text which says, ‘I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hell and of Death.’ ‘Surely this Man is the Son of God.’ This is Our Emmanuel, ‘Our Lord; and Our God.’

Our most Gracious and Living God,
we rejoice today that You are God alone.
You live and abide forever,
And because You live, we shall live also.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning