What the Psalms Teach Us About Jesus as the Great “I AM”
What do you know to be true about the GREAT I AM? This was the question I asked myself as I read through the Psalms last month while simultaneously studying the seven “I AM” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. I was impressed with more than twenty-five echoes of Jesus’ self-descriptors of “I AM” in the book of Psalms.
When God commissioned the shepherd Moses to serve as a prophet to His people, the Israelites, Moses asked God to identify Himself. God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), and Jesus repeated this claim about Himself to the Jews, as recorded in John 8:58. “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I AM!” This bold claim caused the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day to pick up stones to murder Him because He was aligning Himself with their holy LORD, YHWH.
Comparing the character of the LORD in the Psalms to the life and teachings of Jesus in the Gospel, I’ve found comfort and a strengthening of faith in knowing Jesus as He claims to be. He is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). He is the Light of the World (John 8:12). He is the Gate; whoever enters through (Him) will be saved (John 10:9). He is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). He is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). He is the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). He is the True Vine, and His Father is the Vinedresser (John 15:1).
When Jesus tells the crowd that He is the Bread of Life in John 6, He has miraculously fed more than 5,000 people with 5 small barley loaves, borrowed from a boy’s lunch. He reminds the crowd following Him that “the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33), and the Jewish audience would have known that Jesus was speaking of the manna that God provided for His people to eat in the desert as told in Exodus 16.
Psalm 78:24-25 declares that God rained down on them manna to eat, grain of heaven, bread of the angels, food in abundance to provide for their physical needs. The Great I AM gave them “bread from heaven in abundance” (Psalm 105:40). Jesus then stunned the crowd with his statement, “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35), and this got their attention. Chew on that for a minute.
I noticed seven references in the Psalms to the LORD being the Light, echoing what Jesus says about Himself in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” The Psalmists say “…the LORD my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28); “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1); “…in your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9); “…send out your light…” (Psalm 43:3); The LORD is described as clothed with splendor and majesty, “covering yourself with light as with a garment” (Psalm 104:1-2); His “light by night” in Psalm 105:39 is described in more detail in Psalm 139:12: “even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is bright as day, for darkness is as light with You.”
Knowing Jesus as the light is comforting to me when darkness, depression, or deceptions creep into my mind.
Psalm 139 ends with “lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:24), which causes me to think of Christ being the door into His everlasting kingdom, the gate into His sheepfold, the way into His family. This is significant because Jesus tells us that the only way into God’s kingdom is through Him when He says: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9).
The agricultural people who were present when He said this would have known that Jesus was painting a word picture of a typical sheep pen, created with a pile of stones gathered into a circled pen in the middle of a field in which there was not actual gate or door. The shepherd would lie down across the opening to keep the sheep in and the thieves out. His body was the actual door to the pen. Jesus is the Gate and He is the Good Shepherd!
When Jesus says in John 10:11, “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” the audience likely would have known Psalm 23, shepherd-boy David’s famous Psalm! I noticed even more references to the LORD as Shepherd of Israel (Psalm 80:1) and people being the sheep of His pasture (Psalm 79:13). We see in the Psalms that the Good Shepherd led His “people like a flock” (Psalm 77:20), and “let out his people like sheep” and “guided them in the wilderness” and “led them in safety” (Psalm 78: 52-53). With an upright heart and a skillful hand, the LORD shepherded them (Psalm 78:72). Psalms 95:7-8 and 100:3 both remind the reader that we are the “sheep of His hand,” so we can conclude that He is our Good Shepherd. He protects us. He provides for us. He positions us for an abundant life.
Only in Jesus can people have abundant life here on earth and resurrected life with Him for eternity.
I noticed that He gave this special message to Martha when her brother Lazarus died. He told the grieving sisters: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25). Lazurus had been dead in the tomb for four days before Jesus miraculously called him out and resurrected the dead man to life. David wrote of a similar rescue in Psalm 18:16-19: the LORD drew him out from death in the water to life because He delights in saving people.
The truth is, all people are dead in sin, lifeless at the bottom of the sea, when Jesus rescues us from the watery grave, brings us to the surface, and breathes life into us! “For with you is the fountain of life” is the echo of the resurrection and life attributes of the LORD in Psalm 36:9.
“Make me to know Your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation” is the prayer of David in Psalm 25:4-5. Of course, this reminds me of Jesus’s declaration in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He is speaking to his disciples who became known as the “followers of the way.” Psalm 77:13 says that the LORD’s way is holy, and Psalm 67:2 is a prayer that “Your way may be known on the earth, Your saving power among the nations.” The way of Jesus is truth and it leads to life, as echoed in Psalm 16:11 and Psalm 43:3. “All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness” (Psalm 25:10).
The final “I AM” statement that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John includes His Father, of course, since they are one and share these attributes. In John 15:1, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” He goes on to explain that His followers are the branches of this vine and when we remain connected to Him, we bear His fruit.
Psalm 92:12-15 describes the righteous people flourishing and bearing fruit in old age, “ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright.” Psalm 80 is a reminder of what God the gardener did for His people when He “brought a vine out of Egypt…drove out the nations and planted it…cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land” (Psalm 80:8-9), and then the Psalmist reminds the reader to regard this vine that God’s right hand planted “for the son whom you made strong for yourself” (Psalm 80:14-15). Surely this is a reference to our True Vine and His Father, the Gardener!
I love reading the Psalms daily as a follower of Jesus! After comparing the Psalms to what Jesus says about Himself in the New Testament, I am convinced that He is who He says He is! He is the GREAT I AM!
