three times in John 8 (vv. 24, 28, 58), on an occasion which some of those present might well have remembered. It was a long conversation which took place in the temple courts (John 8:2, 59). When he began to use the expression his hearers did not fully understand him (v. 25). By the end of that chapter, however, his meaning could not possibly be mistaken. The conversation ended with his overwhelming announcement, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.’ It was a statement of eternal