Meaning

           The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”
          “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.  I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”
         At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
         Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.  Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word.  Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
         “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
         “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:48-59)

          They missed it. This is why it’s so important that one define one’s terms when discussing anything. The Jews thought Jesus was making ridiculous claims. Someone who obeys His word will never see death? That’s insane. We all die. Well, except Enoch and Elijah, we all die. I wonder what the Sadducees, who claimed there was no resurrection or life after death, thought of those two? But I digress…we all die. Our bodies stop functioning and according to whatever cultural standard you wish, we are consigned, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We have thousands of years of evidence, everyone dies.
          And we get understandably upset about death. We miss the person who died, and we grieve, or we disapprove of the manner in which the person died, and we rage. Perfectly understandable. But what if “death” doesn’t mean the same thing to God as it does to us? This isn’t the first time God has talked about death in a way that doesn’t seem to make sense. In Genesis, He told Adam that in the day that Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die. Adam ate, and then lived another nine hundred, thirty years. Even if he only lived two days, that seems to contradict what God said.
          It all makes sense, if “death” refers to something other than a cessation of bodily functions. Can’t the God who created life in the first place easily return bodily functions to a corpse? It seems to me that would be simple. So what would it matter to God if we die if that’s all He means? If, however, death means something more, if it means eternal separation from God, then what Jesus is saying someone can never face it is much larger than just not facing a body that stops working. And they missed it.
         I believe that’s what Jesus meant, which means that He showed more than admirable restraint in not rolling on the floor laughing when they talked about Abraham and the prophets being dead. I think He let it go because His next statement was an even bigger show stopper. “Before Abraham was, I am.” Not “Before Abraham was, I was.” That would have been outrageous enough, but “Before Abraham was, I AM.”
          The Jews knew the book of Exodus. I suspect it was one of their favorite stories, the “Star Wars” of their day. They would not have missed the allusion to God saying to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) This wasn’t just a claim that Jesus had somehow been alive for nearly two thousand years. That would have been preposterous enough. They didn’t miss the clear claim to Godhood. That’s why they picked up stones to give a new meaning to the term mass murder.