“I am” and I am not
Our existence is initially and necessarily rooted in the existence of the Divine. Forgetting this fact does not change anything in the noted spiritual law. The closer we are to God, the more life we have, the further we move away from God, the less vitality we have and the deeper we plunge into the region of death, into the region of non-existence. This pattern can be illustrated by well-known gospel events.
The phrase I am is the name with which God revealed himself to the prophet Moses
In several cases in the Gospel narrative, the Lord uses the expression ἐγὼ εἰμί, which in Slavic sounds like I am, and in Russian is usually translated as this I, and less often - I am. But the fact is that in the Hebrew language the phrase I am is the name with which God revealed himself to the prophet Moses at the foot of Mount Horeb (Ex. 3:1), and in writing is known as the sacred tetragram.
Of the Gospel cases of the use of this expression, I would like to dwell on two, which, in our opinion, are the most significant. This is the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 58 and chapter 18 from 5 to 7 verses in the same Gospel.
In the first case, the Lord, responding to the Jews’ mention of Abraham, utters the phrase: Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58). Why, after this phrase, Christ’s opponents no longer try to continue the conversation, but make an attempt to kill Him: Then they took stones to throw at Him (John 8:59). What is the reason for such a lightning-fast reaction?
It is quite possible that the reason is that the Lord's "I am" is here the Divine name pronounced "in his letters." The difficulty is that the Gospel is written in Greek, Christ spoke in Aramaic, and the Torah is written in Hebrew. Therefore, it is difficult for us to understand what words the Lord actually used in these places. However, there is a high probability that our Lord Jesus Christ uttered the forbidden name of God.
The fact is that the Hebrew and Aramaic languages belong to the same language group and are related. In addition, knowledge of the Torah was also impossible without knowledge of the Hebrew language. The divine name revealed to Moses (Exodus 3:14), the outline of which יהוה is called the sacred tetragram, has quite a few reading options. The most common translation is “I exist” or “I am.” The English ethnographer Edward Tylor noted: “If the forbidden name is a word used in conversation, or if it only somewhat resembles such a word, then it is thrown out and replaced by another” [1]. Therefore, the expression itself, which became the name of God among the Jewish people, is falling out of everyday use. Nevertheless, this name has not yet been forgotten among the Jewish people, since it is pronounced during worship. There are some Talmudic data “according to which the use of the tetragram during worship continued until the destruction of the second temple”[2].
Public pronunciation of this name was strictly prohibited, and violation of the ban was punishable by heavenly and earthly punishments. “In the 2nd century, Abba Saul proclaimed a formidable prohibition against anyone who dared to pronounce this name—deprivation of rights in the future life”[3]. There is evidence from the same century that those who dared to violate the prohibition were punished by death: “When they brought Rabbi Hanin ben Teradion, they asked him: why are you studying Torah? He answered: because יהוה, my God, commanded me. They immediately decided to burn him... Why did they sentence him to death by burning? Because he pronounced the Divine name in letters”[4].
The utterance of the sacred name was taboo, and violation of this taboo was punishable by death
Thus, we can conclude that, on the one hand, during the time of Christ, the biblical Divine name “I am” was known among the Israeli people. On the other hand, pronouncing the sacred name outside of temple worship was taboo, and violation of this taboo was punishable by death.
In the light of what has been said, the response of the Jews to the words of Christ becomes more understandable: Jesus said to them: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then they took stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid himself and left the temple, passing through the midst of them, and went further (John 8:58-59).
In support of this version, we can cite the interpretation of this Gospel passage by St. John Chrysostom: “Why didn’t He say: before even Abraham was not, I was, but I am? Just as His Father used this word about Himself: “I am,” so does He. It means the eternal essence of being, regardless of any time. Therefore, His words seemed blasphemous to them. And if they did not tolerate comparison with Abraham, although this is not so important, then could they stop throwing (stones) at Him when He began to often compare Himself with God?”[5]
Some Orthodox theologians and biblical scholars of the 20th century came to the same conclusions. Thus, Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov) writes: “As an affirmation of one’s own existence in the full and only sense of the word, ἐγὼ εἰμί in the Greek original and “I am” in the modern translation allows for a rapprochement with the Old Testament Tetragram. In this understanding, ἐγὼ εἰμί could express the revelation in Christ of the Father. <…> But the teaching of Jesus in ch. VIII ends with the solemn words of Art. 58: ... verily, verily, I say, before Abraham was, I am. <…> The Lord concludes the conversation with a solemn testimony not only of His pre-existence, but also of pre-existence in Divine dignity”[6].
And in another Gospel passage we also assume in Christ’s response a direct indication of His Divine dignity.
Having finished the Gethsemane prayer “for the cup,” the Savior awaits those who will lead Him to death. The fight against the fear of death is over. Himself, being the Source of life and self-existent Life, He goes to death not because He cannot avoid it, but voluntarily, out of love for the dying creation. “The hidden God”[7] partially reveals His Divinity, calling Himself by name: Jesus, knowing everything that would happen to Him, came out and said to them: Whom are you looking for? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus says to them: It is I. Judas, His betrayer, also stood with them. And when he said to them: “It is I ,” they retreated back and fell to the ground (John 18:4-6). Here this is the I of the Synodal translation in the Greek text - all the same ἐγὼ εἰμί, that is, “I am,” the very One who was revealed to Moses in the burning bush, and now came to His people and was rejected by these people.
It is not surprising that the ministers from the high priests and Pharisees (John 18:3), who heard this great and terrible name in the temple on the Day of Atonement, but were afraid even in private to pronounce it out loud, having heard it as self-testimony from the lips of the Son of God, could not resist on foot. They came to seize the Nazarene impostor - and suddenly, for a moment, as if in the flash of lightning, they saw Jehovah in front of them. The creature falls on its face before its Creator, falls to the ground from which it came.
In addition, worship while reading the tetragram for the Jews was part of the usual ritual, since in the temple service, during the recitation of the Divine Name by the high priest, “those standing nearby fell face down, those far away said: Blessed be His glorious name forever. But neither one nor the other was touched until this name was hidden from them again”[8].
Denial of the Apostle Peter
So, if the Lord is the One who truly exists, then what is man in himself? The Apostle Peter showed us this in his response to the high priest’s maidservant. After Christ is taken into custody, the closest disciple falls into a state that, in the language of Orthodox prayers, is called “petrified insensibility.” The reader of the Gospel is presented with a person who wants to hide, remain unrecognized, perhaps even disappear, evaporate, annihilate, in a word - not to be.
Peter seems to be saying: leave me, I don’t exist, forget about me, I don’t exist
Peter denies Christ, but the answer he gives to those asking is indicative for us. In the Russian translation this is a simple denial: no (John 18:17, 25, Luke 22:58), but in the Slavic we find a more accurate translation of the Greek: “οὐκ εἰμί” (“not”), which literally means “not I have". Peter seems to be saying: leave me, I don’t exist, forget about me, I don’t exist. Having changed a little, we get: I am not, or, if in Slavic: I am not. To learn the moral lesson from the apostle’s answer, let us return to the topic with which we began our discussion.
Outside God - outside life
God exists. He has life in Himself (John 5:26). Man, like the whole world, is created from nothing and has no autonomous source of existence. He exists only to the extent of his participation in God. Outside of God, outside of life. If a person does not establish himself on the unshakable foundation of the divine I Am, he not only slides into the abyss of non-existence, into the abyss of his primordial nothingness. He cannot even give a clear justification for his own existence, which in this case seems to be just a play of the elements. In this case, no serious arguments can be found to confirm real personal existence.
Some philosophers have turned their attention to this groundlessness of existence outside of God. For example, the English thinker David Hume wrote: “If the idea of our self is generated by some impression, then it must remain invariably identical throughout our lives, since our self is supposed to remain so. But there is no such impression that would be constant and unchanging. Suffering and pleasure, sadness and joy, passions and sensations replace each other and never exist all at the same time. So, the idea of our “I” cannot come from either these or any other impressions, and therefore there is no such idea at all”[9].
That is, with such an approach, a person is represented not as a person, not as a subject, but as a certain phenomenon, like a rainbow or the northern lights, some constantly changing set of material and, perhaps, even spiritual elements, a random combination doomed to disappear without a trace. Hence the Hindu teaching about Maya, about the world as an illusion, as various modifications of the impersonal Brahman, which itself does not have the property of immortality.
The groundlessness of man outside of God, his lack of “life in himself”[10] is felt especially acutely by the saints. This theme sounds like a refrain in St. Augustine’s Confessions.
All creation, and especially man, have as a necessary condition for their existence affirmation in the divine being: “Everything that is, exists only because You exist” [11]; “Every creature exists only because You know it.”[12]
A person outside of God loses life, being insufficient by nature for an autonomous existence: “Only that which remains unchanged truly exists. “It is good for me to cleave to God,” for if I do not abide in Him, I cannot abide in myself either.”[13]
God means more to a person than the soul to the body: “He is the life of your life”[14].
Life outside of God is unreal life, a kind of counterfeit of life, its surrogate, conditional life, life poisoned by the poison of death, dying, unworthy to be called life: “I don’t know where I came from here, into this - should I say - dead life or living death"[15].
Only in God does a person find true existence: “Let me not find my life in myself: I lived badly in myself, I was my own death—in You I come to life.”[16]
There is no other possibility of life for a person: “And a real happy life is to rejoice in You, from You, for Your sake: this is a real happy life, and there is no other”[17].
Thus, we can say that an atheist is a kind of suicide, whose consciousness is to a certain extent inverted. For him, a life based on faith seems to be a life without foundation, an invention, but in reality it turns out that he himself is depriving himself of a foundation and sooner or later (better, of course, sooner) comes to understand the whole horror of his existence in non-existence, life in death, to the chilling I am not.
A Christian has firm hope for his real existence not only in time, but also in eternity, because he receives this existence from the Existing One, from the One Who truly I Am, and Who left us a promise that is immeasurably more reliable than all human guarantees: for I live, and you will live (John 14:19), for all the promises of God are in Him “yes” and in Him “Amen” - to the glory of God through us (2 Cor. 1:20).
This phrase has the meaning - not to take revenge, but to entrust it to God
Let’s immediately talk about the meaning of the expression “Vengeance is mine and I will repay.” This expression is in Church Slavonic. Translated into modern language, it sounds like this: “Vengeance lies on Me, and it will come from me,” that is, to put it in more everyday language: “Do not take revenge yourself, I will do it.”
This phrase means: “Do not take revenge yourself, I will do it.” God pronounces it
This phrase became widespread thanks to Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. He used it as an epigraph in the novel Anna Karenina.
For the first time the phrase about vengeance was spoken by the Lord to Moses
This phrase appears in two places in the Bible
To understand the meaning of this phrase, it is worth reading it in its existing context. The first time we find it in the book of Deuteronomy:
“For they are a people who have lost their minds, and there is no meaning in them. Oh, if only they would reason, think about this, and understand what would happen to them! How could one pursue a thousand and two drive away the darkness, if their Protector had not betrayed them, and the Lord had not given them up!
For their intercessor is not like our Intercessor; our enemies themselves are the judges of that. For their grapes are from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their berries are poisonous, their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of dragons and the deadly poison of asps.
Is this not hidden from Me? is it not sealed in My storehouses? With Me is vengeance and recompense, when their foot fails; For the day of their destruction is near; the prepared thing for them will soon come.
But the Lord will judge His people and will have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their hand is weakened, and there are no prisoners or those left outside” (Deuteronomy 32:28-36).
32
The chapter of Deuteronomy contains the phrase: “I will repay vengeance to me.”
In this chapter of Deuteronomy, the Lord condemned the people of Israel for forgetting God. The Most High says that he could wipe out all of His people, but he will not do this, so that the enemies of Israel do not perceive this as their victory.
The Lord dwells on the topic of enemies and says that their intercessor is no match for the Almighty. He also lists His qualities, speaks of Himself as omniscient and of the One with whom is “vengeance and retribution.” He says that He Himself will judge His people, but will not forget about mercy.
The phrase “Vengeance is mine and I will repay” became widely known thanks to the Apostle Paul
The second time this expression is found in the letter of the Apostle Paul, who focuses not on the context, but on what the phrase means. He sees in it an instruction not to return evil for evil:
(Rom.12:16–21)
“Be of the same mind among yourselves; do not be arrogant, but follow the humble; don't dream about yourself; Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but strive for good in the sight of all people. If possible on your part, be at peace with all people. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give room to the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink: for by doing this you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
