John 8:56
John 8:5656Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad.”
Jehovah's Witnesses argue that Jesus existed before Abraham because he was God's first creation — Michael the Archangel in his pre-human form. Abraham "rejoiced to see my day" is understood as Abraham looking forward prophetically to the Messiah's coming, not as a personal encounter with a pre-incarnate Jesus. JWs treat the passage as evidence of Jesus' pre-existence as a created being, not as a deity claim.
Jesus says Abraham "rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad" — past tense, a completed event. The Jews' response about his age ("You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?") shows they understood Jesus as claiming a personal encounter, not mere prophetic foresight. Jesus' reply in verse 58 — "Before Abraham was, I AM" (ego eimi) — echoes the divine name from . The connection to Genesis 18, where Yahweh appeared to Abraham in visible form, suggests Jesus is claiming to be the Yahweh who personally visited Abraham. The stoning response in verse 59 confirms the Jews recognised a divine- identity claim, not a claim of mere pre-existence. If Jesus were only saying "I existed before Abraham as a created angel," that would not be blasphemous. The hostile witnesses understood better than modern attempts to minimise the claim — they picked up stones because they heard the divine name.