When did they pick up stones?
When Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I AM"
(John 8:58).
Why did they pick up stones?
To stone Jesus to death.
When would you expect them to be angry enough to try to kill
Jesus?
When He called them the sons of the devil (see
Your father is the devil).
To them, why was Jesus declaring "Before Abraham was, I
AM" worse than calling them the sons of the devil?
God stated “I AM” as His name in Exodus 3:14:
Then Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of
Israel and say to them, ‘The God of
your fathers has sent me to you,’ and
they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said
to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children
of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus
3:13-14). Jesus was declaring
in terms crystal clear to them that He is God, and this
declaration, which they mistook as blasphemy, is what
enraged them to try to kill Him.
Then why didn't the Jews consider it blasphemous when Jesus said "I am" to them earlier in this discourse as
recorded in John 8:24 and 28?
As mentioned in
Die in your Sins, the original Bible recorded in Greek Jesus'
discourses with Jewish audiences in Aramaic. The originally recorded
phrase for "I am" in
John 8:24 and
28 is εγω ειμι (ego eimi), which is the Greek
equivalent of the originally spoken Aramaic phrase,
אְנָא הוּא (ena na). The originally recorded
Greek for "I AM" in John 8:58 is also
εγω ειμι (ego eimi) but the Jews suddenly
flying into a murderous rage upon hearing it indicates that
something was different about this spoken phrase than those recorded in
John 8:24 and
28. The only logical explanation is that Jesus had switched to
Hebrew and said אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה (eh yeh), which
is equivalent to
εγω ειμι (ego eimi) in Greek,
"I AM" English, and is also the
exact Hebrew name that God used to identify Himself as
"I AM" in Exodus 3:14 above.
How did Jesus hide Himself and go through "the midst of them" (John 8:59)?
The same way He did when the people tried to kill Him upon
hearing His very first sermon in Nazareth: "And
hearing these things, all in the
synagogue were filled with rage. And having risen up, they thrust Him out of
the town and led Him to the brow of the hill on
which their town had been built, that they might throw Him down headlong.
But passing through the midst of them, He went His way" (Luke
4:28-30).
How can God make Himself invisible and walk through a crowd?
What did Jesus mean by
“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day, and he saw it
and was glad" (John 8:56)?
Abraham saw Jesus and was glad.
How could Abraham, who lived two thousands years
before Jesus was born, have seen Jesus?
Jesus appeared to him with God the Father and even spoke to him. Read
the explanation below Genesis 15. Note that Abraham is still called
"Abram" in these early chapters of Genesis.