Importantly, one must ask if John intends by his use of it to attribute to Jesus divine being on a par with that of God. Exodus 3:14 in the Septuagint seems clearly to lie behind John 8:58 and Isaiah 43:1011 to form the background of 8:24, 28. Both places provide parallels, as do no others, for the absolute use of "I am." While it is true that the Johannine "I am" phrases with a predicate match those in the Hebrew Scriptures calling the LORD Israel's savior (Isa. 43:11), keeper (Isa. 27:3), and healer (Exod. 15:26), namely by having Jesus do the saving work of God, it would be a mistake to see in "I am'' used absolutely (8:24, 28, 58) a claim to identification with God.

Obviously Jesus' hearers could have taken it in that way and are reported as having done so (see 8:59; 10:3133). But John is so clear in insisting on Jesus as God's revealer of the final age, one who comes from above and can speak of God only as he does (see 3:11; 8:26; 12:49), that it would be wrong to see a departure from that pattern in the absolute use of "I am." Here as elsewhere the Son is claiming total intimacy with the Father. He is uniquely commissioned to deliver a message from the One who sent him. He gives unique access to God, having been chosen to serve as the sole means of salvation to any who hear his voice. Jesus' "original and inexhaustible fulness" (Schnackenburg pp. 2, 88) is sufficient to account for this high christological title. While some few think that the "I-saying" goes back to Jesus, it is much more likelyboth predicatively and absolutelyto derive from cultic usage in early liturgies, as a way to encompass claims made in behalf of the God of Israel as well as claims made on behalf of some favorite Hellenistic deity, like Isis. It is, in any case, a way to convey that Jesus is the unique bringer of salvation in his own person.