The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief

by James R. White

Another parallel between the usage of ego eimi in John 13:19 and its usage in Isaiah has to do with the fact that in 13:19 Jesus is telling them the future—one of the very challenges to the false gods thrown down by Yahweh in the passages from Isaiah under consideration (the so-called “trial of the false gods.”) This connection is direct in Isaiah 41:4, “Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’ “Here the “calling forth” of the generations—time itself—is part of the usage of ani hu. The same is true in John 13:19. In the same chapter of the book of Isaiah referenced above, in verse 22 we read, “Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming.” That this reference to knowledge of the future would appear in the same section that uses ani hu as the name for God, and that this would be introduced by the Lord himself in the same context in John 13:19 is significant indeed.