2. The Preexistence of Christ
“Before the World Was”
The Preexistence of Christ
“BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM” (John 8:58).
I AM what I was—God.
I was not what I am—Man.
I am now called both—
GOD and MAN.
SO RAN AN OLD Latin inscription, chiseled in marble, which epitomizes the consistent teaching of the Scriptures concerning the origin and incarnation of our Lord. While affirming His real humanity, this concise theological statement carefully safeguards the no less vital fact of His preexistence. It will be noted that Christ’s existence prior to His conception and birth is nowhere in Scripture argued as a doctrine, but is everywhere assumed and used as the basis of the doctrines of incarnation and atonement. His birth in Bethlehem was not His origin, only His incarnation.
Indeed, how could there be an incarnation without a previous existence? To deny the latter renders the former impossible. To go back further, could there be a Trinity were there no preexistent Son of God? The one necessarily presupposes the other. Christ’s preexistence is not a matter of purely academic interest, it is the foundation on which the whole superstructure of the Christian faith rests. If He was not preexistent, He cannot be God, and if He is not God, He cannot be Creator and Redeemer.
Jesus was unique among men in that His birth did not mark His origin, but only His appearance as a man on the stage of time. Of no other person would it be possible to distinguish between His birth and His origin, or to say that His life did not begin when He was born. Jesus was “the meeting place of eternity and time, the blending of deity and humanity, the junction of heaven and earth.” His origin was not related to His birth, nor His nature dependent only on human ancestry. His nature was derived from His eternal being. He did not become God’s Son at the incarnation, or when He rose from the dead. He is God, supreme and without beginning.
Our Lord was conscious of a previous; existence. He spoke of the glory he had with the Father before the world existed (John 17:5). He claimed preexistence in explicit and unmistakable terms, e.g., “I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world” (John 16:27–28). Every other man entered life as the natural climax of biological processes and as a new being, but Jesus knew neither beginning of days nor end of life (Hebrews 7:3).
Christ in the Preexistent State
Since our Lord nowhere sets out to give systematic teaching concerning Himself, what can we know of Him in His preexistent state? A careful perusal of the Scriptures reveals a surprising wealth of allusion and assumption as well as explicit statement.
The Old Testament is not without intimations of His preexistence. In the same verse in which Micah foretold the scene of the incarnation, the prophet asserted of the Messiah that His “origin is from old” (Micah 5:2, RSV). He was not to be a man of earthly origin but of heavenly nature.
Jesus described Himself to Nicodemus as “he that came down from heaven” (John 3:13). He often spoke out of the consciousness of His own preexistence. “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
When Pilate asked Jesus, “Whence art Thou?” He remained silent, but left no doubt of His anterior existence (John 19:9–11). When the cynical Pharisees threw out the challenge, “Thou are not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” Jesus gave the equally challenging reply, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:57–58). Those words, which contrasted Abraham’s entrance into existence and His own timeless being, are a clear assertion of preexistence. Incidentally, they also imply a claim of identity with the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
In His moving sacerdotal prayer, Jesus voiced His yearning for a resumption of the glorious relationship that had eternally existed between Himself and His Father, until interrupted by His incarnation: “Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). This is not just ideal preexistence, but actual and conscious existence at the Father’s side. This yearning throws light on His frequent withdrawals into mountain solitude where He could recapture something of the atmosphere of His heavenly home.
An illuminating glimpse of the relationship of eternal Father and eternal Son is suggested in Proverbs. “The lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was…. When he prepared the heavens, I was there…. When he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him” (Proverbs 8:22–31). It would appear that here “wisdom” is more than the personification of an attribute of God, but is rather a foreshadowing of Christ, who is the wisdom of God.
“Wisdom” is personified in much the same way as is “the Word” (John 1:1). Between the personified divine wisdom in Proverbs and the incarnate divine Word in John there are striking correspondences. In his prologue, John asserts that all that Wisdom declares of herself was true of the Word who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and who “was God” and “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1–2).
Christ’s Riches in Eternity
Paul links His precedence in time with His preeminence as Creator and Preserver. “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). He compresses into three pregnant words the condition of our Lord in His former state of glory: “He was rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). This enhances the magnitude of the love that moved Him to lay aside “the splendours and prerogatives of deity, the exercise of infinite power and the disclosures of supreme majesty.”
“His love transcends all human measure,” exclaimed P. T. Forsyth, “if only, out of love, He renounced the glory of heavenly being for all He here became. Only then could we grasp the full stay and comfort of words like these. ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?’ Unlike us, He chose the oblivion of birth and the humiliation of life. He consented not only to die, but to be born…. What He gave up was the fulness, power and immunity of a heavenly life.”
He was certainly not rich in the sense in which we use the word. Then in what did these riches that He renounced for our enrichment consist? Divine riches cannot be weighed by earth’s scales. They were, of course, spiritual, not material. And are not all true riches spiritual?
Among others, the following three elements have been suggested as constituting His riches in His heavenly home:
He was rich in home love. “My Father’s house” (John 14:2) was a phrase that seemed to linger on His lips, conjuring up as it did nostalgic memories of past joys and loving fellowship. In His high-priestly prayer He had said to His Father, “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). Not luxurious furnishings or priceless objets d’art, but mutual understanding and reciprocal love are the true riches of the home. In His Father’s house, those had been the Son’s from the unbeginning eternity, and in addition, the love and adoration of all the heavenly host. He was rich in home love.
He was rich in home harmony. The unity of the Godhead was unmarred by discord. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit delight to honor one another. “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), Jesus claimed, implying they were one not only in essence, but also in attitude and purpose. The Persons of the Trinity cooperated for our redemption in perfect harmony and reciprocity. The Father planned. The Son made the plan possible of realization by yielding up His life to death on the cross. The Spirit bent His fiery energies to the implementation of the plan. It was His appreciation of this harmony that inspired our Lord to pray for His followers: “That they may be one, as we are” (John 17:11, italics added). The harmony of His heavenly home was complete and satisfying.
He was rich in home resources. Every biblical allusion to the Father’s house is one of surpassing beauty and splendor. It seems as though the inspired writers, at a loss to describe its magnificence and munificence, ransacked the universe for conceptions to convey something of the glories that Christ renounced in the incarnation. “And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones…. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls … and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass” (Revelation 21:18–21).
In His Father’s house, every created being was at His immediate command. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53) was Jesus’ challenge to His enemies. There, for Him to desire was to have, and it was His desire that His disciples should share in His Father’s bounty. “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you” (John 16:23).
Christ in Old Testament Times
Our Lord’s first appearance on earth was not when born of His virgin mother. Of these mysterious appearances, or “theophanies,” Scripture simply records the fact without offering any explanation. Theophanies differ in nature from visions. It is recorded, for example, that God appeared as a man to Jacob and wrestled with him. Speaking of his experience, Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:30). In Jacob’s experience, as in other theophanies, it is generally accepted that it was the second Person of the Trinity who appeared in human form, since “no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). It is He who appeared to Joshua (Joshua 5:13–15) and to the three young men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:25).
It appears that in Old Testament times God came in the form of a man, whereas in the incarnation He actually became man. In both Testaments it is the same Person of the Godhead, the eternal Son, through whom the invisible God appeared to man. In the theophanies God took human form only temporarily and for a limited purpose. But when Christ was born, he assumed our humanity in perpetuity. Today He is still “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
It will be noted that many of these manifestations of Christ were in angelic form. “The Angel of Jehovah” is the usual appellation. In many cases the angelic visitor was at first mistaken for a man.
Christ could have come in angelic form, but then sinning men could not have been redeemed. Angels cannot die, and sinners are human. No angel would have been competent to act as substitute for the sinner (Hebrews 2:14–18).
No angel could our place have taken,
Highest of the high though he;
The Loved One on the cross forsaken
Was one of the Godhead Three.
Not of flesh and blood the Son,
Offspring of the Holy One;
Born of Mary ever blest,
God in flesh is manifest.
Wondrous birth, O wondrous Child,
Of the Virgin undefiled,
Though by all the world disowned,
Still to be in heaven enthroned.AMBROSE OF MILAN
All praise to Thee, Eternal Lord,
Clothed in a garb of flesh and blood;
Choosing a manger for Thy throne,
While worlds on worlds are Thine alone.MARTIN LUTHER