The pre-existence of Christ - Part Three

Let us look in more detail at some verses that seem to say that Jesus DID pre-exist and see if we can find a way of understanding them which follows the teaching of the rest of the Bible.  Remember the Bible cannot teach that he did exist and that he didn’t exist.  The Bible is one complete message from God and it teaches that Jesus did not exist until he was born.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Many of the confusing verses come from the gospel of John.  As we read the writings of John we see how different he was from the other gospel writers – he used language that was very difficult.  Often he speaks in words with a very spiritual meaning so we have to think about them a lot to understand what point he was trying to make.  Just like the parables – Jesus wanted us not just to enjoy his stories about sowers and lost sheep but to think carefully and see the spiritual meanings underneath the story.  We see in the gospel of John that so often Jesus would say spiritual things and the people didn’t understand him.  For example, in John 3, Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he needs to be born again and Nicodemus misunderstands him, thinking that he has to enter his mother’s womb again and go through the whole birth process to be saved!  In John 4:15, the Samaritan woman asks for the “living water” of Jesus so that she would never have to go to the well again to fetch water – she doesn’t understand that Jesus is talking of the water of salvation.  In John 6:52, Jesus is telling the people they must eat of his flesh because he is the bread of the world.  Many of the disciples stopped following him then because they couldn’t understand him.  We can see that Jesus is not speaking about real things, but using these real things as pictures to make people think spiritually.  So when we read the gospel of John, let us not make the same mistake, let us understand what Jesus is really saying.

  John explains why he wrote his gospel in John 20:30,31 – to show that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament.  Christ is the Greek word that means Messiah.  John is not trying to show that Christ is God or that he was in heaven with God before his birth.

God sent Jesus

Firstly in John, there are many times when Jesus says he is ‘sent’ from heaven or that he “came from” his Father.  Now if Jesus didn’t exist physically in heaven before his birth, how are we to understand these verses?  Much of John’s gospel records conversation between the religious leaders of the day (the Pharisees and Sadducees) and Jesus.  The Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t believe that Jesus was the son of God.  Even seeing God’s power in miracles didn’t convince them and because of envy they finally had Jesus killed.  Jesus, in these conversations, is trying to show them that he is God’s son.  That God has given him power and authority from heaven to do His work and speak His words and how they must believe this to be saved.  So, he keeps saying over and over again ‘I am sent from God’, ‘I have come from God’.

  This may seem strange, but we use the same sort of language today in English.  You may say you come from the tribe of Buganda or Basoga or you come from your parents but this isn’t talking of a physical journey.  It is just telling someone your origin.  In the same way, I can write to my mother in UK and ask her to go somewhere for me.  She could say she has been sent from Uganda or she has been sent by her daughter, even though she hasn’t physically been with me in Uganda.  In the same way, Jesus says he’s been sent by his Father or sent from heaven, even though he has not physically been with God in heaven.

  My friend Mary says that she is from Tanzania because her parents were born there, but she was born in Uganda and has never lived in Tanzania.  Her origin is Tanzania.  Jesus says he is from heaven because his Father is in heaven and even though Jesus had never been there before he was born, his origin is heaven.  So Jesus never physically came down from heaven, these verses are saying that his origin was heavenly.

  We read in John 1:6 that John the Baptist was also sent by God but we would never say that John the Baptist was in heaven with God and that he physically left heaven to come to earth!  (see also Isaiah 6:8, Psalm 105:17, John 1:9 and Jeremiah 7:25 – all verses that say someone was sent by God but we don’t think that Isaiah, Joseph, “all men” or Jeremiah were in heaven).  The Bible also says that wisdom and good gifts come down from heaven in James 1:17 and James 3:17 but we would never say that our job or clothes or food were in heaven before we got them.  We just understand that they are provided by God, that He is the one who has given them to us.  Read Matthew 21:25.  Again, this doesn’t mean that John’s baptism came down from heaven, it just means that it was something commanded by God who is in heaven.

  Here is a good example.  In John 6:32,33,38,51,58 Jesus compares his coming down from heaven with the manna or angels food that came down from heaven to feed God’s people in the desert.  But when we look back in the Old Testament we can see that the manna did not really come down from heaven, it appeared on the ground in the morning when the dew went.  It ‘came down’ from God just like all good gifts come down from God – it just means it was provided by God.  Jesus was the greatest gift that God has given us.

John 8:56-58 This is another verse in John that may confuse us.  A mistake many people make with this verse is they think it says “Before Abraham was, I was ” – meaning that Jesus existed before Abraham.  But if we read carefully, it doesn’t say this.  It says, ‘before Abraham was, I am’ .  Now, remember that God had promised to Abraham that Jesus would be his descendant, that he would come in the future, so this verse can’t mean that Jesus existed before Abraham.  Jesus was only in the plan of God when Abraham was alive.  This verse could mean that even before Abraham was alive, Jesus was in the plan of God.  Jesus was the centre of the promise made to Abraham, so without Jesus, none of the promises could ever have been kept.  Jesus was more important than Abraham.  It was Jesus who would bring salvation and blessing, not Abraham.  Before God made the promise to Abraham, He had to have Jesus in His plan because the promise was about Jesus.  Jesus was the “seed” or descendant promised to Abraham.  Abraham understood about the gospel, or good news, of Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:8) and he was happy when he realised what the promise really meant.  So, when it says in verse 56 that “Abraham rejoiced to see my day”, Jesus is saying that Abraham understood that one day Jesus would come and bring blessings to the world, keeping the promise that God had made to Abraham.

Colossians 1:15-18 These verses seem to be saying that Jesus was the first one born before anything else was created and that then he created the world with God.  Now, if we believe Jesus existed before he was born by Mary, how was he born before creation?  Notice it doesn’t say he was the first created of all creation, but the first born of all creation.  So, did Jesus have a birth before his birth by Mary?  Of course he didn’t.  Let’s look at these verses more closely.

  Verse 18 says that he was the firstborn from the dead , not the first one born at creation.  He was the first man to be born again (raised from the dead) who would never die again.  Many people were raised from the dead before Jesus, like Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter, but they died again.  Jesus was raised and given everlasting life.  Revelation 1:5 says the same and 1 Corinthians 15:20 says “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”.  What is a firstfruit?  It is the first fruit that you see on a tree.  It tells us that the rest of the tree will soon be covered with hundreds of fruits.  Jesus was the first one to be raised and given eternal life, but wonderfully there will be many, many more who will also be raised from the dead when Jesus returns and given everlasting life.  When we are baptised into Jesus, we enter a relationship with God through Jesus, where we can be raised from the dead and given everlasting life.  When we are baptised we are born again and it is as if we have been created again, this time not created as part of the world but as part of the church.  Jesus created the church – he is the head of all the members (Ephesians 4:15,16).  So we can be a part of the New Creation (church) when we accept and believe in Jesus and are baptised (Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17).

  Come back to Colossians 1 and look at what Jesus has created.  It’s not trees, mountains, animals and plants that Jesus created.  They were created in the first, physical creation by God as we read in Genesis.  Jesus has created “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers”.  This is the creation that Jesus was the beginning of and the creation that he is now in control of.  It is the church.  The people that are part of this new creation will sit on thrones and have powers in the Kingdom to come.  You should read the whole of this wonderful chapter to see what Jesus has really done for us.

To be continued 

Bro John and Sister Sally Palmer


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