THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST
The Testimony of John the Baptist
John 1:15 “before me” Even though John the Baptist was born six
months before Jesus, he knew that, as the only begotten of the Father, Christ
had existed eternally.
John 8:58 “Before Abraham was, I am” That
is a supreme claim to Deity; perhaps the most simple and sublime of all the
things He said with that great formula of old, the great "I AM." "Before Abraham was born, I am." Not, I
was. That would simply mark priority, the priority of existence. But the "I am" claims the eternity of
existence, antedating the whole of the Hebrew economy, existing in eternal
Being. These are the words of the most impudent blasphemer that ever spoke, or
the words of God incarnate.
John 17:5 (cf. vs. 24) “which I had with thee before the world was” Jesus was the eternal
Word by whom God created the world (John 1:1-3; Ephesians 3:9; Hebrews 1:1-3),
but Jesus laid aside His glory for a time (Philippians 2:6-8) to finish God’s
work (John 17:4) with His creation.
John 6:62 (cf. vss. 33, 38, 41, 50, 51)
“where he was before” According to
Daniel 7:13 that was what was prophesied to happen. "one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came
to the Ancient of days." With
the Kingdom suspended for a time He returns to heaven still executing His
Divine Sovereignty and as the Son of man He awaits the enemies to be placed
under His feet at His soon return.
John 1:1-2 “beginning” The definite article has been supplied. The actual
Greek is en arche—that is, “in beginning.” The “Word of God” thus was there
before the creation of the space-mass-time universe, so that John’s “beginning”
even antecedes the Genesis “beginning,” extending without an initial beginning
into eternity past, before even time was created. Note also John 17:24, where
Jesus, in His humanity, acknowledged that He was with the Father, and loved by
the Father, “before the foundation of the world.”
“with God” The “Word of God” (i.e., Jesus Christ) was God, yet also “with God.” Thus God is both personal
and plural (in a uni-plural sense only, however, a mysterious category that
makes sense only in terms of the doctrine of the Trinity).
1 Cor. 10:4, 9 “they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock
was Christ” When Moses made reference to God as the Rock in his song, we do
not learn until we reach the New Testament that that Rock was Christ.
“Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of
them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” Taken from when they tempted the Lord and
were destroyed and here applied to Christ. Because of the chiding of the
children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD
among us, or not?
Phil. 2:5-7 “Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the
form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” In this Self-emptying,
Christ passed from a pre-existent state, from sovereign authority to obedient
service, which led ultimately to the death of the Cross, in which He was able
to deal with sin and provide redemption. Lit. <emptied himself,> i.e.
<divested himself of His visible glory>The glory of reclaiming lost
things was the master inspiration of His mind in all His pathway through this
world of ours. He emptied Himself! Inevitably, the words must be quoted here. Why?
It was an action of mind growing out of a mind which ever conceived the
connection between beauty and holiness, which believed in the salvability of
the lost, which considered no suffering too great that results in such saving.
Col. 1:17 “And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” The
most basic of all scientific principles is implied in these two verses
(Colossians 1:16-17), that is, the principle of conservation of mass/energy, or
“all things.” According to this
principle, nothing is now being either created or annihilated—only conserved,
as far as quantity is concerned. One state of matter can be changed to another
(e.g., liquid to solid); one type of energy can be converted to another (e.g.,
electrical energy to light energy); and under some conditions, matter and
energy can be interchanged (e.g., nuclear fission); but the total quantity of
mass/energy is always conserved. This law—also called the First Law of
Thermodynamics—is the best-proved law of science, but science cannot tell us
why it is true. The reason nothing is now being created is because Christ
created all things in the past. The reason why nothing is now being annihilated
is because all things are now being sustained by Him. If it were not so, the “binding energy” of the atom, which
holds its structure together, would collapse, and the whole universe would
disintegrate into chaos. This truth thwarts evolutionary thought.
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