Does the Bible support the pre-existence of Jesus?

Nothing could be more plainly stated than the fact of the existence of Jesus previous to incarnation. He says, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world" (John 16:28); again, "The glory which I had with Thee before the world was"; and, "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:5, 24); also, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58); again in John 6:38, "I came down from heaven"; also verse 62, "What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?" I might quote many other scriptures on the same subject, but any one of these is quite sufficient to prove the existence of Jesus before He was born into this world.

And now, looking away from earth, and far beyond it, the Lord presents His second request regarding Himself. "O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (17:5). The eternal Son thus prays to the eternal Father. His making Himself equal with God was blasphemy in the eyes of the Jews, and deserving of death. Equal with the Father He now declared Himself as He prayed, "Glorify Thou Me with Thine own self." What mere creature could look for that? What mere creature could, if solemnly addressing the Father, ask for that? But He could, and He did. He had a history before the world was. He had His part in essential Divine glory before time began. In the beginning He was with God. In the beginning He was God. What words, then, for the disciples to listen to! What confirmation for their faith! He spoke and prayed to His Father as no mere creature, that they had heard, ever addressed the Most High God. Their faith in Him as the eternal Son would surely be strengthened, remembering ever after, that on the near approach of His death, and He fully aware of it, He thus addressed God in heaven. Who thus prayed? A man? Yes. And He would prove that by dying. But He was God also, returning to the glory He had with His Father before the world was. Of His Divinity there was to be no doubt. Whither He was going was to be no longer a matter of opinion, nor open to dispute.

The Jews, as ever, utterly misunderstood His words. He spoke of Abraham seeing His day, and they thought it meant a claim on His part to have seen Abraham. Their mistake served to bring out the great and emphatic pronouncement, "Before Abraham was, I AM." At a certain moment Abraham "was." The verb used here is the same as in John 1:14, where we read that the Word "was made" or "became" flesh. The verb for "am" is the one signifying abiding existence, as used in John 1:18; the Son "is" in the bosom of the Father; and it is used in the past tense, as to the Word in the bygone eternity, in John 1:1 and 2. Jesus therefore said, Before Abraham came into existence, I eternally AM.

The opening words of the first verse carry us back to the most remote moment that our minds are capable of conceiving: the moment when there began the first thing that ever had a beginning: the moment on the further side of which there was only — GOD. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then. His eternal Being is proclaimed, and we are carried back before the opening words of Genesis 1. Further He was "with God." Our minds are still back at that remote moment, and we discover that then He was possessed of distinct Personality. The Word is not a title of the Godhead in a general way, apart from any special distinction, for in being "with God" a special, distinctive place is definitely stated.

This being so, the reasoning mind would be inclined to argue: then we cannot speak of the Word as being God in any full or proper sense; even if He is not exactly a creature, seeing He existed before creation. Such reasoning is flatly contradicted by the closing words of verse 1, "the Word was God." Essential Deity was His. Attempts have been made to weaken the force of this great statement, and translate it, "the Word was Divine," or, "the Word was a god," based upon the omission of the definite article; i.e., it does not say, "the Word was the God." But we are told by those who know the Greek that there is in that language no indefinite article, and the word translated "God" is a strong one, denoting proper and absolute Deity; and had it stated that the Word was the God, it would have confined Deity to the Word and excluded therefrom the other Persons of the Godhead. The words are chosen with Divine exactitude: the Word was properly and absolutely God.

Moreover, the pre-existence of the Son is affirmed in the passage with remarkable definiteness. We read, "He is before all things" (Col. 1:17). The important stress laid on the subject in this simple sentence must not be overlooked. The special force of the pronoun is perhaps lost to the English reader, but in the original Greek the emphatic pronoun, autos, is employed, which means, very self. So that it is declared that "He Himself," or "His very self" is "before all things." It is He (that is, the Son) and no other. The Person of the Son preceded the universe, and He is also the universal Cause.

Again, while the pronoun establishes the Son's external personality "before all things," the verb establishes His existence prior to all created things: "He is," not was, "before all things" and beings. It is the scriptural phrase signifying absolute, timeless existence. The Holy Spirit uses it here of the Son, as Jesus did of Himself, when He said to the Jews, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58), and as God said of Himself to Moses, when sending him to the children of Israel, "I am has sent me to you" (Ex. 3:14).

And now the Spirit begins to describe to us what was this "mind of Christ." I am sorry that it seems impossible to seek to show forth the treasures in this passage without referring to the Greek words, which the Spirit uses with such care and discrimination: for Greek is a much richer language than English, and makes differences where in English it is almost impossible to bring them out. We have in this passage three words for existence: To be: (einai). To be beforehand, to subsist: (huparchein). To begin to be: (ginesthai). It is not by accident the Spirit uses these three different words, and we lose much if we disregard their differences. The second of these words (huparchein) is the word He uses in the passage just quoted: "Who subsisting in the form of God." This word tells us that Christ Jesus was "in the form of God" before He came to this earth as Man. This word may not tell as much as the first verse of John's Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God", but it is in entire harmony with it, and asserts quite plainly pre-existence in the form of God, though it does not assert in so many words, His eternal pre-existence: but this is brought out in other Scriptures, such as Psalm 90:2: "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God": John 1, and other Scriptures.

Micah 5. The Jews once despised and insulted, rejected and crucified the Lord of glory, their own Messiah; and this is what brings in the wonderful prophecy that follows: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel." This is the judge of Israel already spoken of. Thus the second verse is unequivocally a parenthetic description of who this judge of Israel is. Though there may seem to be remarkable abruptness in the way it is introduced here, it is scarcely possible to doubt that what has been already explained gives the object and accounts for the manner of the prophet, and is the key to the passage. Why is it that the Lord allows the last siege of Jerusalem? He says it is because of their conduct towards their ruler and judge. Who was the judge? He was born in Bethlehem, but not this only, for "his goings forth have been of old from everlasting." He was a divine person. He in grace became a babe in Bethlehem; but He was Jehovah the true God of Israel. Then follows the conclusion of the sentence begun in the first verse. "Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travails has brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return to the children of Israel."

Moreover, we are told why the Son has thus the supreme place as the Firstborn. "For by Him were all things created", whether in heaven or on earth; whether seen or beyond the limits of our vision; whether material powers, or spiritual powers. Further, not only were all things created by Him, they were also created "for Him", as equally for the Father. Then we are further guarded against the infidel thoughts of men who may profess to believe in His pre-eminence over creation, and yet say that He, Himself, had a beginning; for we are definitely told, "He is before all things". This statement tells us in no uncertain terms of the divine and eternal glory of the Son. We are carried back to a time when there was nothing created that has been created, to learn not merely "He was", but "He is". These are words that while they forbid the thought that "He began" or that "He was made", plainly tell us of His eternal existence as the Son. Lastly, in relation to creation we are told, "All things subsist together by Him" (N. Tn.). Not only do created things subsist, but they "subsist together". The vast creation is sustained by the Son in all its several parts as one harmonious whole. Men would use what they speak of as the laws of nature to shut the Creator out of His universe; but apart from the sustaining power of the Son all would dissolve into ruin. Doubtless there are laws by which God maintains the universe, for God is a God of order, and possibly amidst all men's changing speculations they may have partially discovered some of these laws. But we may ask if gravity is one of these laws, by which the earth is held in its orbit round the sun. Who is it that sustains gravity? Scripture answers, "By Him all things subsist".

In like manner, two Persons are involved in the act of sending - the Sender and the Sent, and “the Father sent the Son to be Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). “The Son” was what He was before sending; the “Savior of the world" was what He was to become when sent. In this verse, the pre-incarnate Sonship of our Lord lies upon the surface as it does in other passages also. This eternally inherent glory is thus revealed for the adoring faith of the simplest believer.

At a recent Conference in Birmingham, Mr. J. Taylor is reported to have said that though we read of the Spirit being sent from heaven, nowhere is this said of Christ: the idea of being sent involving inferiority. We could only then deduce from this that the Spirit must be an inferior Person of the Godhead, which is Arianism and fundamental heresy. We deny both premises, that being sent necessarily involves inferiority, and that the Lord is never said to be sent from heaven. Peter and John were sent by their fellow-apostles at Jerusalem (Acts 8:14); Paul and Barnabas from Antioch (Acts 11:30), not as inferiors, but because specially suitable for the service in hand. The Lord Jesus says Himself "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me" (John 6:38), where the conclusion seems inevitable that the coming down and the sending were equally from heaven. This involves not inferiority but subordination to common ends, with which agree the words "My Father gives you the true bread from (out of) heaven." If sending a Person involved inferiority in the sent one, giving Him would equally. We read again and again of God sending His Son into the world. "Say ye of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest because I said unto you, I am the Son of God"? Now we know the Lord was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20). Would it not be very arbitrary to dissociate His being "set apart" for this eternal purpose, from His being sent into the world? or to maintain that though the former divine operation took place in the heavenly sphere, the sending into the world must be limited to the earthly—namely that of the Incarnation? It reads more naturally to take them together. Let us not "put asunder, what God has joined together." For mark, it was the Father who sanctified and sent Him, so that He was the Son when sanctified as well as when sent.

It is true that the Lord compares the apostles' mission with His own, "As Thou has sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world" (John 17:18), and much is made by these teachers of this comparison. But if the emphasis is on the "whither" of the mission, rather than on the fact of the mission, the comparison breaks down, for ex hypothesi the incarnation was the great crisis for the Lord. It was then He was sent, whereas it was not at birth that the apostles were sent. As a matter of fact "world" has the two senses in Greek, as with us, of a geographical locality, and a moral sphere. The Lord was sent from heaven to earth as the former, as well as to the latter, not to do His own will, but the Father's, so it was as the Son He came, for "in the volume of the book it was written of Him, Lo I come to do Thy will, Oh God." In any case it is not legitimate to force a comparison to cover all the points in the two terms. During the War the King may have sent the Prince of Wales to the front from Buckingham Palace, and he, as Colonel of the Welsh Guards, may have sent them, using some phrase analogous to the words we are considering, "As the King, my father, has sent me to the front, so I send you," but without prejudice to the fact that his mission started from the Palace; theirs from their barracks. So the Lord's mission started from heaven, and theirs from Galilee, but their destination was the same—the world. Again we read in Gal. 4:4, "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under law." The word sent is the same full word (Exapostello: send away out of) as in verse 6 of the sending of the Spirit. Surely the sending forth in both cases is from the same heavenly sphere. "He sent forth His Son": was it from heaven or from Bethlehem—the following phrase replies the former—for he was both made of a woman:—His birth as man, and made under law:—His birth as a Jew, after being sent. The order is divine and to tamper with it is a solemn responsibility—sent forth as Son, born at Bethlehem, circumcized the eighth day. This is the true order. The same is clear in Heb. 1:2, to him that has ears to hear: "God in these last days has spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He has appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds." Now we never speak of an "heir and son" being born, but of "a son and heir." So the Lord was Son before He was heir, and heir before creation, for that followed, to provide the inheritance. The truth is dislocated, if we reverse the order.