Anonymous Asks (298)

“Does the Bible support the pre-existence of Jesus?”

I love trick questions. I don’t suppose the author of today’s intended it to be tricky, but it’s tricky all the same. It’s much like the line I read some years ago in Catholic Answers about levirate marriage being an “ancient Jewish law” at the time of Onan. The only part they got right was that the custom was ancient: the word “Jew” would not come into popular usage for another millennium or thereabouts, and even the Law of Moses was still four hundred years away.

So this is going to sound like niggling, or a distinction without a difference, but it’s really not. The phrase “the pre-existence of Jesus” enables us to unpack a rather important truth.

Pre-Existence and More

Technically speaking, the Bible does not support the pre-existence of Jesus, though it absolutely supports the eternal existence of the member of the Godhead who would take that name and bear it all the way to the right hand of his Father, where he would sit down, his work on earth accomplished, declared by God to be both Lord and Christ.

We get this truth from many places in scripture, but my favorite is the first chapter of John, where the apostle writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made … and the Word became flesh.” That’s about as plain a declaration of the pre-existence of the Son of God as you’re likely to find.

But he wasn’t “Jesus” when he made the world, was he? Oh, of course he was the same person. How could the I Am be anything other than himself? But he did not bear the name of Jesus when he was with God in the beginning. If you had existed back then, you might have called him the Word, or the Son, or the Angel of the Lord, or God, but you would never call him Jesus. Jesus is the name of the Son incarnate, of the Word made flesh. It is the name of his humiliation, and it will be the name of his exaltation over all.

The Claims of the Scriptures

Naturally, there are other places the Bible teaches or implies the pre-existence of the Son. Hebrews says he “laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning” and that the heavens are the work of his hands. Colossians also says, “By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” If the things in heaven were created for him as well as the things on earth, then he predates them as well. Again, in his first epistle, John writes that the life [of Christ] “was with the Father and was made manifest to us”, confirming his existence in heaven prior to his incarnation, in which he was made manifest to the world.

It wasn’t just the apostles making such claims. Jesus made them too, and the religious Jews (of whom there were plenty by the first century) understood them for what they were, and tried repeatedly to kill him because of them. “Before Abraham was, I am,” he declared, so they picked up stones to throw at him.

The Name of Jesus

But this pre-existent One of whom we read repeatedly was not Jesus prior to the incarnation. The name Jesus appears twice in James and sixteen times in Galatians, considered to be the two earliest New Testament books, and later, of course, numerous times in the four gospels. It does not appear in any Old Testament book in association with a member of the Godhead. Angels visited both Joseph and Mary prior to his birth and instructed them to give him the name Jesus, which means “YHWH is salvation”. Prior to his birth, however, we have no indication in scripture that he ever carried that name.

So no, it’s not some mystical association with eternity or antiquity that makes the name of Jesus so marvelous, but rather, what God has done with it since his death and resurrection. Even before he ascended to God’s right hand, he gave his apostles authority to heal in that name, baptize in that name, preach in that name, drive out demons in that name and Christians everywhere the right to call upon that name with the blessing of the Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In Philippians, Paul writes, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” God has chosen to glorify his Son under the name he wore during his crucifixion, the name uniquely associated with his humiliation.

The Name Above Every Name

So, yes, the Bible comprehensively supports the pre-existence of the Son of God, the Everlasting Word, but the name Jesus has a historical beginning point associated with the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and glorification of the Son. He will carry that name forever, but he has not had it forever.