The Pre-Existence of Christ
This article can be found on pp. 679-689 of I.C. Wellcome’s 1874, “History of the Second Advent Message and Mission, Doctrine and People.“ The following is an AI transcription from uploading a digital scan of the text.
“All men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father who hath sent him.”
The question to be considered in this article is, did Christ exist as a person before his incarnation?
This is eminently a theological question, and in answering it we shall appeal not to the speculations of philosophy, but to the plain declarations of the Scriptures. Accepting the Bible as the standard authority, we hope to bring to its study a teachable spirit and a grateful heart. The abstractions of philosophy, and the speculations of metaphysics, may answer for the sceptic and the rationalist, but with the devout believer in inspiration, nothing can take the place of the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make him “wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Many vitally important truths are written in the fifth chapter of John’s Gospel, one of which is embraced in the passage which stands at the head of this article: “He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father.” Our Lord was addressing the Jews who had sought to kill him for healing the impotent man on the Sabbath day, and for saying “that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” Our Saviour instead of attempting to allay their hostility by disclaiming Divine rank or power proceeded to say that the Father had committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. That the hour had come when the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that heard should live; that as the Father had life in himself, so had he given the Son to have life in himself; that they were not to wonder at this, for the hour was coming in the which all that were in the graves should hear his voice and should come forth, they that had done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that had done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. In these tremendous utterances our Lord certainly claimed for himself divine prerogatives; therefore all men should honor him, even as they honor the Father who sent him. If we would thus honor the Son we must believe the record which God hath given of him, and accept as true the testimony of the faithful witness, who is emphatically styled the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
The first question properly to be considered in Christology, is that of Christ’s pre-existence. The Apostle John begins his gospel with the announcement that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” In this important passage three things are distinctly stated: (1) In the beginning the Word was with God; (2) the Word was God; and (3) the Word created all things. If there were nothing else to the purpose in the whole of the New Testament, these first three verses of the fourth Gospel in connection with the fourteenth verse would suffice to persuade a believer in Holy Scripture of the truth of Christ’s pre-existence and Divinity. Without preface or words of introduction, disdaining the verbiage and formulas of scholastic philosophy, the apostle John, instead of beginning his narrative at the human birth of our Lord, or at the commencement of his ministry, opens his treatise as it were with a peal of thunder in the sublime announcement, In the beginning was the Word. Thus, before time began, or at a point to which man cannot apply his finite conception of time, there existed the Logos or Word. When as yet the heavens and the earth were not, he was. He existed before the creation, for he was the Creator of all things. The personality of the Logos is carefully protected by the language used. The evangelist speaks of him, not of it; of a person, not of an attribute. John talks not like one speaking of an ideal existence, or of a divine energy. He worshiped the Word as the Creator, and adored him as his Saviour. To him the life of Jesus was as the light of heaven. He never seeks to idealize the Master. To his conception, Jesus is above and beyond all idealization. The Word of whom he writes is also the Son, the only begotten Son of God. “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” “God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.”
We have also in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel the testimony of John the Baptist, whom our Lord declares to be a true witness. (John v. 32.) “John bore witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spoke, he that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.” The followers of Socinus, who denied the pre-existence of Christ will not allow the obvious teaching of the passage, but paraphrase it thus: “The Christ who is to begin his ministry after me has, by the divine appointment, been preferred before me, because he is my chief or superior.” Thus they explain the clause “for he was before me” in the sense of superior rank or dignity, instead of time. John, however, uses the same word—protos—several times in his Gospel to denote priority of time. Examples: “The world hated me before it hated you.” (John xv. 18.) “He first findeth his own brother Simon.” (i. 41.) “The other disciples did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre.” (xx. 4.) The verb in the last clause, “He was before me,” is sufficient to fix the meaning of protos as indicating priority of time. Had the Baptist referred to the rank or dignity of Christ as separable from the idea of time, he would not have said “He was,” but “He is before me.”
Our Lord’s Direct Testimony.
Our Lord’s discourses, in which he claims to have had a pre-existence in heaven, must carry with them the absolute conviction to every Christian heart of the truthfulness of the great doctrine therein enunciated. To the Jewish Ruler he said: “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” (John iii. 13.) When preaching in the great synagogue of Capernaum he used the following significant language: “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (ch. vi. 38.) “I am the living Bread which came down from heaven.” (ch. vi. 51.) “The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the Bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven.” (ch. vi. 41, 42.) The Jews objected that they knew his father and mother, and could not, therefore, understand his claim to a pre-existent life. Instead of attempting to remove the impression which his words had made upon his auditors, our Lord proceeded to re-assert his pre-existence in the same terms as before. (vs. 44–58.) He carried the doctrine into its mysterious consequences. Since he was the Bread of Life which came down from heaven, his flesh was meat indeed, and his blood was drink indeed. They only would have eternal life who should eat this flesh and drink this blood. When many of the disciples murmured at this doctrine as “a hard saying,” our Lord met their objections by predicting his return to heaven as an event that would justify his allusions to his pre-existence. “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before.” (John vi. 62.) In what manner are declarations so plain and unequivocal to be avoided? It is said that Socinus and his early disciples, in order to account for these phrases, supposed that Christ, between the time of his birth and entrance upon his ministry, was translated into heaven, and there remained some time, that he might see and hear those things which he was to publish to the world.[1] For such a supposition, however, no warrant of Scripture can be found, and the position is therefore clearly an untenable one. Another hypothesis, and the one generally adopted by modern Socinians, is that our Lord’s words do not necessarily imply a literal ascent and descent, but merely that “he alone was admitted to an intimate knowledge of the divine will, and was commissioned to reveal it to men.”[2] But to this it is obvious to reply that if the first of these two opposite phrases of “ascending into heaven,” and “coming down from heaven,” be explained figuratively to mean becoming acquainted with God’s will, the second phrase must signify to become unacquainted with the divine will. Whatever “ascending to heaven” may be supposed to mean, in any figure, descending from heaven must mean the opposite. If, therefore, to ascend be to learn, to descend must be to unlearn.[3]
Again, if to come down from heaven signifies to bring a divine commission to teach, is it not passing strange that the expression should never have been used in reference to Moses or David, to John or Paul, or to any other of the inspired writers? So decisive is the passage in John vi. 62 that even Strauss concedes that the language of Jesus is “in its intrinsic meaning, as well as in that which is reflected on it from other passages, unequivocally significative of actual, not merely of ideal, pre-existence.”[4]
On another occasion, our Lord, in addressing the Jews in the temple, said: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” (John viii. 54.) The Jews, thinking that by such an announcement he assumed to be greater than Abraham and the prophets, indignantly asked, “Whom makest thou thyself?” Jesus replied, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” Abraham had seen the day of Christ by the light of prophecy, and accordingly this statement was a claim on the part of Jesus to be the true Messiah.
The Jews evidently thought that Jesus meant by his “day” something more than the years of his human life. At least, they determined by asking him a question, to know whether he claimed to have lived in the days of Abraham. “Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” Thus, by perverting the Master’s language, they directly raised the question of pre-existence. Now, if our Lord had only claimed to be a human Messiah, he undoubtedly would have most earnestly disclaimed any such inference from his words. He had not said that he had seen Abraham, but that Abraham had seen his day. By the light of prophecy and with the eye of faith Abraham had seen the day of Christ and rejoiced thereat. Abraham had looked forward to Christ as the promised seed in whom all the nations should be blessed. (Gen. xxii. 18, Gal. iii. 16.) Our Lord’s design appears to have been to show that Abraham believed that in due time the Messiah would come, and that to him would the gathering of the nations be, and that, as a consequence, he, as the true Messiah, was greater than Abraham. He might, indeed, have replied to the impertinent question of the Jews by assuring them that he meant only that Abraham saw him by the light of prophecy, and that this did not necessarily imply that he was Abraham’s contemporary. But in his actual answer he mounted up far beyond Abraham, both in rank and time, and more than justified the suspicions of his jealous examiners concerning his real meaning. “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”[5] Greek—Prin Abraham genesthai, “before Abraham was born, that is, before he had an existence, ego simi, I am.” Observe, our Lord does not say “Before Abraham was, I was,” but “I am.” He claims pre-existence indeed, but he claims more than this. He is the I AM. The speaker was “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” (Heb. xiii. 8.) The phrase “I am” denotes existence merely, with no note of beginning or end. “Applied to God it denotes continued existence without respect to time, so far as he is concerned. . . . The manner in which Jesus used it would strikingly suggest the application of the same language to God. The question here was about the pre-existence of Jesus. The objection of the Jews was that he was not fifty years old and could not, therefore, have seen Abraham. Jesus replied to that that he existed before Abraham.”[6] The passage corresponds with John’s affirmation, already noticed, that ‘in the beginning was the Word,’ and proves most conclusively the personal pre-existence of Christ. . . . It may be interesting to notice the Socinian hypothesis by which the plain teaching of this passage is sought to be evaded. The first exposition is, ‘That Christ existed before the patriarch Abraham had become, according to the import of his name, the father of many nations, that is, before the Gentiles were called.’ The second is, ‘Before Abraham was’ born, I am he, i. e., the Christ, in the destination and appointment of God.”[7]
A little attention will serve to show the exceeding absurdity of these expositions. Neither of them claims anything peculiar for Christ, nothing indeed more than his auditors, without arrogance, might have claimed for themselves. The first would make our Lord talk thus irrelevantly: “I solemnly assure you [verily, verily, I say unto you], before Abraham shall have become what his name signifies, the father of many nations, I am. Be not indignant at this answer, nor think I magnify myself, for what I assert of myself is equally true of each of you; for before Abram be made Abraham, ye are.” The second would make him say to the Jews: “Do not look thus angrily upon me and contemptuously ask, hast thou seen Abraham? It is true that Abraham has been dead eighteen centuries, and also true that I am not yet forty years old; but notwithstanding this I repeat it, before Abraham was born, I was. But do not mistake my meaning, I claim only to have existed in the foreknowledge and decree of God. Nor do I elevate myself above humanity by this claim, for each of you likewise thus existed before Abraham was born.”[8] It is difficult to understand how such expositions could ever have been received by any Christian, and utterly impossible to account thereby for the exasperation of the Jews. They evidently understood him as claiming all the attributes and majesty of the Messiah, and the highest honors of God. The action of the Jews showed in what light they regarded his words. Filled with rage at the blasphemy, as they thought it, of his claiming divinity for himself, “they took up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” There is nothing in the text or context of this famous passage that serves to support the Socinian scheme. Observe the force of the expression, “Before Abraham was, I am,” or, as Dr. Murdock’s translation of the Syriac reads, “Before Abraham existed, I was.” Just so surely as he spoke of Abraham as a person, just so surely did he speak of himself as a person; and just as certainly as Abraham had a real existence, just so certainly had Christ a real existence before Abraham was born.
The attention of the reader is next called to the solemn and significant language in which our Lord addressed his disciples on the eve of his betrayal. “The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father.” (John xvi. 28.) This language is very explicit and to the point. Just as certainly as the second clause of the last verse quoted, is to be understood literally, just so certainly must the first clause of the same verse be taken in its literal sense; or, as certainly as Jesus now exists personally with the Father, just so certainly did he exist with the Father before he came into the world.
That our Lord’s language was neither ambiguous nor obscure is clearly seen from the disciples’ reply. They said unto him, “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.” Well would it be if all would have the disciples’ implicit faith in the words of the Master, and not seek, as do many, to obscure or destroy his meaning by resolving his words into some figure of speech that will inevitably destroy the sense intended. The language of John xvi. 28, literally understood, would forever settle the question of Christ’s pre-existence. Few and feeble have been the efforts of Socinian writers to meet the direct and conclusive testimony of this remarkable passage. The disciples acknowledged as clear what had before been obscure, and confessed their belief that he had come from God. In plain language when one speaks of his existence, he is never understood as speaking of an ideal existence, but always and invariably of a real or personal existence. In John xvi. 28, our Saviour uses what the disciples acknowledge to be plain language, and therefore, the conclusion is inevitable, that the existence which he said he had with the Father was a personal and not merely an ideal existence; or in other words, that Christ pre-existed as a person, and not as an attribute merely.
In connection with this, and as fixing the sense of the passage beyond successful controversy, the reader is referred to Paul’s language in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. Speaking of Christ’s glorious ascension after his resurrection—as most expositors allow—the apostle by way of parenthesis exclaims—“Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into to the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fulfill all things.” It is here unequivocally declared that the same person—meaning Christ—who ascended above all heavens, was the same Being who first descended into the lower parts of the earth. On no other supposition than that of his pre-existence as the Son of God, does the assertion that he ascended imply that he first descended. As he was exalted, so was he first abased; as he rose victorious over death, so was he first placed under its dominion; as he returned to his Father, so he first came from his Father.
Again, how full of solemn significance is that passage in our Lord’s intercessory prayer, in which he asks—“O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was!” (John xvii. 5.) There could hardly be a more distinct declaration of the pre-existence of Christ than this. So far as this great doctrine is concerned, this text ought at once to remove every doubt, silence every cavil, and answer every objection. The Socinians, who deny, not only our Lord’s Divinity, but his existence before he appeared in the world, make a very weak attempt to evade the obvious teaching of this important passage. Their exposition may be seen in the following paraphrase: “O Father, glorify thou me, with the glory which I had with thee in thy immutable decree, before the world was.” But it is obvious that our Lord did not ask to be glorified with predetermined glory, but with the glory which he had with the Father, before the world was. He had once possessed glory with the Father, but he divested himself of this glory when he took upon himself the nature of man. He desired to be re-invested with heavenly honor and dignity. It seems very unlikely that Jesus in his last solemn prayer with his disciples, should speak of having enjoyed blessings with the Father which were only to be given to him in the future. It is also clear that since our Lord had glory with the Father before the world was, that he then existed as a person, and not merely as an attribute. His pre-existence was personal, not ideal. It would not only be absurd, but irreverent, to represent the Son of God as asking his heavenly Father to re-invest him with the glory which he had with him as a divine attribute, purpose, or idea.
In fact, so decisive is this passage, so impregnable does it stand against all Socinian assaults, that, as Dr. Harwood very justly observes, “were there no intimation in the whole New Testament of the pre-existence of Christ, this single text would irrefragibly demonstrate and establish it. Our Saviour, here in a solemn act of devotion, declares to the Almighty that he had glory with him before the world was, and fervently supplicates that he would be graciously pleased to reinstate him in his former felicity. The language is plain and clear. Every word has great emphasis: “Glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Upon this single text I lay my finger. And if plain words be designedly employed to convey any determinate meaning, if the modes of human speech have any precision, I am convinced that this plain declaration of our Lord, in an act of devotion, exhibits a great and important truth, which can never be subverted or invalidated by any accurate and satisfactory criticism.”[9]
Paul’s Christology.
There are many passages in the writings of Paul in which the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ is very clearly taught. Two of these we will notice. In the second chapter of his letter to the Philippians, the apostle, in exhorting his readers to practice humility, presents for their imitation the example of Christ, “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.”
The antithesis in this passage is between the expressions “form of God” and “form of servant.” In his pre-existent state Christ was in the form of God; but, when born into the world he appeared in the form of a servant. Leaving the glory which he enjoyed in the presence of God, “he made himself of no reputation,”—Greek, eautone eknose, literally, he emptied himself; divested himself of the form of God, and took upon himself the form of man.
In another place the apostle Paul, speaking of Christ, says: “By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”[10] In this passage, which is paralleled only by the prologue to John’s Gospel, Christ is said to have existed before the universe, and to have created it. The language, though grand in expression, and sublime in meaning, is utterly misleading unless it teaches the personal pre-existence of Christ. If Jesus had no pre-existence, how did he, though rich, for our sakes become poor? (2 Cor. viii. 9.) Of what riches did he divest himself? If he had no conscious existence before his incarnation, how could he say, “I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” (John viii. 42.) Observe that the I, the person speaking, is ever the same, whether in the form of God, or in the form of a servant; whether as the Son of God, or as the Son of man; whether as the divine Logos, or as Jesus of Nazareth, the personal identity is ever preserved,—“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”
In the days of Noah he preached by the Spirit to the wicked antediluvians; but this could not have been the case if he was not formerly existent at that time. From the Theophanies and Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, very plausible, if not wholly conclusive, arguments may be found to show that he who was called the Angel of the Lord (Ex. iii. 2), the Angel of God’s presence (Is. lxiii. 9), and the Messenger of the Covenant (Mal. iii. 1), was none other than the pre-existent Jesus. Micah evidently alludes to Christ where he speaks of him who is “to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah v. 2.) Isaiah calls him Emanuel (Is. vii. 14), and Jeremiah says his name shall be called the Lord our Righteousness. (Jer. xxiii. 6.) Zachariah terms him the Fellow of the Lord of Hosts (Zach. xiii. 7), and Malachi points to him as the Angel of the Covenant, who would suddenly come to his temple. (Mal. iii. 1.)
The time is fast hastening, and cannot be far distant, when the blessed Jesus shall come “to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day.”[11]
“Soon all shall hail our Jesus’ name,
Angels shall prostrate fall;
For him the brightest glory claim,
And crown him Lord of all.”
[1] Watson’s Inst., Part II., p. 241.
[2] Beltham’s Inquiry.
[3] Magee on the Atonement.
[4] Leben Jesu, ch. 4, § 65.
[5] Meyer in loc.: “Ehe Abraham ward, bin Ich, alter als Abraham’s werden ist meine existenz.” Erasmus in loc.: “Antequam Abraham nasceretur ego sum.”
[6] Barnes’ Notes on John viii. 58.
[7] Watson’s Inst., Part II., p. 243.
[8] Pearson on the Creed.
[9] Harwood’s Socinian Scheme.
[10] Benson in loc.
[11] Advent Christian Quarterly, Vol. ii. 134.