A Poke From The Past: The Correct Jesus

“He took upon Himself a created human body so that He might renew it as its Creator, and deify it in Himself, and thus introduce us all into the kingdom of heaven in His likeness. For humanity would not have been deified if it had been united to a created being, or if the Son had not been truly God; nor would humanity have been brought into the Father’s presence, if it had not been the Father’s natural and true Logos who had clothed Himself with the human body. And we would not have been saved from sin and the curse, unless the Logos had taken upon Himself natural human flesh, for we would have had nothing in common with any other kind of flesh.”¹ 

Athanasius- Orations Against the Arians, Book 2, chapter 70 

The Correct Jesus 

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There are many different Jesus’s you can choose to worship, but the question is this: which Jesus is the correct Jesus to worship? Is it the Jesus that is revealed in Scripture, or is it a different Jesus? There is the Jesus who is a great moral teacher, but nothing more, the Jesus who is one god among many, or there is the Jesus who is a great prophet, but not the Son of God. Then there is the Jesus who is the uncreated, eternal God, second person of the Trinity, who took on human flesh and in whom all things were created. The reason it is important to have the correct Jesus is because there is only one Jesus who can save. There is only one Jesus who is worthy of our worship. There is only one Jesus who can take away the sins of the world. If we have the wrong Jesus, we no longer have salvation. We also have no forgiveness of sins. If we have the wrong Jesus, then we are spiritually bankrupt. So once again, the question is which Jesus will you choose to worship? In my first article, I said the two most attacked orthodox Christian doctrines throughout church history (and in cults and world religions) are the Trinity and the Deity of Christ. For my first article, I did my best to give the most accurate and biblical definition of the Trinity. I will use my next two articles to biblically present the Jesus that is revealed in the Scriptures. Knowing these two doctrines will be an immense help when we encounter people of various faiths that do not have the right Jesus. For this first article, I will be spending much of my time in the Gospel of John and the writings of Paul focusing on the preexistence of Jesus. There will be another article on the deity of Christ and why he is worthy of worship. 

Preexistence of Jesus According to Jesus 

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When speaking of the preexistence of Jesus we must first begin by defining preexistence, especially in light of how this applies to Jesus. Preexistence is existing at a previous point in time, and in relation to Jesus this means that Jesus was already in existence before his Incarnation. Jesus existed before He took on human flesh meaning that Jesus is eternal. In John 1:1, Jesus is described as the Word that has been in existence as far back into eternity past as you would like to go. No matter how far you push the Word back in time, the Word was in eternal relationship to the Father and already in existence. Jesus says no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. (John 3:13) Jesus also describes himself as the bread that has come down from heaven. (John 6:38, 41) This is strong language that Jesus uses to describe himself, and he even had the Jews questioning what exactly he meant by that as they were thinking he was the son of Joseph whom they knew. Later, Jesus says to the Jews before Abraham was, I am. (John 8:58) What was the reaction of the Jews that Jesus was speaking to when He said these words? They picked up stones to throw at him. (John 8:59) Why did they want to stone Jesus? It was because they understood the claim that Jesus was making. Jesus was making himself out to be God. He was not merely saying that he was more important than Abraham, or that he was of a higher rank than Abraham, rather Jesus was saying He was God. This becomes even more apparent in John 10 in the Good Shepherd passage. Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who knows his own just as the Father knows Him and He knows the Father and says that He has the authority to lay down his life and to take it back up and says that he received this charge from His Father. (John 10:14-18) Later, the Jews ask Jesus to tell them plainly if He is the Christ and Jesus responds by saying that his works bear witness about Him and that Him and His Father are one in the salvation of God’s people. They once again pick up stones to stone him because Jesus being a man, made himself out to be God. (John 10:33) Throughout the Gospel of John there is a unique love and intimate relationship between the Son and the Father. We have already touched on a few of these instances, like the prologue of John and the Good Shepherd passage. However, there is one more I would like to focus on which is the High Priestly Prayer. This example gives us another glimpse into the eternal relationship and shared glory between the Father and the Son. In the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus says in John 17:4-5, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” In this same prayer, Jesus speaks of the love that the Father has for him before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24) Jesus as the Son had a shared glory with the Father before the world was in existence. It was this glory that Jesus laid aside. Jesus, being God, emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-13) 

Preexistence According to Paul 

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Colossians 1:15-17 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For 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.” First, Jesus is called the image of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15) Colossians 1:19 says that it was in Jesus that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And then in Colossians 2:9, Paul says that the fullness of deity dwells in Jesus bodily. Lastly, in Hebrews 1:3 Jesus is described as being “the exact imprint of God’s nature.” B. B. Warfield defines deity as that which makes God, God.² Jesus has all of which makes God, God dwelling in His physical body as the second person of the Trinity. 

Secondly, in the exact same way as we see in the prologue of John, Jesus is the one by Whom, for Whom, and through Whom all things were created. Paul says that Jesus is before all things. This is speaking to the eternal nature of Jesus because Jesus is God. The only way you can be before all things is if you preexisted all things as Jesus has. This language cannot be used of a created being because all created beings have a specific point in time at which they were created. If you are a creation, there was a time when you did not exist. Not only was there a time when you did not exist, but there was a time when other creations existed before you. You can take this all the way back to the first day of creation and Jesus is still there and before everything. This also means that Jesus preexists time itself. Time is only a factor when creation takes place. It is a result or a product of creation. Before time comes into existence it is just the three coequal and coeternal divine persons of the Trinity in intimate relationship with each other. The point is that Jesus being God is eternal and has preexisted all things. 

“Unbelief is coming in through these men [the Arians], or rather a non-Scriptural Judaism allied with Gentile superstition. Anyone who holds these opinions can no longer be called a Christian, for they are completely contrary to the Scriptures. John, for example, says, ‘The Word existed in the beginning’ (John 1:1), but these men say, ‘He did not exist before He was begotten.’ And again, John has written, ‘We are in Him who is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life; (1 John 5:20). But these men, as if to contradict this, claim that Christ is not the true God, but that Scripture only calls Him ‘God’, as it also gives this title to other created beings, on account of His participation [as a created being] in the divine nature. The apostle Paul condemns the Gentiles for worshipping created beings, saying, ‘They worshipped the creature more than God the Creator’ (Romans 1:25). But if these men say that the Lord Jesus is a created being, and worship Him as a created being, how do they differ from the Gentiles? If they hold this opinion, is this passage not against them, and does the blessed Paul not write in condemnation of them? The Lord also says, ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30), and, ‘He that has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9). And the apostle Paul, whom Christ sent forth to preach, says of Him, ‘He is the brightness of God’s glory and the exact image of His person’ (Hebrews 1:3). But these men dare to separate the Son from the Father, claiming that the Son is alien to the Father’s essence and eternity; in an ungodly way they represent Him as changeable, not seeing that by speaking thus they make the Son to be not one with the Father, but one with created things. But who does not see that you cannot separate the brightness from the light? Brightness belongs by nature to light, and exists along with it, and does not come into existence after it.”³– Athanasius- Letter to the Egyptian Bishops, chapter 13 

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Passages of Scripture to Consider 

The Gospel of John 

Colossians 1-2 

Hebrews 1 

Genesis 18-19 

Titus 1:1-3 

2 Peter 1:1 

Recommended Reading 

The Deity of Christ Edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson 

Ignatius’s Epistle to the Church in Ephesus (This can be found online) 

Bibliography 

Warfield, B.B. The Person and Work of Christ. Phillipsburg, NJ. P&R Publishing Company. January, 1970. 

The Complete Works of St. Athanasius. Toronto, Canada, 2016.