While most biographies of Christ begin with his birth, the Bible returns to his eternal pre-existence. Jesus existed long before the creation week, a fact not only made necessary by his participation in the Trinity and his work in creation, but also by direct assertion of Scripture.
John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word” (cf. Genesis 1:1).
John 1:15—“He existed before me” (cf. Luke 1:24–26, 41ff, where John is shown to be the older child).
John 3:17—“God sent his Son.”
John 3:31—“He who comes from above is above all.”
John 6:38, 51—“I have come down from heaven” (cf. 3:13; 8:42; 16:28–30).
John 8:58—“Before Jesus was, I AM.”
This is not merely a claim that he was older than Abraham (though it is that, too). This choice of words was clearly made to be a claim to equality with the eternal God (Exod 3:14). The term derives from the Hebrew verb, “to be,” and denotes that God is the absolute being: independent of, different from, and better than his creation. This was obviously the understanding of his hearers, too, because they attempted to stone him for blasphemy.
John 17:5—“The glory which I had with you before the world began”
Philippians 2:5–7—He was in the “form” ((morphe )) of God (nasb). “Form” refers to those characterizing qualities that make something exactly what it is.
The niv is more accurate when it says that Christ was “in very nature God.” Paul is saying that Jesus existed as God before he existed as a servant on earth. Note: Paul is simply saying that Jesus existed as God before He existed as a servant on earth,
i.e., a God-servant.
Colossians 1:16–17—“By him all things were created.… He is before all things.” His being “before all things” is probably not a specific reference to chronology (he is first in time), but rather rank (he is first in importance), although the former is probably not absent.
Stand Firm! 