Vintage Jesus: Where was Jesus Before He Came?
Today was part 2 of our series Vintage Jesus. I talked about where Jesus was before he came. This is the doctrine of the pre-existent Christ. This gets at the heart of whether or not Jesus is God. This doctrine, which also goes into the doctrine of the trinity is one of the major separations between Christianity and all other world religions.
Some religions, like Jehovah’s Witness believe that Jesus pre-existed, but is not eternal. It is impossible to separate those two beliefs. When Jesus was on earth, he claimed to be God (John 10:30) and God is eternal. Jesus claimed to be from heaven (John 6:38). He claimed to exist before Moses who lived 1400 years before him (John 8:58). If those are not true, if Jesus is not pre-existent & eternal, then our faith is in vain because the question has to be asked, “If he lied about those things, what else did he lie about?” And the scriptures also teach us that Jesus didn’t sin, so he didn’t lie (Isaiah 53:9).
The other interesting thing about this doctrine is what theologians called “Theophanies.” Theophanies are when the second person of the trinity, Jesus, appeared in human form in the Old Testament (these happen in Genesis 18, Judges 6, and Zeachariah 1 & 3). Once Jesus arrives on the scene after being born, there is no mention of theophanies for the rest of the New Testament, they cease. He already came.
This is the heart of Christianity, this is one of the major things that separates us from other religions as you can see from the table that appears in the book Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches on p. 28
|
Name |
Belief | Adherents |
| Atheism | There is no God or gods/goddesses | Marxists, naturalists, pure materialists |
| Agnosticism | It cannot be known whether or not there is a God or god/goddesses | Rationalist philosophers such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant |
| Pantheism | Everything in the material world is God | Paganism, some forms of New Age spirituality |
| Polytheism | There are many gods/goddesses | Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, religious pluralists |
| Monotheism | There is only one God | Jews, Muslims |
| Trinitarianism | There is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit | Christians |
The amazing thing about the claims that Jesus made is that no one else has ever claimed to come from heaven. Muhammad, founder of Islam, claimed to have a near death experience that took him from earth to heaven, but no one has ever claimed to come from heaven.
Every week of this series, I am just blown away by the power of God and how things line up within our faith. Do I still have questions? Absolutely. Is it hard to believe? Yes, but it is amazing.
Passages we looked at today (in order):
John 3:13
John 8:58
John 10:30
John 17:5
Genesis 1:26
Genesis 3:22
John 1:1 – 14
Colossians 1:15 – 20
1 Corinthians 8:6
John 6:38
On a completely different note, we announced today that we invited Seth & Kindra who were here last week to come and join our community. Please keep them in prayer as they are seeking what God has in store for them as their next step. We also announced that we will be having just one service during the Christmas season. This is also to help keep our volunteers from burning out. So starting next week, we will meet at 10 am only.
