of the Father. He is this because only he knows the Father perfectly, just as the Father knows him; he is therefore uniquely qualified to reveal the Father (Matt 11:27 || Luke 10:22). If Jesus is a mere creature, how could he know the Father perfectly? God himself is incomprehensible to the creature. When Philip asked him, “Lord, show us the Father,” Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:9–10). Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
The self-consciousness of Jesus as God’s Son who knows and reveals the Father leads the New Testament authors to speak of Jesus in exalted terms. Paul hailed Jesus as “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15; cp. 2 Cor 4:4). The author of Hebrews confessed that “he is the radiance (apaugasma) of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3). It is no wonder that the church fathers took up this theme and made it one of their key arguments for the deity of Christ. Basil the Great wrote, “The whole nature of the Father is manifest in the Son as in a seal . . . . In himself he reveals the Father in his entirety.”17 Contrast the biblical teaching with that of James D. G. Dunn, who wrote that Jesus “was as full an expression of God’s creative and redemptive concern and action as was possible in flesh . . . . There was much more to God than could be seen in and through Jesus.”18 The New Testament writers would never speak that way. Paul did not say that some aspects of God could be seen in Jesus, but that “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:19; cp. 2:9). He is the perfect revelation of the Father. To see the Son is to see the Father.
Preexistence and Incarnation
We have seen that Jesus’ most fundamental identity is that he is the Son of God. We have surveyed the arguments for viewing his identity as Son not in a merely functional/messianic sense, but in a sense that goes much deeper, approaching something ontological in terms of his unique relationship with the Father, a relationship that was so scandalous it provoked the Jewish leadership to charge Jesus with blasphemy. In this section, I now argue that the Sonship of Christ is not something that began at some point in his earthly existence but in fact goes back to his pre-incarnate state. In other words, the New Testament teaches that before Jesus’ earthly career as a man, he existed as the Son of God.19
Preexistence in the Johannine Literature
The majestic Prologue of John’s Gospel teaches the preexistence of Christ. It begins by stating that in the beginning, the Word (the Logos) existed as a divine being distinct from God the Father (John 1:1–3). “He was in the beginning with God” (v. 2). In fact, he was with God prior to creation (v. 3). The Prologue then moves forward to the incarnation, stating that “the Word became flesh and dwelled among us” (John 1:14). The preexistence-incarnation motif is found throughout the Gospel of John. Jesus repeatedly speaks of his mission as one who “came or descended from heaven” (John 3:13, 31; 6:38, 42, 62). He says that the Jews do not know the Father who sent him, but “I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me” (John 7:29). “I came from God and I am here,” and “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:42, 58). Jesus even speaks of a divine action of “consecration” that took place prior to his coming to earth: he is the one “whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world” and therefore he has the right to say, “I am the Son of God” (John 10:36).
In addition, there are several passages where Jesus speaks of three phases of his existence: the time before he came into the world, his earthly ministry, and the time when he goes back to the Father. For example, he says, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (John 16:28). Jesus expands on his three-stage career in his high priestly prayer just before he goes to the cross:
“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you . . . . 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 . . . . Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:1, 4–5, 24).
There is only one center of consciousness, one “I” of the Son, as he speaks of his relationship with the Father as a man and as he looks back upon his preincarnate life with the Father “before the foundation of the world.” It strains credulity to interpret these straightforward vignettes of the pretemporal, interpersonal relationship between the Father and the Son as mere poetic hyperbole of a personified divine attribute.
The Epistles of John also imply preexistence when they speak of Jesus’ incarnation. The apostolic truth is set in contrast with error. Only prophetic spirits that confess that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” are to be recognized as from God (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). The coming of Christ in the flesh, that is, his incarnation, presupposes his preexistence.
Preexistence in Paul
Some would set aside the Johannine preexistence texts as late, but there is one text in Paul that places this belief much earlier. I am referring, of course, to Phil 2:5–11. The first half of this early Christian hymn or creed speaks of Jesus’ decision not to regard equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. It goes on to say that he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of men. There are many technical exegetical questions that would need to be examined to do justice to this passage, but for my purpose, I will simply observe that New Testament scholarship has reached a firm consensus that real, personal preexistence is predicated of Jesus in this text. James D. G. Dunn has attempted to argue for ideal or metaphorical preexistence by appealing to a so-called “Adam Christology,” but his exegesis is not persuasive.20 Specific dispositions of mind and acts of will are predicated of the preexistent one, a self-conscious decision not to use his equality with God as something for his own advantage, and his voluntary act of humbling himself by becoming a man, viewed as the starting point of his obedience. These actions imply a real center of consciousness and will in Christ that cannot be explained away as mere poetic hyperbole or metaphor. If they were mere metaphor, how could they be used as an example for believers? “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (v. 5 KJV). The fact that this is stated so clearly in a pre-Pauline hymn pushes the origin of belief in Christ’s preexistence back to the earliest period of the primitive church, within the first decade after Jesus’ resurrection.21
There are several other important passages that some scholars accept as teaching the preexistence of Christ, such as the “I have come” texts and the “sending” texts, particularly the ones which speak of Christ’s being “sent into the world,” which are even more explicit.22 Last but not least, the Epistle to the Hebrews is acknowledged by most scholars as having a very high Christology, including a preexistence-incarnation motif.23
Two Tests of Ontological Deity
There may still be some apprehension at this point. Jesus may be the Son of God in a unique sense that transcends the categories Judaism had for its messianic expectation. He may even have existed as a glorious “divine” being (in some sense) prior to his becoming a man. But does divine Sonship mean ontological deity in the sense of being eternally part of the divine being? Surely this is a “noxious exaggeration” if there ever was one! But that is precisely what I believe the New Testament teaches. I proceed now in the next stage of my argument
