For many people worldwide who are not aware of what the Bible says, Jesus Christ came into existence when He was born of Mary in Bethlehem. Well, it’s certainly true that His humanity began there, just as the familiar Christmas story reveals it. But His beginning in Bethlehem must be limited to His humanity. While that was His historical, human point of entry, it was most-assuredly not His beginning as a Person for in His personhood, He had no beginning. He was as He was from eternity past, the Son of God in His Deity that took upon Himself human flesh and became as one of us. Listen to what the relatively obscure prophet Micah said in chapter 5 about the arrival and birthplace of the Son of God…and he prophesied 500 years before the Bethlehem birth was to occur. It was an enigma to the Jews of old who read it, and it remains an enigma to the Jews today who do not see Jesus Christ as their long-awaited Messiah. Here is what Micah said, “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you one will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel; His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” Did you hear that? God the Father was speaking, but of whom was He speaking? All the rest of the Old Testament, and the New as well, provide with crystal clarity that this description fits Jesus Christ, born in His humanity in Bethlehem, or it speaks of no one. Hardly an option is one expects Scripture to make any sense at all. And, this is but one of dozens of similar passages with similar necessary conclusions.
Only spiritual blindness and a hardened heart can dismiss the formidable and numerous claims like this. Such passages trumpet forth the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in unmistakable fashion. This concept of Christ’s existence with the Father and the Holy Spirit from eternity past was precisely what He referred to when He said, “I am the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” It’s in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, in chapter 22. How utterly fitting to His utter uniqueness.
The Apostle John, whom God inspired to write the Revelation also gave us the beloved gospel that bears his name. In John 1, Christ is described as the “Word”, the logos. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Then, John drops the bomb in verse 14 when he declares, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” Does this not provide an exceeding clarification and declaration of the pre-existence of Jesus the Christ…well before Bethlehem, reaching back into eternity past. Unique? Well, I guess! Utterly so, utterly unique.
CC-06-03
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