Matthew 24:14

Jesus — The God of the Old Testament

In this very long dialogue of Jesus, the Pharisees brought up the subject of Abraham (the greatest of Jewish national heroes). Jesus explained to them: "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad" (verse 56). The One who became Christ actually walked and talked with the patriarch Abraham (Gen. 12:1-4; 13:14-18; 17:1-22; 18:1-33; 22:1-2). Of course, these religionists simply didn't grasp what Jesus was saying. "The Jews then said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am"' (verses 57-58).

Jesus Christ was the same God who walked and talked with Moses in the wilderness — the same "I AM" (see Ex. 3:14) who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. Paul makes this plain. "I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the [Red] sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. . . . For they drank from the same supernatural Rock which followed them, and the ['that,' KJV] Rock was Christ" (I Cor. 10:1-4).

This same Personage in the Godhead presided over the Flood in Noah's day. Peter gives us the facts: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he [Christ] went and preached unto the spirits [demons] in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water" (I Peter 3:18-20, KJV)

From Creator to Son

But we find the most emphatic statements about the pre-existence of Jesus Christ in the book of John. The book's major emphasis is on the undeniable fact that Jesus Christ was God before His human birth. Even the Pharisee Nicodemus said to Jesus: "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God. . . " (John 3:2).

Jesus told the leaders of this smallish sect: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:17-18, KJV). If you have any sons or daughters, they are on the same plane and level of existence as yourself. They are not inferior beings like animals. Jesus was equal with God in the sense that He existed on the same God-plane that the Father did. True, the Father was and is greater in authority — "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28, KJV).

Continuing His discussion with the Pharisees, Christ drove home the point that He was indeed God's Son: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing,— for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing; and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will" (John 5:1921). Jesus possesses the same powers that the Father does, because He too is God.

Jesus Christ said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). Not that they are the same Being, but they are one in purpose, one in plan, and most of all, one in the sense that they are members of the same God family.

If anyone in that generation saw Jesus, they saw how One in the God family would act if He were here on earth — and specifically the Father. "And Jesus cried out and said, 'He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me' " (John 12:44-45).

Jesus Resumed His Glorified Godship

We have firmly established the fact that Jesus was God before His human birth. Notice just one more verse to that effect: "And now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made" (John 17:5). Jesus was a glorified God-Being before there ever was an angel or man on earth. In fact, Jesus has eternally existed as God. (For more vital information on this subject, write for our free article entitled "Has God Eternally Existed?")

But He divested Himself of His former glory and came down to this earth as a human being to (among many other things) die for the sins of all mankind. Paul wrote to the Philippian brethren: "Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:5-8).

Paul then brings out the fact that Jesus is now restored to His former glory: "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow [God does not allow human beings to worship other human beings or even angels — only members of the God family], in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (verses 9-11).

John also wrote of Jesus' resuming His Godship. Notice Christ's words in the true Lord's prayer: "And now I am no more in the world . . . and I come to thee" (John 17:11, KJV).

Earlier Jesus had said to His disciples: "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (John 6:62, KJV) Later they did see just that (Acts 1:9). Notice John 7:33 (KJV): "Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me."

Concerning the occasion of Christ's last Passover, John begins: "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was [very soon to] come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father . . ." (John 13:1, KJV).

John repeats this vital theme over and over again. "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father" (John 16:28, KJV).

The Incredible Destiny of Man

Jesus was God before His human birth; He was God in the flesh while a human being here on earth; and He is now very God at the right hand of the Father in heaven. But must we stop there in our knowledge?

Jesus said to Mary Magdalene: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17, KJV).

In this verse, Jesus was equating Himself (though He was their Lord and Master — John 13:13) with His disciples and future apostles. What is the real significance of this statement? Jesus Himself gives us the true answer in John 10. "The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, 'I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?' The Jews answered him, 'We stone you for no good work but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.' Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your law, "I said, you are gods" [see Psalm 82:6]? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, "You are blaspheming," because I said, "I am the Son of God" 'T' (Verses 31-36) This very vital passage of scripture reveals, believe it or not, that man's ultimate destiny is to become a part of the God family.

Notice John's first letter once again: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he [Christ] shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (I John 3:2, KJV). Can you grasp what John is saying here? Even as God became man, so man may become God! The two planes are interchangeable under certain conditions.

Man is to become just as much God as Christ is God. That in a nutshell is the transcendent purpose of human life!

What can every man and woman do to ensure that this wonderful event does indeed happen to them? Verse 3: "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he [Christ] is pure" (KJV).