Christology: The Pre-Incarnate Christ

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Christology: The Pre-Incarnate Christ

May 17, 2021

Christology is defined as the "the branch of Christian theology relating to the person, nature, and role of Christ." In this new edition of the Sunday Series, Bryce and I dive deep into what God's word can tell us about the person of Christ. He did come as a man and his work and ministry as a man is a central focus in Christian Theology, but we must remember Jesus' own claims about his divinity and equality with God as the second person in the trinity. We will dive this episode into the pre-incarnate Christ. He fully existed well before he was a man.

Key Texts: John 1:1-5, Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:1-3, Jude 1:5, John 8:48-59, Matthew 22:44, Revelation 1:8, Genesis 18, Daniel 10, Zechariah 3

More Information:

https://www.standstrongministries.org/articles/the-preexistence-of-the-pre-incarnate-christ/

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/angel-lord/

Send Inquiries to forthekingpodcast@gmail.com or visit forthekingpodcast.com

Transcript

(music) Hello, For The King listeners. It is Rocky, the host of the For The King podcast. Welcome.

Thanks for listening and being a part of this community that we're building. For the King, to the King, by the King, through the King, all things are held together in this King. The King is Jesus Christ.

So this podcast has two different little components to it. These Wednesday, we call them like wonky Wednesdays, which are kind of topics that are kind of sporadic and random. But on these Sunday episodes, Bryce and I walk through, we try to do a series or something, have a theme to the show for a few episodes.

So this next, well sorry, what we did these past couple weeks is we did a series that we can always come back to. If you guys liked it, we titled it, What Does That Text Mean? So we went through a couple hard texts in the Bible and just talked about what they actually mean. But now we're done with school.

So we're done with school, which means we can actually, you know, the What Does That Text Mean is kind of our, we're busy, we don't only have time to prepare a really hard episode. So that's a little peek into the mind of Rocky. The laziness, yeah.

There is some laziness there, but I was, I did have a lot of stuff with school. So that's what was going on there. We hope you guys still enjoyed those.

We did want to do a good job with those. So hopefully those were enjoyable. But now we are moving on to a brand new series.

Let me just warm it up in here. And this series is going to be called, I guess, Christology or the Doctrine of Christ in Christian theology. Who is Jesus? What does the Bible tell us about Jesus? Doctrine, theology comes from scripture.

That's where we're obviously, if you listen to the pilot episode or a lot of our other episodes, we've talked about this, the sufficiency of scripture, the inerrancy of scripture, that we learn about who God is based on what he's revealed to us. So you've seen my stance on natural law and that was as we talked about natural law. We have to have things revealed to us for us to know who truly who God is.

There are a very select few things that we can know about God just based on natural law. And Paul talks about that in Romans 1 and Romans 2. There's very select things. But to know Christology, to know who Jesus is, that must be revealed.

And that's why Jesus says, I haven't called you servants. I've called you friends because I am letting you know who the Father is. I'm tuning you in to what the truth of the God of this universe is.

Yahweh, which is me. So that's actually what we're getting into today. We want to start off Christology with a strong foundation that warrants all the other things that Jesus did in his life.

And what must be warranted in the person of Christ is that he is eternally existent, co-existent, co-authoritative, co-eternal with the Father before his incarnation. So this will be the pre-incarnate Christ. This is the section of Christology that is before Jesus' incarnation.

How far does that stretch back? It's eternal. So we're going to get into that. There's the answer.

The podcast is done. We could stop, but we want to make a case for it before we just stop. And these things can be hard to think about.

And I think that is the whole purpose of studying such a glorious doctrine is that it's incomprehensible, which just means we cannot fully grasp the glories of Christ and his incarnation and in his pre-existent, pre-incarnate state. But, I mean, as John Owen says, to contemplate on these glorious things, on the riches of God, that his thoughts are way higher than our thoughts and his ways are way higher than ours. It drives us to godliness.

So this is not just some unpractical doctrine about Christ. Christ is the sinner and the foundation of our entire faith. He's the object of our faith.

So we need to recognize that this is something that we should be delighted to study in. Yep. Agreed.

Yeah. This should bolster our understanding of Jesus. Exactly.

And aid our faith. So all the things we do on this podcast, guys, the goal was to age your faith. Even the wonky Wednesday ones, the ones that are random and maybe you guys are like, this doesn't really fit in for me.

I don't really understand. I really do try to do these topics, the things we talk about. I want it to age your faith because I know it's helped me understand the world.

We need to understand the person of Christ because he is the one in whom we place our faith and has propitiated our sins. And Rocky needs that a lot. I do.

A lot. I understand it often. Bryce means it as slander against me, but I accept it.

I realize my own weakness. When I'm weak, then I am strong. See, now I know you're growing.

You were testing me there to see what I say. Okay. So let's hop in.

If Bryce will just buzz off so I can actually get serious here for a second, that would be great. Okay. Here we go, folks.

And Bryce and I don't do this in front of a television screen. We actually have the physical text in front of us. So bear with us as we read this and we have to kind of flip through our Bibles to find the things.

But our first text we're going to be going through is the first chapter of the book of John. We think this is...we want to start here because we think this is a very clear text about the pre-incarnate Christ. Bryce's flipping form is amazing.

Okay. So I will read these first five verses. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." So do you have...I can just hit this one first. Yeah. Go for it.

Okay. So I actually read Matthew Henry's commentary in conjunction with this text because it's such a clear one and I really wanted to be able to exposit it and understand it properly. Big surprise, Rocky's going to Matthew Henry.

Matthew Henry's pretty sweet, dude. You guys should pick his stuff up. I'm telling you.

His stuff is so good. And he was...he's a wealth of knowledge to us as the church. So for...he talks about Christ being likened to the Word.

So the Word was...it was a Greek idea about... Well, Jesus is the Word, but He's kind of piggybacking on a Greek kind of philosophical idea to teach them that this idea you have about what's upholding the whole universe, like what is...what's keeping the universe going, what is the word? I thought it was just some weird philosophical forms or things like that, you know, platonic forms or Aristotelian framework. I don't know how Aristotle exactly thought about that, but yeah, like they're definitely trying to go a philosophical route with it. But what John is trying to show us that Jesus is this Word, this Logos, this divine Word that is upholding all things.

So Matthew Henry says that the...the paraphrase frequently calls the Messiah, Memra, the Word of Jehovah, and speaks of many things in the Old Testament said to be done by the Lord as done by the Word of the Lord. Even the Volcker Jews were taught that the Word of God was the same with God. So the historical kind of Jewish conception of the Word, and we see this all throughout the Old Testament, it'll say the Word did this.

God's Word came and did this. You know, and obviously that's taught to people. God's Word is taught to the prophets.

God comes and speaks to the prophets so they can go and speak on his behalf, or I guess they're speaking on God's behalf, not on the prophets behalf. But they had always conceived of God's Word being synonymous with him, just like you would take me at my word. What I say is a projection of my own character, my own person, just like my name is synonymous with me.

If I say Rocky, you know, that is...you would think of me as the person in totality, not only my physical body, but also the spiritual and emotional and all my words, all my ideas, my personality that you know about me. So God's name, God's words were always taught to be synonymous with him. And that's why Peter can say that no prophecy is given from an interpretation of man, but it comes from God.

Exactly. It protrudes from him. Yes.

So this is why, "Thus the second person in the Trinity is fitly called the Word, for he is the first begotten of the Father, the essential wisdom which the Lord possessed, as the soul does it thought in the beginning of his way." Proverbs 8, 22. So if we go there real quick, just since I brought it up so I can...we don't have to worry about going back to it later. This Word, this divine wisdom, this divine thought that God is having when he makes the world.

If we go to Proverbs 8, 22, it says, "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old." And who is he talking about? He's talking about wisdom. This, if you look in verse 12 of chapter 8, it says, "I wisdom dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge." So this "I" that is being talked about throughout this entire chapter in Proverbs is wisdom. Wisdom is portrayed as a person.

That's why it says in 1 Corinthians that Jesus is the wisdom of God. Exactly, yes. So in 1 Corinthians, I think chapter 1 and 2, it talks about the wisdom of God.

And Jesus is synonymous with that. Jesus is the Word. He is the wisdom of God.

He is what God is through him creating all things. And we're going to get to that in Colossians when it says that Jesus, all things were created through Jesus. So we see John teaching us that even the same idea in verse 3, "All things were made through him, and without him were not anything made that was made." So we see that God is making things in his wisdom at the beginning of time for us.

God is timeless. We're talking about the eternally existent, pre-incarnate Christ who is timeless. But God is creating time, starting time through Jesus.

So another cool thing that Matthew Henry says about this, and again he brings up problems again, but he says concerning, again, verse 1 about Jesus being the beginning, being the Word, and the Word was with God, he says, and I think this is really important and this is good, the world was from the beginning. So in all the other texts where it talks about the world or the foundation, the creation of everything, it always says, "From the beginning we were predestined," or "From the beginning God had ordained this." So the world was, the world itself, the creation is from the beginning, but the Word was in the beginning. I think that is a huge distinction and it's good because it says in verse 2 of chapter 1 and John, "He was in the beginning with God." This logos, this Word talking about Jesus, he was in the beginning.

He was not before the beginning. He didn't start when the creation happened. God didn't become a Trinity right when he created Adam and he even created the earth.

He didn't become a Trinity. He's always been a triune God. Jesus was in the beginning already with God and we'll see.

Even in this own text it says, "All things were made through him." So God in some way, through wisdom, Jesus is the wisdom. God is creating things through Christ and all things are for Christ to be inherited. He's the firstborn of creation.

Creation is Jesus' inheritance. That's why he comes back and the nations are his heritage. Jesus is coming to reclaim the earth.

He's making all things new. All that language is there. Do you have a thought? That's why he says in Job 41 too that all things are mine.

Who can repay me? All is mine. Who can give counsel to the Lord? That is an insane piece of text in Scripture when God talks back to Job. In verse 3, which is talking about all things being made through Christ and not anything that has been made without Christ, he says this pre-incarnate Jesus has agency in making the world.

Verse 3, this is here, "Expressly asserted, all things were made by him. He was with God, not only so as to be acquainted with the divine counsels from eternity, but to be active in the divine operations in the beginning of time. God made the world by a word," that's what it says in Psalm 33 verse 6. You can go check that out.

"And Christ was the word by him, not as a subordinate instrument." He wasn't lower than God, but as a co-ordinate agent, God made the world. So when they're creating the world, one God, multiple persons creating the world, they are not butting heads in their ideas of how the world should look or how you should hold all things together. They are perfectly co-ordinate.

One is not subordinate. Jesus isn't. He does become in his humanity lower.

He makes himself lower in Philippians. We see that. He didn't count equality with God, I think, to be grasped in his humanity.

But in the eternally existing Christ, the second person of the Trinity, he is completely co-ordinate with God. And guys, here's the problem that extends from a lot of false doctrine of the Trinity that we are receiving nowadays and has always come up in times past with the Arian controversy and Socaean's controversy, all these different heresies. It's because people like to start with the Incarnation without realizing that Christ is the pre-existing God.

So there are derives these doctrines of this subordination where the Son is lower and submissive towards the Father. But they're getting all their texts from these New Testament Scriptures where Christ and his humanity is subjected under the Father. And we're going to get into that later on, but we have to recognize and find our foundation deluded that this second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, is from everlasting to everlasting.

He is God. There is no variance due to change within him, as it says in James 1.17. And the reason that is is because he is essentially God. That is who he is.

He is with the Father in the beginning showing his distinct personality, but at the same time he is himself God, as it clearly points out there. So we can't distinguish it. We can't separate Jesus into this subordinate role.

He is co-eternal with the Father. He has always been with him. And as the Puritans like to say all throughout church history, the way they've categorized this and understood it is that Jesus was in the bosom of the Fathers, as they say.

And there's a theological term called eternal generation. The Son didn't have a starting point, but he eternally from before all time was generated by the Father. So this is not talking about some sort of creation.

This is just talking about the distinct roles that they have within one another. The Son protrudes from the Father by eternal generation and the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. That's the language that we kind of get from Scripture.

So we need to bask in the glory of this, that Christ really is pre-existent. We have to look at him not just solely in his incarnation, though that is tremendously glorious and which is where we find our salvation in. But he is transcendent and we cannot look or think about Christ as just this buddy that was incarnate at one time.

That's kind of as far as our community. Yeah, the domesticate God. Exactly.

He's undomesticable. Even in John 1, we see the word was with God. There's immediately a distinction in person.

And then it says the word was God. So we have this paradoxical teaching right from the get-go. It's not illogical.

It's not a contradiction. It's not a formal contradiction because you can be – it's not formally logically contradictory to say that one person is the same in essence but also a different person. That's not contradictory.

That is paradoxical. There's things that we don't understand there. But we see this teaching even from the beginning.

Yeah. And that's why when we think about God, we cannot start from us. God is not a man that he would be like us like it says in Numbers, chapter 23.

So we can't reason from how we perceive the world. We have to start with what God has declared about himself and his word. So when we think about us, okay, I'm one person and I'm one being.

So when we think about God, we can't just think, oh, that's stupid. That's illogical to think that God would be triune because how can there be three persons and one God? And it's because we're not understanding the complete and comprehensible – incomprehensibleness of God and who he is. We start from ourselves and we try to think that God is a man.

God's not a man. He's not like us. Yeah.

And that's the big problem that we get with modern evangelicalism is that people try to make God into who they are. Like I've heard from one person, like, "Surely, if I'm like this, therefore God has to be like that." It's like, no, God is far beyond you. What you might think is loving is actually hate.

Yeah. So we can't reason upward from ourselves. Exactly.

We are not the authority. That's why the natural law has been distorted. It has to be revealed.

There's a lot of things that is just not going to make sense to us naturally. Right. So I have some passages pulled up about what Christ thought about himself in this pre-existent state.

So this is – So here's some – These are Jesus's words. Yeah, exactly. So Jesus says in John chapter 8, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." Okay.

So this is in a huge scuffle that Jesus is having with the Pharisees. Jesus says that they are of their father, but their father is actually Satan. And then he goes on to the section and makes that statement right there.

And I'm not going to exegete the whole passage. The point is when Jesus says that, they pick up stones in verse 59 as it says to stone Jesus. And the reason they want to stone him is that when he says that, the words that they are hearing is Jesus is painting himself as being synonymous with God.

Go eternal. He's saying, "I am," which is beckoning us back to Exodus. Look at Exodus when Moses says, "Okay, you want me to go down to the people, God? Who should I say sent me?" And he said, and God replies back to him, "You tell them that I am who I am." Right? So this is what the Jews, the Pharisees are hearing when Jesus says this.

And before Abraham… That title carries with it timelessness and eternality and, again, that co-eternal, co-pre-incarnate, eternally existing. He's equating himself with that when he says that. Yeah, we can't put… That's why they want to stone him.

Exactly. And we can't put temporal stamps on it because that was before tiny, this is the time. That was before time even began.

Yeah. Before time was even created. We don't even know… Time is a creation.

Yeah. Time is not something that is… I don't know. I wanted to say a priori, but that's like a whole place.

Yeah. Like with what… It's not essential. It's something that's… It's contention.

Exactly. It's something that has been made. That's why God has to be timeless because with time comes change.

Right. God does not change. He doesn't have any parts.

He has no change or shadow of change and he's timeless. What beckoned Jesus to say that was Jesus says to them in verse 56, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day and he saw it and was glad." And these Jews replied to him, "You're not yet 50 years old. How have you seen Abraham?" Yeah.

And this is why Jesus replies to him. He's saying, "You guys aren't understanding and seeing me truly for who I am." And this is the problem that we get with some Christians nowadays is they just look at the incarnate Christ and that's exactly what the Jews were doing. They just looked at the man while forgetting that he was the God man at that point, but we're focusing on the pre-existing Christ.

So Jesus thought of himself as before all time. He was Yahweh in the flesh. Yeah.

They look at the man and they have cognitive dissonance because they see him doing miracles and they're like, "Well, maybe he is God and they can't quite understand." And they're like, "But you're a man." Which is odd. And then another passage that we have is Jesus again is kind of talking with the Pharisees and I'm just going to read this. This is in Matthew 22 verses 41 and so on.

And it says this, "Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question saying, 'What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?' And then the Pharisees replied back to him, 'The son of David.' He said to them," this is Jesus saying it, "How is it then that David in the Spirit calls him Lord saying," and then he quotes Psalm 110 which says, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?' And no one was able to answer him a word. Nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him more questions." So here's what Jesus is saying.

You guys know David, that guy who was a thousand years ago. God made a covenant with him. God made a covenant with him.

You Pharisees remember him. I know you've studied a lot about David, right? Because you get a lot of messianic texts from him. Jesus is talking to them about this question about who is the Christ and whose son is he and they say it's David's son.

And then Jesus asked them this simple question, "How does David call the Messiah Lord if David is greater than him?" Because in that day and age, whoever is older is greater. That's exactly what we just saw with Jesus talking about before Abraham was I am. And Jesus says to him, "David calls me Lord.

That means I am greater than David and that was way back then. I'm greater than David. I'm before David because I am Yahweh." And this is Jesus' testimony about himself all throughout scripture that he is pre-existent.

It wasn't just created and made up. But Mary didn't begin. Jesus did not begin with Mary is what I'm trying to say.

Jesus wasn't just incarnate. He was pre-existent. Jesus didn't begin when he was born.

He didn't begin at all. He always was and is. Before Abraham was I am.

And that's why this is in Revelation. I'm the Alpha. Okay, sorry.

So yeah, I was just going to say one other thing Jesus says about himself in chapter one of Revelation verse 8. I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God and the beginning of the whole book is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus claims us about himself. This is these are the claims of Jesus.

He's eternal. He's the beginning. He's the end.

He's timeless. Right. He'll be here in the beginning and he's going to be here in the end.

He's not going away. Right. And he didn't start.

Okay, good. You want to get a june? Let's not do that quite yet. A few more texts in the New Testament first just about pre incarnate eternally exist in Christ real quick in Colossians one.

We also see the similar kind of language and chapter one verse 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Creation was made through him and for him.

Like we saw in John, but it is also repeated here for by him, all things were created in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authority, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things help hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that and everything he might be pre eminent. So again, we see he's before all things, not before the foundation of the world. These things were determined in the mind of God.

Yes. But the mind of God also is eternal. So we see some more language of Jesus being timeless before anything ever began.

He was there. Which if you take the word firstborn to mean he was literally born and created, then the rest of that verse makes no sense because he's saying he was before all things and made all things. And it's for him.

Exactly. That's what firstborn means. Right.

And firstborn, yeah. Firstborn only means preeminence. That's why God gives you the inheritance.

You get things. Yeah. And that's why this says in Exodus, I think it's chapter four versus 33, that Israel is the firstborn of all nations.

Yes. Which is not the first nation. No.

Yeah. And that just means God has established Israel as the preeminent nation over all nations. Exactly.

One more in the book of Hebrews. We also have this being said, some more language. You know, long ago, many times in many ways, God spoke to us.

Now he spoke to us with Jesus, the son, and he, who he appointed in verse two, the heir of all things through him. Also he created the world. So through Jesus, again, through wisdom, through Jesus, the word, the logos, he is the radius of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

There's no difference. There's same essence, exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the words of his power.

After making purification percents, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So he holds all things together by what? The word of his power. He's the logos, the word of his power.

All things consist in him. Right. And that's the word of the Colossians, one, 17.

Yeah. Same pattern. So I think those are some good verses on the eternality, the second person of the Trinity being the exact same essence as God.

Right. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, the exact same essence. There is no difference between them besides the role given ascribed that God gives to himself and these three different human natures that he presents himself as to us.

So big takeaways from that whole activity. We have a lot of scripture about Jesus being the word that God used to create all things through him and that Jesus is completely co-eternal with the Father and co-authoritative, all these things, and not subordinate in his divinity whatsoever. Subordinate in his incarnation and in his flesh, yes.

If he was subordinate- And we'll get to that later. Right. We'll do some follow up episodes of that.

And if he was subordinate in his divinity, then that would mean that God himself is divided and God's not divided. Exactly. There's no- There's no parts.

Right. Okay, cool. God's essence is one.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Here, what do they call that? "Hero, Israel, you've got as one." What does that thing call it? The Shema? Yeah. The Shema? Yeah, I think it's right. The Israelites would say that.

That's one of the things that would recite the Shema, "Hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." So, now that we've done that and I think we presented a good biblical case that anyone who rejects that is a heretic. That is a matter of heresy. If you read the Nicene Creed, this is more of the doxy that Jesus is.

Yeah. God. There's no salvation for you if Christ isn't pre-existent.

Exactly. So, we've made that case. So, now we want to do- go through an activity now where we look at all throughout scripture, these things called Christophanies.

So, Christophany is an encounter with Christ pre-incarnate before he actually came as a human. There were actually, I think, lots of biblical examples of people, saints and prophets encountering Jesus himself before he had ever been incarnated in Mary's womb. So- Do you want to find the root of these in Genesis chapter one and two? I was going to do Jude just because here's a New Testament text-backing that has to go back real quick.

So, you want to start with that and then go- You want to start Genesis? Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah.

I mean, just bring it up. I was waiting for Jude. Yeah.

Yeah. And the first Corinthians went to- So, if you guys remember back in Genesis when it says Adam and Eve walked with God and they heard his footsteps in the garden, that was Jesus. That was Jesus in his pre-incarnate state walking with Adam and Eve.

And the whole point of the Bible is to regather that state where we see face to face with Jesus Christ. So, we find the root of all these things in Genesis as they walk with Jesus Christ. And when that same God talks to Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter three verses 15 and says to the serpent and cursing him, "There shall be enmity between you and the woman, your seed and her seed, and her seed will crush your head." It's funny, the very one who's speaking those words to the serpent is the one who will crush his head.

And I think that is very beautiful. That's the pre-existent, pre-incarnate Christ who is himself Yahweh speaking to the serpent and cursing him for something he himself will accomplish. So, now we can hop into those other verses.

I just wanted to find the root in there because that's pre-fall and then post-fall. Now we see this being played out as Jesus is himself interacting with Israel all throughout redemptive history and into the New Testament. So, you want to bring up Jude? You want to start there? Just do all the Old Testament ones first and just build through.

I mean, that kind of goes into it. I mean, that's referencing Old Testament, right? Sure, yeah. So, in Jude chapter 1, because there's only one chapter in Jude, it's a very short book.

It's really cool, too. It's very random. Good read.

Do what? Good read. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, it's a good letter to read.

It'll take you like a minute and a half. Yeah, you can totally memorize it. If you're getting into memorizing, I think you want to start with it.

And then you could say, "Hey, I've memorized an entire book of the Bible." You can say that. And you can say it's kind of like Romans. It'd be a little misleading.

It's one of those really good ones like Romans. Yeah. It's a good-sized one.

Yeah. But he says this, "By the way, Jude is a brother of Jesus." The biological, right? I think that's what he's talking about. Yeah, yeah.

Verse 5, "Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt after were destroyed those that did not believe." Okay, so who saved? Who continues to remind the Israelites all throughout their history that he saved them out of Egypt? Yahweh does. Yahweh says that all the time. He's like, "Remember, I am the one that brought you out of slavery's region.

I'm the one that did that." And then here we see Jude saying, "Jesus saved these people out of the land of Egypt." So what does that mean? Yeah, what does that mean? And I think it's Jude just understanding, probably thinking back to the way Jesus presented himself. He's like, "This man is God. This was Yahweh." This is Yahweh.

Yeah. And I'm gonna keep up on that because we just, we've read two different things actually in the Gospels and one from Revelation of what Jesus thought about himself. He thought he was timeless.

He thought he was God. He thought he was equivalent with Yahweh. Him and the Father are one.

So just want to highlight that. So where's the one in 1 Corinthians where he says, "I am the rock that they followed"? I thought it was in chapter 5. I actually can't remember where it's at. I might be thinking, I might have went to the wrong place, but yeah, there's a verse in, I think it's 2 Corinthians that says that Jesus was the rock that followed Israel in the wilderness, which is very interesting because again, that's talking about Jesus in this preexistent state.

I was actually talking with a oneness Pentecostal not too long ago when we were debating this very topic and she was trying to talk about Jesus was, is referencing solely to the human, solely to the man. Yet the New Testament testifies over and over again that Jesus is himself preexistent. So I think that's another very interesting verse where it talks about Jesus actually being with Israel in the wilderness, which I just think is really fascinating, but I can't remember where the verse is at.

But we see this testified all throughout the Old Testament when it talks about the angel of the Lord or Yahweh himself speaking with the people or seeing a forum. This is talking about Christ himself. So when Jacob is wrestling with God, who is he wrestling with? Jesus.

He's wrestling with Jesus. He's wrestling with Yahweh. And that's what we call Christ-ophany, which just means a manifestation of Christ in this pre-incarnate state.

And no, we're not talking about Jesus being incarnate or having some physical form. It's like when angels come and they can give themselves the likeness of a human, although they're not actually taking on flesh. Right.

So like angels come and they look like, you know, in Sodom and Gomorrah, the angels come and they eat with Lot and his family. And apparently they were somehow able to conjure up stomachs and do that kind of thing. It's the same idea.

Jesus obviously can do the same thing. And we don't need to have a comprehensive, logical proposition that can help explain what exactly this means. This is mysterious.

And that's what makes it so glorious to contemplate on is because we can recognize that Christ is working throughout redemptive history to save his people. So again, we don't have to be able to put this into logical or pure, comprehensible language. Exactly.

This is just what scripture testifies to. Let me bring up Daniel. I'm going to do a Genesis 18 real quick.

You just were talking about Jacob. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, Jacob wrestles God, which was Jesus. And chapter 18, Abraham before, I think his, no, his name had been changed. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

His name has definitely been changed by now. He's winding out a tree at the, this place called the Oaks of Mamor. It says the Lord appeared to him, the Lord Yahweh, like capital L O R D as in Yahweh at the Oaks of Mamor.

As he sat by the door of his tent and the heat of the day, he lifted his eyes and looked and behold three men. They had the appearance of men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran into the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth.

And you know, he interacts with them. But that middle one, let's see, they said to him, it says, they said to him, where is Sarah your wife? And he said, she's in the tent. The Lord said, so I don't know if like all three of them are speaking or how exactly this is, this whole interaction is happening, but it's equating probably the middle one that's speaking authoritatively as the capital L O R D as in Yahweh said, I will show your return to you about this time next year and Sarah, your wife shall have a son.

So this is a Christophany. I mean, I think Jesus is the angel of the Lord, the one that comes to do special tasks that God, that even the archangel Michael or Gabriel or whoever God does not want. This is something that Jesus is to do.

He's the king. He's the king. So exactly.

So like, this is a big moment for Abraham. This is the promise. He's going to come back and Sarah will have a kid.

That's the promise that was just made. That's a big promise. So he sends Jesus to go affirm this confirm it.

Yeah. Even going into Exodus chapter three, which is a very famous chapter and it's a Moses at the burning Bush, which we actually already quoted with before Abraham was I am. It says in verses chapter two and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush.

And this is the angel of the Lord. Who is this? Who is the one who's speaking to God? Because later on it says in the Lord spoke to Moses and he says, and then whatever he says, this is clearly talking about Christ and in a pre incarnate state as the angel of the Lord. Right.

And the reason I'd saying the angel of the Lord and not Jesus is because guys, Jesus wasn't revealed yet. Moses, if it, if it, if it said in Jesus said to him, Moses would be like, who is Jesus? I don't know who that is. So the reason it's talking about the angel of the Lord is because this is a pre incarnate state of who Christ is.

This is Jesus. This is the Christ. Yeah.

It's in this pre incarnate form. So the angel of the Lord speaks out of the flame of fire, right? On behalf of Yahweh, because he himself is Yahweh. And then he speaks to Moses.

Yeah. Also, I can't find it guys. I'm sorry.

I would love to. Hopefully I'll be able to put it in the show notes and be able to find it, but there is a point where in first Samuel, it says the word of the Lord came and stood at the foot of Samuel's bed. So obviously standing denotes that this is like a, probably looked like a human, looked like a humanoid thing.

And it says it's the word came into that, you know, cause the word is he's, he's telling Samuel what to go say. So again, the word is synonymous. All throughout ancient Hebrew texts, the word was always equated with Yahweh, the word.

And that's not unusual to see in the Old Testament where it talks about a person in the likeness of the children of man. That's even when you get an Isaiah chapter six, when Isaiah beholds and sees the Lord high and lifted up and the, the road of his train filled the temple. This is Christ.

This is the, the, the pre incarnate Christ as he is sitting on his throne, which has been prepared for him for all of eternity. Yeah. Right.

He's the eternal King. Um, Isaiah looks up and he beholds Christ and the likeness of man because he's representing and revealing himself as to what he will be to redeem and save mankind. And that's why the angel comes down and touches a stone on his lips because this is all a representation of Christ's work to redeem and purify his people.

Oh yeah. And Oh, nevermind. I think, do you want to do Zechariah three? Do you remember that one? Which asked for the high priest and the Satan's there and he's trying to rebuke him and, uh, you can go there.

I'm not actually familiar. Okay. Do you want me to do Daniel? Do you can find that later on in Daniel chapter 10, it says in those days, this is a verse two in those days, I, Daniel was mourning for three weeks and he's talking about how he didn't eat anything and how he was in the state of turmoil.

And then it says in verse five, I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold a man clothed in and linen with a belt of fine gold from youth around his waist. His body was like a barrel. His face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnish bronze and the sound of his words, like the sound of a multitude.

And guys, this is John directly quotes this, um, in revelation. He describes Jesus in the same exact way that his legs are burnish bronze and talking about his voice being like a multitude. This is, this is, this is Jesus.

John is not, um, John has had it revealed to him and he knows this is who Christ is. Guys, this is what Daniel was talking about who Daniel saw. Um, and, and Daniel just falls on his face and he says that his, his radiant appearance in verse eight was fearfully changed and I retain no strength because he saw the Lord of hosts.

He saw Yahweh, the pre-incarnate Christ and he was as if he was dead before the Lord. And it says later on in verse 15, when he had spoken to me, according to these words, I turned my face towards the ground and was mute and behold one like the likeness of the children of man touched my lips. Who else had his lips touched? That was Isaiah.

The angel came down and placed his stone on Isaiah's lips, right? So this is all referencing and foreshadowing to what Christ would do in purifying his people, right? Their lips are unclean because they speak blasphemies against God by nature, right? By nature where children of wrath out of the mouth speaks the heart. Um, so this is clearly what we're getting here that Christ is in the likeness of man and we see this foreshadowed into the new Testament. And this is what John, the apostle in the book of revelation is quoting from.

Did you find Zach right? Yeah, guys, we're going to like end on this because this is one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible. And I actually did not plan this. I just had remembered it that it was talking about the angel of the Lord.

So that's the Holy Spirit. That is not some weird experience. I got led by the Holy Spirit convicted.

Um, oh no. So what a lot of good commentators do think the angel of the Lord all throughout scriptures is Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ. That's a pretty standard view.

I think it holds a lot of water. I think it makes a lot of sense just thinking about this whole doctrine that we're talking about. This, this pre-incarnate Christ being there beforehand.

Um, so in Zechariah chapter three, it says, then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. So that's L O R D all caps Yahweh. And Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him and the Lord said to Satan, so he's now just equated the angel of the Lord just now has basically transformed in the text into the Lord.

So it says, and the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you of Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you is not this a brand plucked from the fire. So then Joshua standing there with filthy, filthy garments. And basically he removes the angel of the Lord removes the filthy garments and then takes away his iniquity.

He says, behold, I've taken away your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with pure investments. And he puts on a clean turban on him. So this angel of the Lord that saves Joshua from a sin, um, rebuke Satan, defeat Satan and saves this man is obviously, it's very clear that it's Jesus.

This is, this is what Jesus did. He was the one that actually lived that out who God sent. It was Jesus who is God.

So again, we see it's very clear in the sex. It says verse one, the angel of the Lord and Satan were standing on his right hand. And then in verse two, it immediately equates the angel of the Lord with the Lord says, and the Lord said to say this, the Lord rebuke you.

And then that's odd. It says the Lord rebuke you. And then we immediately get this paradoxical statement.

We see this difference in role. Um, he says the Lord rebuke, even though he is the Lord, like speaking on behalf of him. So yeah, it's clear the name of the Lord is the Lord.

And it, he always comes as like this, a man with a message, um, which is what Jesus did, you know, in Hebrews one, he is the, the prophet, he's the one that's spoken to us in these latter days. And then real quick, something I just noticed that's in a chapter seven of Zechariah says, and the word of the Lord became to Zechariah saying, thus says the Lord of hosts all this stuff. So it's like this word of the Lord comes like, it's not like this arbitrary, like the word is a abstract kind of thought or abstract concept, but like he comes in time and space and that's Jesus coming with a message.

So big takeaways. I know this one went, um, let's see, where are we at? 45 minutes. So that was a good chunk.

We spent, again, these are going to be a little more rigorous because now we have the time and we're both kind of wrapped up with school for the summer and stuff. So we got the time to really hopefully make this a really good series for you guys talking about Christology. Christians should have a strong and robust Christology.

And this is again, 95% of the heresies that we run into are attacking the person of Christ. Right. And Christ is the foundation and cornerstone of the church.

So when you get away from the doctrine of who Christ is, when you minimize Christ, when you just turn him into some hippie or some person who just loves people apart from his wrath, then you really don't have a Christ at all. There's no salvation apart from this preexisting eternal co-equal God. So we need to recognize that as it says in John chapter 17 verse three, this is eternal life that they know me referencing to Christ.

So there's really no more glorious doctrine than to study. And as it says in Titus one chapter one, verse one, this knowledge accords with godliness and in first Timothy three 16, it says, this is the mystery of godliness that God was manifest in the flesh, right? Jesus was manifest in the flesh. If you want to grow in godliness, this is it.

Study and contemplate the glorious riches and excellencies of Christ in his preexisting state and in his incarnate state, not just incarnate. Yeah. Have lofty thoughts of Jesus.

Have high thoughts of Jesus. He is the king. He's the king.

And we're doing this podcast for the king. We have high thoughts of Jesus. There's no one else ever like men like Jesus.

An ill word should never protrude from our mouth. Never treat the king lightly because he will crush you. His scepter will crush you.

Will dash you in the pieces. And like Peter says in first Peter, whatever is excellent, whatever is pure, think about these things. There is nothing more excellent to think about than Christ.

Exactly. He's the king. Yeah.

Amen. Thanks Bryce. Love you brother.

So, we will be continuing with this Christology series. We will be, please keep it down over there. I'm trying to wrap this up.

We'll be going into the incarnation here soon. The different offices that Jesus fills. We want to get a full understanding of who Jesus is.

The person of Christ. So we've established hopefully very well and based on scripture that Jesus is definitely equal with God. The second person of the Trinity, one in essence, different personhood.

And there are some very unique things that happen when he incarnates himself. He comes into our reality to bear our burden to save us from our sins. So this is God.

This is the God we serve. This is the God you know. If you know Christ, this is him.

So we want to paint him truly. We want to know him truly. We don't want to know a false Christ.

So join us each one of these Sundays as we continue to look at the person of Christ revealed in scripture. Thanks Bryce again for being on this and helping out. Love all you guys that listen.

Really appreciate you guys supporting the podcast, listening. The website is up so you can go to forthekingpodcast.com. Don't go to .net. You want to go to .com? Start one that's .net. And just say that other website stinks. It's all just super harsh criticism of my podcast.

It should be reviews of like one star reviews of my podcast. Yeah. I should act like I'm an Arminian and a oneness.

I don't believe in the pre-existing Christ. That'd be funny. Yeah, for every episode we just like have a whole argument on our WordPress or whatever.

So yeah, go check out the website forthekingpodcast.com. You can leave an inquiry there. You can reach out to me also through the email forthekingpodcast@gmail.com. You can ask me questions or things that Bryce and I didn't cover well, things that we can write about. Go check out the website.

I've written a few blogs. So now the podcast now has a blog associated with it. I think you guys will be aided by that.

Would love to have that community be built so that we can get believers on this blog, interacting with each other. Hopefully non-believers and people can share the gospel too. So go and I would love your support guys.

I would really appreciate it. You can always support financially too if you feel inclined. That's always a thing that's possible.

Well, it is. It takes a lot of time. Our laborers do is wages.

You are not an elder. I'm not an elder. I'm not an elder.

I'm just saying nothing. I'm just saying this, if you guys find value in this, then put your value where you find value. If that makes sense.

The modern advertising paradigm is you now have to... I don't want your guys' attention to get ad revenue. The point is to glorify God. If you find this worth listening to, then you can show your support by... I would appreciate just you talking to me.

I like the questions. I like you guys wanting to know who Jesus is. That's enough for me.

But I'm saying you can also... A way to show that you value the show is to put your financial value in the show as well. That's another thing you can do. So I would appreciate that as well.

Especially with all the work I put in for the podcast and I have to pay for the website and do all that kind of stuff. So I would appreciate it. Anything else? Yeah, leave a rating and review on Apple.

If you're listening to this on Apple Podcast, a rating and review would be great too. Again, it doesn't have to be financial. I don't want to just push the financial thing all the time.

A rating and review would be great. Send me an email. Let me know how Jesus is impacting your life.

Let me know how things you're struggling with so I can pray for you. You can do all those things. You can pray for me too.

I still haven't left a rating and review yet. Yeah, Bryce hasn't done anything. And he really... It reminds me absolutely despicable for that.

I ask often. But whatever. He's his own man.

I'm not angry with him. Frustrated. He's frustrated and not angry.

I think that's it. I think that's all the updates. So yeah.

Check out the website. I really worked hard on that and I hope it is good. So let me know if it's cluttered or it looks bad.

And also... Oh yeah. It is actually pretty good. Thank you.

And you can see... You can finally get a picture of me so you can see what it looked like. So you can put a face to the name, to the podcast. And then also I have a bio there so you can get to know me more like my story.

And yeah. So love you guys. Thanks for listening for the King Squad.

This is Rocky and my brother Bryce, the host of this Sunday series. And yeah, we just appreciate you guys listening so much. So, so I deal Gloria to God alone be the glory.

Jesus is the King. Oh, the King. Oh, the King.

Oh, the King. Oh, the King. Jesus.

Jesus. The King. Oh, the King.

Oh, the King. Jesus. Oh, King Jesus.

Jesus.

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