You’ve been asked, “who is Jesus Christ?” Immediately you think of a few appropriate qualities. He is love. He is everywhere all the time. He is God. He is also human.
As a follow-up, you were asked to prioritize His characteristics in order of significance. Where would you begin? What would be of first importance? He is the Savior. He is the Creator. He is Sovereign.
Would you be surprised that John, the beloved disciple, chose none of these? In his Prologue (1:1-18), John begins his list of eight truths that reveal who Jesus Christ is with this: Jesus is eternal. “in the beginning was the Word.” With the stroke of his pen in one memorable line, John assumes God exists (as did Moses, from whom John borrowed the phrase) and declares Jesus as always existing (and especially pre-existing all of creation, time, and space). In other words, “before there was a beginning, the Word had already been.”
My head hurts trying to think of Jesus, of God, always existing. How is that possible? Was there ever a time before Jesus existed? What did He do (before “us”)? Have there been other creations He hasn’t told us about? Why now? Why this? Why us? That Jesus is eternal is incomprehensible!
Now, without even trying to prove the existence of God, John wants me to believe that 1) Jesus is God, 2) who has existed forever? Why should I believe something that appears so far-fetched, it should be labeled as a “fairy-tale”?
It is our very view of who Jesus Christ is that affects our response to Him. John’s purpose in writing his account of Jesus on earth is to offer proof that God exists and that Jesus is the Son of God because if Jesus did not exist eternally, He cannot be fully God.
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