Who and What Was Jesus Christ Before His Human Birth?

Okay, good morning again to all of you. Today I want to cover one of the basic beliefs and understandings that the Church of God has held for at least the last 60 years that I'm aware of, and that is, who and what was Jesus Christ before His human birth? When I first came into the church a number of decades ago, as many of us did, I found this teaching quite surprising because it was something that I had never heard of in the churches that I had attended previously. I'd never heard this particular truth before, and maybe those of you when you first came into the church found that quite surprising as well. Or perhaps you're not familiar with this particular understanding and don't really get or fully grasp what it's all about. So this is something I have covered in our studies on the Gospels before, and I've also discussed it out at Ambassador Bible College and the Gospels classes out there, but today I want to go into it in more depth and detail than I have previously. And I'll start with some quotes from Mr. Armstrong, and this is from an article that was originally written back in the 1950s, and it was reprinted as a reprint article offered and sent out up until the early 1990s shortly before the breakup of our former affiliation. And this particular piece or article was called, Millions Do Not Know What Christ Really Was.

It's an article that's about three or four pages, so I'll just read a few paragraphs from it to get clear in our minds what the teaching of the Church of God has been for a number of decades. As I'll be showing all the scriptures and quotes on screen for your convenience there so you don't have to spend as much time thumbing back and forth through the scriptures. So it says, So since only God has the power to save and give life, and since only man can pay the penalty of sin, the only possible way to save mankind was for Yahweh, the Lord or Eternal of the Old Testament, the one who executed the creation for God the Father, to come in the flesh as a human. God became man and died for the sins of the world. Only thus could the penalty of all human sin be paid by one man as Savior of the world. That life was the life of our Maker, become human for the very purpose of death, a life greater than the sum total of all human life. So just a brief comment on that. This is a very important understanding that we have because it took the death of the very being who created the human race under the direction of God the Father to pay the penalty for all the sins of all human beings who have ever lived. So it is a crucial understanding that we know this.

This is why. Now I'd like to quote from another article from Mr. Armstrong. This is an article some of you may have this this reprint from again from the mid-1950s. It was reprinted in Tomorrow's World magazine. Some of you may remember that in January of 1972 and was then a part of a of a small booklet or collection of article reprints that were distributed up until the early 1990s. And it says, again I'll just quote a small part of that article, and he says, yes Jesus is also Jehovah. Although this word is a mistranslation used in the American standard version. The original name in the Hebrew contained the consonants YHVH. In writing in Hebrew vowels were omitted supplied only in speaking. Thus the precise pronunciation of the name is not definitely known, but today it is commonly assumed to be YHVH or YHWH pronounced with a W.

The meaning in English is the eternal or the ever-living or the self-existent. It is commonly supposed that YHVH or is commonly called Jehovah or as in the authorized or King James version, the Lord in all caps. In the Old Testament was God the Father of Jesus Christ. This is a flagrant error, and that is a common assumption of most people that the Lord referred to in the Old Testament is referring to God the Father. So continuing on he says, YHVH was the God of Israel, the only one of the Godhead known to ancient Israel. When he came in human flesh, they did not recognize him. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

Quoting from John 1 verses 10 and 11 in the King James Version. Continuing on, neither did they know God the Father. Matthew 11, 27 and Luke 10, 22 from the Panin Translation. No one knows who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal him.

And a last quote from this particular article. YHVH was the word or spokesman of the Godhead, its second member. As soon as God began to speak to man, it was always YHVH who spoke, translated Lord and the authorized, and Jehovah in the American Standard Version.

Also, he notes here Genesis 2 verse 16 and 18 and Exodus 20 and verse 2 confirm this.

Finally, almost always, it is YHVH in the original Hebrew, the word who was made flesh. The proof of this is a long study involving hundreds of passages. And some of those I'll be covering in the rest of the sermon today. So, I'll stop reading from the reprints articles there today, but he does go on to list a number of scriptural proofs to support that belief. And he concludes by saying, in almost every Old Testament passage, the Lord, YHVH, the Eternal, is Jesus Christ.

Clearly, Jesus is the God of the Old Testament.

Note that he says here in almost every Old Testament passage, Yahweh is Jesus Christ. There are a few exceptions to that. For instance, there are places where Jesus, the one who would become Jesus, appears as what is called the angel or messenger of the Lord of Yahweh. And that it's identified that this angel is actually the Lord. So, he is the messenger of Yahweh. And in those cases, Yahweh is the Father. There are a few other prophecies about that, which unfortunately I don't have time to cover all of those today. But again, the point is that in most nearly all of the Old Testament passages, Yahweh, the Lord, is actually talking about the being who became Jesus Christ. I'll also add a note here that saying that Jesus is God of the Old Testament isn't precisely accurate or it's not wording that we would use in our publications today, for the simple reason that God the Father was always God from the very beginning.

So, we need to be careful in how we use the word God. More precise wording that I prefer would be to state that the being who came in the flesh as Jesus Christ was the God who interacted with human beings throughout the Old Testament period there. So, this phrasing Jesus is the God of the Old Testament. It's kind of a shorthand way for saying that, but my preferred wording that he is the God who interacted with human beings during the Old Testament period is a more technically accurate way to phrase that. So, this is clearly stated here what the Church of God teaching was and as evidenced by what we've quoted here from these reprint articles. And this was the teaching up until the early 1990s when our former affiliation rejected all of that understanding and adopted the Trinity of view of God and so on. And all of that was thrown out as the Church went into apostasy. So, then when we started the United Church of God when it was founded in 1995, our position was that the doctrines, our doctrines in the United Church of God, would be the same doctrines that had been taught formerly before various heresies started being introduced. So, that became the doctrinal foundation of the United Church of God, the same doctrines that we had formerly believed. And that is why I've taken the time to quote those so we understand where that teaching came from and why that was our position at the beginning of the United Church of God. So, what do we teach today? We approved back in 1995 our Constitution and bylaws, and we published those fundamental beliefs of the Church in booklet form several years later. This is the current version of that booklet, Fundamental Beliefs of the United Church of God. If you need a copy, there's some back there on the table at the back. So, I would like to quote now from what our booklet on our fundamental beliefs states. And this is our first fundamental belief, the first one.

And it's titled, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. So, this is what we believe about that subject. We believe in one God, the Father, eternally existing, who is a spirit, a personal being of supreme intelligence, knowledge, love, justice, power, and authority. He, through Jesus Christ, is the creator of the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them. He is the source of life and the one for whom human life exists. I'll just draw our attention that in that last sentence I read, He, through Jesus Christ, is the creator of the heavens and the earth, and all that is in there. We'll see that in more detail from the scriptures a little bit later on.

Continuing on, we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the Word, and who has eternally existed. We believe that He is the Messiah, the Christ, the divine Son of the living God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born in human flesh of the Virgin Mary. We believe that it is by Him that God created all things, and that without Him was not anything made that was made.

And then regarding the Holy Spirit, we believe in the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God and of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the power of God and the Spirit of life eternal. And then various scripture quotes to support these statements. 2 Timothy 1, 7, Ephesians 4, verse 6, 1 Corinthians 8, verse 6, John 1, verses 1 through 4, and Colossians 1, 16. And we'll read some of those verses later on. And then in our booklet there's an explanation, several pages, that follows after that. I'll just quote a very small portion of that that is relevant to most of the subject we're discussing today.

And we go on for part of an explanation for these teachings. The Old Testament focuses on the God of Israel, who identifies Himself as I AM. And, quote, the Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Exodus 3, verses 14 and 15 is where that is quoted from. And the word Lord here is used in place of the Hebrew word spelled YHWH, or Yahweh, which, like I AM, apparently denotes eternal and self-inherent existence. Continuing on in John 8, verse 58, Christ refers to Himself as I AM.

Thus, the one the Israelites knew as God, who delivered them from Egypt and accompanied them in the wilderness, was later known in the New Testament as Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4, which we'll read later on. The existence of the one whom Christ referred to as the Father was not well understood by many before Christ's coming, though He is sometimes specifically referred to in the Old Testament. So again, this is what the United Church of God teaches and believes. We have various other booklets in addition to our fundamental beliefs. We have the booklets, Who is God?, Is God a Trinity?, and Jesus Christ the Real Story. All of these elaborate and go into considerably more detail about these particular subjects. Again, you can pick these back up at the table at the back if you'd like a copy of that. I don't have time to cover all of that, but I am just going to hit the high spots. I will say that since I edited those booklets and wrote all or parts of some of them, they are consistent with the teaching that is found in our fundamental beliefs booklet. They all say the same thing about our understanding of who the God of the Old Testament, who was later born in flesh as Jesus Christ, is.

So why do we believe what we do about who and what Jesus Christ was before His human birth? I've mentioned several scriptures going through this, but let's look systematically at what the Bible reveals and teaches about that subject. Let's begin in John 1 and verse 1.

Here we actually go back to the very beginning. Actually, the very beginning that we learn is actually before the beginning that we read about in Genesis 1. So going back to John 1, it says, in the beginning, so this is a direct reference back to Genesis 1, which starts with these same exact words, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So John, using this phrase, in the beginning, is what? We've talked about this in our classes on the Gospels before. The teaching method known as is Rimes. It's a Jewish teaching method for those of you who are new. It's a Jewish teaching method used repeatedly by Jesus Christ, by John the Baptist, by all four of the Gospel writers, and even by God the Father himself in the Gospels to point the audience back to something recorded earlier in the books we know of as the Old Testament. So here John, in beginning his Gospel, gives us a Rimes in his first three words, in the beginning.

He gives us a hint or a clue, which is what the word Rimes means, to something that is written earlier in the Scriptures. And what he's referring his audience back to, and they all immediately recognize the phrase in the beginning, he's referring back to Genesis 1-1, which begins the exact same way. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, as we see in Genesis 1 and verse 1. So what is John telling his readers? What is his point? Well, he's telling them basically to paraphrase, hey, you remember Genesis 1, where it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Well, guess what? I'm here to tell you about that God. Because I met that God. I touched Him. He was my teacher. I listened to Him. He was my rabbi for three years. Let me tell you now the rest of the story about that God who created the heavens and the earth. And that's what the rest of John's gospel is about, to tell us about that God who created the heavens and the earth at the direction of the Father, and then lived as a physical human being.

And John goes on to explain, skipping down to verse 14 of John 1, and the Word, the Word who was God and was with God, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. That's apparently a reference to the transfiguration when John and James and Peter saw Jesus divinely transformed on the mountain. We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And then again, and the rest of His gospel He goes through to tell us about this being who was God and who was with God, and came to earth in the form of a human being, flesh and blood.

So it's the story of this being who created the world, and later became a human being who lived in that world and gave Himself in the end as a sacrifice for all the sins of the people in the world. So this being called the Word was, as we saw in John 1, was both with God and was God.

And this is difficult for some people to understand, but it really boils down to how you define God. If you define God as one being, or if you don't understand what the Scriptures reveal about the roles and the existence of the one we know as God the Father and as Jesus Christ, then you can find yourself twisted up in all kinds of theological pretzels.

And it was some of these difficulties trying to explain that that led theologians back 300s, 400s AD into coming up with the idea of the Trinity to try to explain what they did not understand, but what is revealed quite clearly in the Scriptures. However, if you define God as a kind of being, and we know that Elohim, the word that is used commonly for God back in Genesis 1 and dozens of other places, hundreds of other places, in Elohim and Hebrew is actually a plural word, meaning more than one.

And if you understand that Elohim, the word for God, is plural, that there are actually two beings, the one who became the Father, the one we know as God the Father and as His Son, then you don't have a problem. And Scripture is consistent. And it is very consistent. And we know that when we put all of the Scriptures together that God is a family, a family currently consisting of the Father and the Son, denoting that family relationship as we see throughout the Gospels.

That is how Jesus consistently referred to Himself and the Father as the Father and the Son. And we have again the whole booklet titled Who is God, as well as a Trinity booklet that go into this in great detail if you want to learn more. So let's go back to John 1 again earlier. And notice it says, in the beginning was the word. And let's talk about this word, translated word here. The Greek word is Logos.

Some of you may be familiar with a Logos Bible software. It comes from this. This is an unusual Greek word. It has no direct correlation corresponding one-for-one meaning in English. It can mean speech or report or as the meaning here, a revelatory agent.

By that I mean someone who reveals something, a revelatory agent. This is why we sometimes refer to this word Logos as meaning spokesman. So this word is the being who comes to reveal God. And as we know, Jesus Christ, one of the reasons He came was to reveal God, to reveal the Father.

Verse 2, He, so this is talking about a personal being, was in the beginning with God, the one that we know now as God the Father. All things were made through Him, through the Word, and without Him nothing was made that was made. So this plainly tells us that everything that God created came into existence through the One who became Jesus Christ in the flesh as a physical human being. That He was the One who made not just the physical universe that we inhabit, but also the spiritual and angelic world or dimension, you might say. Those were the only things that He... So He made everything that exists except for two things, Himself and the Father.

Everything else was made by Him, everything except the Father and Himself. Those were the only things that He didn't make. And He didn't make them because the two of them existed from eternity as uncreated beings. They were not created by anyone or anything. They existed as uncreated from the beginning before time began. They are outside of time, you might say, because what is time after all? It's kind of hard to define, but we measure time by what? By the movements of the heavenly bodies. We measure a year by the time it takes the earth to orbit fully around the sun, one revolution. So we measure time by the movement of heavenly bodies. But they existed before that, before the heavenly bodies existed, which the One who became Jesus Christ bought into existence.

So they are in that sense outside of time and existed before time began. Let's look at a few more scriptures that confirm who this being was and that it was indeed Jesus Christ, who is the One who created all of these things. And one thing that will help you remember all of these is they are all in chapter one. John 1, Hebrews 1, Colossians 1. And I'll read these going through this. So we've been reading from John 1, so now let's look at the other two chapter ones, Colossians 1 verses 16 and 18 through 18. I won't read the context, but it's clearly talking about Jesus Christ. And it tells us, "'For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth.'" Heaven, I should mention here, doesn't mean the traditional idea of heaven where God lives, but whether it's talking about the sky, as we would call it, the sky above us, the earth's atmosphere, and then extending on out throughout the entire universe, the blank empty space there, the night sky that is filled with the planets and the stars and the galaxies and so on. Not just the physical planets, not talking about heaven where God lives, but all of the sky and expanding out throughout the universe. Paul goes on to say that he created all things that are visible and invisible. That's why he created the physical universe, but also the spirit dimension as well. The spirit world, the angels, the different beings there. And Paul elaborates on that a little bit more, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. Now those are unusual terms, but what this is saying is that Jesus created not just the visible physical universe that we are familiar with, the earth and the sky and the clouds and the planets and the sun and moon and galaxies and so on, but he created what we might call the invisible universe as will, meaning the spirit world, the spirit dimension. And these terms that he uses here, the specific terms dominions or principalities or powers, you might write down Colossians 2, 10, and 15. Colossians 2, 10, and 15. And Ephesians 1, 21. Ephesians 1, 21. And what Paul is talking about that had a very specific meaning at that time. And it was referring to different powers or or kinds or ranks of beings in the spirit world. We're familiar with carobim and seraphim, for instance, but at that time people had this elaborate ideas of different ranks and hierarchies of spirit beings, angelic beings. And that's what these specific terms, dominions and principalities and powers are. That's what Paul is referring to when he uses these specific terms. So he's talking about the the archangels, the carobim, the seraphim, and other kinds of spirit beings or angels.

Don't have a lot of time to go into that. You might refer to our recent booklet on angels that explains and goes into that in much more detail. Continuing here in Colossians 1, 16, Paul says, all things were created through him and for him. So again, Jesus Christ is the one who created all of this, all things in the physical and spirit universe, referring to the angelic or spirit realm. And notice also it says all things were created for him as well. And verse 17, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. So in other words, he existed before everything or anything else existed, which is exactly what we read earlier in John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, or the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So that was the real beginning, the beginning before the one we read about here in Genesis 1. So if this being created all things, then he obviously had to exist before the things were created that he created. Continuing verse 18, and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence. So again, we see this is clearly talking about Jesus Christ, the head of the body that is his church, and the firstborn of the dead, or from the dead, through his resurrection from the dead.

Let's look at the third of the chapter 1s we've read from John 1, Colossians 1, now Hebrews 1, which tells us God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, as in these last days spoken to us by his Son. And again, as we talked about briefly, Jesus is what? He is the Word, the Logos, the spokesman, the one who speaks for God, representing him, whom he, the Father, has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. So again, this states plainly that the world's plural, the universe, both physical and spirit, were made by the Father through the one we know as the Son, Jesus Christ.

So to sum up, we've seen so far that Jesus Christ existed in the beginning with God the Father, but they were not in a father-son relationship at that time. So John refers to them as God and the Word, both of whom were God. The father and son relationship wouldn't begin until Jesus becomes the Son by being impregnated in Mary's womb and becomes born as a son, as a physical human being, as in flesh, as the Son of God, and then ultimately transformed in the resurrection to be fully the Son of God in that sense. So again, we've also seen in these three passages that three important reminders that He is the creation. All things were made through Him, John 1. By Him all things were created, Colossians 1. And through Him also God the Father made the worlds, Hebrews 1. So the Father is Creator, He is the one who is supreme, who is in charge overall, but Jesus Christ is also the Creator, He is the one through whom, as we see in these passages, the actual work of creating was done. So now let's go back to John 1 again and pick up another thing that John tells us that He's actually quite remarkable. Now down in verse 18 of John 1, He tells us something astounding here. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, and what that means in the bosom of the Father, is just indicating a very close relationship. You might think of having your arm around somebody, hugging somebody in a very close personal relationship. That's what is being conveyed here, the closeness of the Son to the Father. He, the Son, has declared Him, God, the Father. So John explicitly tells us that no one has seen God at any time. Now John has just explained in the previous verses of this chapter that he was a personal eyewitness of Jesus Christ, so he can't be talking about Jesus or the Word there.

The God whom no one has ever seen at any time has to be referring to the Father.

And John tells us plainly that no one has ever seen the Father, God the Father, at any time.

Notice also that John says that Jesus Christ declared the Father. Other versions, like the New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version, translate this, is, He has made Him known, made the Father known. Or as Greene's literal translation puts it, He has revealed Him. The Son revealed the Father. However, if God the Father was the God of the Old Testament period, why would Jesus need to make Him known if He had already been known throughout the couple of thousand years of the Old Testament period? That just doesn't make sense. There would be no need for Jesus to reveal the Father if the Father had already been known through His interactions with people in the Old Testament period there. There's no need to reveal the Father if the Father was already known going back 2,000 years before this to Abraham, or even further back to Noah and to Adam and the patriarchs and so on. That's a side point, but a key one, that Jesus came to reveal the Father because the Father was not commonly understood at this time in the first century. And also keep in mind who is writing these words and when He is writing them. This is the Apostle John who is John. He's a cousin of Jesus Christ. He is, apparently, as best we understand, the disciple whom Jesus loved. And when is He writing this? He's writing it sometime apparently in the 80s AD, which is about 20 years after the last of the other books of the Bible have been written. He's apparently the last man standing, you might say at this point, of the apostles that were chosen by Jesus Christ. Possibly one or two others are still alive, but they are all martyred. Most of them are martyred before this time. So John, that's why I say John is the last man standing. So then He gives us these very heavy theological explanations in His gospel and His three epistles and in the book of Revelation that we just don't see in the other writers of the Bible. And He tells us plainly here that no one has seen God the Father at any time. And He actually repeats this exact phrase in 1 John 4 and verse 12, one of His epistles apparently written in the late 80s AD. No one has seen God at any time. So again, in context, John is clearly saying this about the Father, that no one has seen the Father at any time. So we have two explicit statements from the last of the surviving apostles, also the last of the writers of the Bible telling us that no one has seen the Father at any time. Do we see similar statements that support this from other people in the Bible? Well, yes we do. We see such explicit statements from Jesus Christ Himself. Let's notice John 5 and verse 37. John 5, 37. And Jesus says, And the Father Himself, who sent me, has testified of me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. Now some people would argue that this applies only to the people that Jesus is talking to directly at this particular time in this incident. Well, you could make that argument, but it simply doesn't negate the other passages that explicitly state that no one has ever seen the Father at any time.

And just to be clear, Jesus says again that no one has seen the Father at any time. John 6, the next chapter, verse 46. I'll read it from the New International Version, which is a little more clear. And He says, No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God, who is the one from God. That's Himself. Only He has seen the Father. So in other words, Jesus tells us plainly, He is the only one who has ever seen the Father. And that is the one from God. He is the only one who has seen the Father. No human being has ever seen God the Father.

So Jesus plainly says that no one has seen the Father or no one has heard His voice at any time. So we do have multiple explicit statements from Jesus Christ and from His closest disciple, John, telling us the same thing four times, that no one has ever seen the Father. However, in the Old Testament period, we see that a number of people did see God. So how do we resolve this?

Who did they see when Scripture tells us they saw God in these passages? I'm going to go through a number of scriptures very quickly just to illustrate the point. Not to explain them, but just to illustrate the point where Scripture says a number of people did see God.

First, God appears to Abraham, we find recorded, in Genesis 12 and verse 7.

Then the Lord, Yahweh the Eternal, appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants I will give this land. And there Abraham built an altar to Yahweh, to the Lord, who had appeared to him. God appears to Abraham again in Genesis 15 and verse 1. I'll note here that this time it states explicitly that this is in a vision.

Verse 1, After these things, the word of the Lord, Yahweh, came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

And they go on to have a conversation, which I won't take the time to go through that. But it's in string here that it explicitly says that this was a vision. But it doesn't say that the other times. So the obvious implication is that the other times that Abraham, that God appears to Abraham, were not a vision. But the Lord, Yahweh, was literally standing there talking, having a conversation with Abraham. Another one, Genesis 18 and verse 1. Then the Lord appeared to him, to Abraham, by the terribenth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. And this goes on to describe circumstances where it's clearly not a vision, because they have lunch together, you might say. So Abraham has lunch with the Lord, with Yahweh, proving that this is a very real physical encounter. Because after all, you don't have lunch with a vision. You don't see the vision sitting there eating and consuming the food that you've set before him. You only have lunch with a real person. So this being appears to Abraham as a very real person. It's a very real physical encounter. Now let's move on to Isaac. God appears to Isaac in Genesis 26 verse 2, Isaac, the son of Abraham. Then the Lord appeared to him, to Isaac, and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land of which I shall tell you. And this word appeared, I might mention this, is a Hebrew word that is the passive word for saw, to see someone. That's the word. It means literally to see someone. God appears to Isaac again in Genesis 26 and verse 24. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. So same God who appeared to Abraham earlier. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake.

And then God appears to Isaac a third time in Genesis 28 verse 13. And behold, this is a vision, by the way, and behold the Lord stood above it. And this is referring to, we're familiar with the vision of the ladder or stairway to heaven there. So the Lord stood above this ladder or stairway, I think it's actually talking about, and said, I am the Lord, the Yahweh God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. So again, this is a vision here. And the fact that it is a vision indicates that the others are physical literal appearances. Now we come to Jacob, grandson of Abraham, son of Isaac.

Genesis 32 verse 30. And Jacob called the name of the place Pe'el, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. So he describes that he saw God face to face. And my life is preserved. He didn't die, in other words, from this experience of seeing God face to face. God appears to Jacob again in Genesis 35 verses 9 through 11. Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Padan Aram and blessed him. And God said to him, Your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name. So he called his name Israel. Also God said to him, I am God Almighty. El Shaddai. We're familiar with that term. I am God Almighty. So God identifies which God this is. By his name, El Shaddai.

Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. We understand the prophetic implications of that, which, again, we don't have time to go through. So we've seen Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that God appears to, and they carry on conversations and so on. I might mention that one of the incidents with Jacob is he literally wrestles with God there. That's obviously a physical being.

So again, don't have time to go into that. Now let's go on to Moses, to whom God appears multiple times. Exodus 3 and verse 6. Verse 13, skipping down, Notice that this God, who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is also the God who tells Moses his name is I AM who I AM, or in its shortened form, I AM. I AM. And Moses sees God again in Exodus 33, verses 21 through 23. This is of the incident where where God actually has to shield Moses. Yahweh has to shield Moses in a cleft of a rock, lest he be killed by this experience.

And the Lord said, Here is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock. So what shall be, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and shall cover you with my hand while I pass by? This happens because Moses asks to see his glory, to see what he is really like. And this being responds, I can't because it will kill you. So here's what we'll do. I'll put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand, so this experience doesn't kill you. That's the power of this being. Verse 23, Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. So we see from this example that Moses saw only the back of the Lord as he passed by, but he did clearly see him. Let's notice also Exodus 33 in verse 11. Again, this is talking about Moses. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. So again, we see Moses speaking directly to this being who is, you might say, turning down the power of his experience so it doesn't kill Moses, as we just saw in the other example. Then we come to a really fascinating event where not just an individual but where God appears to multiple people at one time. This is in Exodus 24, not long after the giving of the Ten Commandments there at Mount Sinai. Notice what happens in Exodus 24 verses 9 through 11.

So Moses went up Mount Sinai, what it's referring to, also Aaron, his brother, the high priest, Nadam, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel.

And there was under his feet, as it were, a praved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. And again, but on the nobles, the elders of the children of Israel, he did not lay his hand. In other words, what this is saying is the experience didn't kill them to be blunt. So they saw God and they ate and drank. So here, as it says explicitly twice, they not only saw God, as it says here, but they ate a meal with him. They ate and drank.

Now why does Moses record that he and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu and the seventy elders, ate a meal with God? Why would God do that? Well, presumably to reinforce that this is very real, that it is not some kind of mass hallucination that they're all experiencing. They see God and they eat a meal with God, with Yahweh there. Now we come moving on right along to Joshua, who sees God. And Joshua 6 in verse 2, and the Lord Yahweh said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho into your hand, its king and the mighty men of Valor. So Joshua sees God here. And then the last one we'll talk about briefly, Gideon. And Judges 6 in verse 14, Then the Lord Yahweh turned to Gideon and said, Go, in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites, have I not sent you. So just to summarize these passages we've gone through pretty quickly here, these are described as real face-to-face encounters.

Some were visions which are explicitly stated, such as the one with Abraham and with Jacob. But in addition to Abraham and Jacob, they also had face-to-face encounters with God also. Abraham shares a meal with God. Jacob wrestles with God.

I should also note that there are times when a being appears to people, and that being is called in Scripture the angel of the Lord, or the angel of Yahweh. But then a few verses later it transitions from the angel of the Lord to just the Lord.

And in Hebrew the word translated angel is melech, which means messenger. Melech or messenger. It's used in the Old Testament of a physical human being who is a messenger or as an angel, as a spirit, messenger of God. So except in these cases the being is both the angel or the messenger of God, but is also God. Transitions into God or further reveals himself, you might say, as God, as Yahweh. That happens with Moses, that happens with Abraham. We don't have time to go into those. But I will just mention that there are times like this.

And of course, angel means what? Melech, messenger. What does the apostle John, which we read earlier in John 1 and verse in that chapter, call the being who was born as Jesus Christ? He calls him the logos, the word, the spokesman. So you have the messenger of God in the Old Testament and you have the spokesman of God in the form of the word. So there's an obvious link here between the messenger of God and the word or spokesman of God. We don't have time to get into it, but there's a clear connection between the word who is God in John 1 and the angel or the messenger of God who also appears to Abraham and Moses and others in the Old Testament period.

I'll also mention Scripture mentions a number of other individuals who saw God and vision, including Isaiah and Ezekiel. But again, as we saw earlier, four explicit statements that no one has seen the Father at any time. So what are we to make of this? Well, the only way that we can make sense of this is, as we have traditionally understood, that no one has seen God the Father at any time. That what they saw and who they saw is recorded in these many passages, and that other times I didn't have time to cover, two individuals was the Word of God, the God who later would be born as Jesus of Nazareth as a physical human being. So what this clearly tells us when you put all these Scriptures together, what is very clear, at least to me, hopefully to you now, is that Jesus was the Lord, the Yahweh, or God of the Old Testament period who interacted with Adam and Eve, with Cain and Abel, with Noah, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Israelites, with Joshua, with Gideon, with David, with the other biblical prophets and kings. They never saw the Father, but only the one who would be born as Emmanuel, God with us, God in the flesh, as Jesus Christ who came why? Who came to reveal the Father. And Jesus Christ Himself says this as well as we've seen. So let's notice that Jesus Christ explicitly says that He is the I AM. Let's notice this first in John 8 verses 57 and 58. There are a number of statements. We'll talk about only three of them here. But here Jesus is in a heated debate with some of the Jews who oppose Him, and He says that Abraham rejoiced to see his day. So then picking it up in verse 57, then the Jews said to Him, You are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham? And Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM. So here Jesus specifically tells them of His divine identity. He first tells them that He existed before Abraham, and they understand what He means because what is their response? They say, You're not even 50 years old. How can you say you existed before Abraham? And then He clearly tells them who He really was, and He was the God who had interacted with people during the Old Testament period. Who did He explicitly claim to be? Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM. I AM. So let's notice again Exodus 3, verses 13, where God appears to Moses at the burning bush in the desert and tells Moses that He will deliver the Israelites out of slavery. Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is His name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.

And then about 15 centuries later, who does Jesus Christ say that He is?

Well, going back to what we just read in John 8, verse 57, Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM. Now some people will dismiss this and say, Well, no, that can't be what Jesus is meaning. That can't be what He intends there. Well, notice what happens next. Did His audience understand what He was saying? Well, you bet they did. Verse 59, what happens when He says, Before Abraham was, I AM. Then they took up stones to throw at Him.

And what that means is they're going to stone Him to death for claiming to be God, claiming to be the I AM. There's no question about what He means here because of the reaction from the audience. They take up stones to throw at Him. But He hides Himself and goes out of the temple and slips away from them and is not stoned to death. For blasphemy as they would have understood it. Jesus also says He is the I AM in another situation with His disciples. This happens on the Sea of Galilee. You may remember the story where they're rowing in the boat at night and they're not making much headway. Jesus comes to them walking on the water. We read about this in Matthew 14 verses 25 through 32. In the fourth watch of the night, and this is actually early in the morning, 4 or 5 a.m. something like that, Jesus went to them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled saying it is a ghost and they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, Be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid. Now I should note here, and I have it crossed out here on the screen, that it is I. These are the exact same Greek words that are translated elsewhere as I am. I am. It's just the translators messed up on this one and didn't for whatever reason translate it I am the way it appears many other times in the Gospel. So what Jesus Christ really says is, Be of good cheer. I am. It is I. It is me. The I am. Do not be afraid.

And Peter, verse 28, answered Him and said, Lord, if it is you, come and me to come to you on the water. And we know the rest of the story, which I'll skip over for lack of time. Peter steps out of the boat, begins walking to Jesus, but then he sees and feels the wind and the waves and he starts to sink before Jesus reaches down and pulls him up out of the water and they walk over to the boat. Verse 32, And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And then notice the reaction of the disciples to the miracle of the wind and the water and the walking on the water, and Jesus saying, He is I am. What is their reaction? We see it here. Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him. Worshiped Him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.

So again, we see the reaction of the people that confirms that they know what Jesus is saying here.

Let's look now quickly at a third time that Jesus proclaims Himself the I Am. And this is near the end of His life when He is arrested at Gethsemane. We're familiar with the story in John 18 beginning in verse 3. Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, He knows what's going to happen with Him being arrested and put on a sham trial and tortured and crucified. He went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking?

They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said to them, I am He.

Well, again, the translators messed up. They've added He in there. You can see it's italicized in your Bibles. What He says is He answered, I am. I am. And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them. Now, when He said to them, I am, they drew back and fell to the ground.

Again, in your Bibles, the He, where Jesus says, I am He, here is italicized, meaning it's been added. They tried to make the meaning sound good in English, but it actually obscures the fact that what Jesus says in Hebrew or Aramaic is that He is the I AM. Now, how do we know that Jesus isn't just saying, I'm the one you're looking for? Well, notice again the reaction. The troops who've come to arrest Him, this group of hardened military men, draw back and they fall to the ground.

They fall to the ground. And that makes absolutely no sense if Jesus just says, I'm the one you're looking for. No, it shows that there is a divine power in that name, and Jesus using that name. Now, we don't know exactly what's going on here because John doesn't spell it out for us.

I think John simply witnessed this, and he didn't really understand it himself why this happened, which is why he makes no attempt to explain it. He just records the fact. They heard him say, I am, and they draw back and they fall to the ground. I think, personally, personal opinion is that this is just God the Father's way of showing that He could just as easily obstruct these men dead or blind or whatever to prevent this from happening. It was just as easy for Him to strike them dead as to knock them backward to demonstrate His power. But that God the Father is showing that He is allowing these events to happen even though He has the power to stop it. That's my interpretation of what's going on there. We just, again, don't know for sure because John doesn't explain it. He just says, this is what happened. Let's notice another place.

Again, there are many places where Jesus is. He is the I Am. But there are other places, let's look at a few others, where He elsewhere identifies in other ways that He is the God who interacted with Israel and other people. This one is somewhat subtle, but we find it in Matthew 11 and verse 28. Here Jesus says, a famous saying, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, we tend to read that and think, oh, that's nice. That's great. He offers us this promise and this assurance, which He does. But is He just saying this off the top of His head? Or is this a rim as? A hint. They look back to something that happened earlier. Is He quoting something that has deeper significance for us? Where do these words come from? Well, He's actually quoting from Exodus 33 and verse 14, which says, And He, God, Yahweh, said, My presence will go with you, the Israelites, on their journeys, and I will give you rest. The exact same phrase that Jesus quotes. I will give you rest. Now, what is significant about Jesus' words here is that a Jewish person of that day would never say this the way Jesus says this, because the way they viewed it, it would be blasphemy to directly quote God's words as though you are speaking for God. That would have been considered blasphemy. A Jew would say something like, Moses wrote that God said, I will give you rest. Or in the book of Exodus, God says, I will give you rest. A Jew would just never come right out and say, I will give you rest, because those are God's words. And you would never quote it directly that way, as though we're making God's words your words. But that is Jesus' point. That's His exact point. He is quoting God's words directly because He is in fact God. He is Yahweh who said those words. He is the one who promised rest to Israel back there in Exodus. And He is the divine being who promises rest to those who come to Him today. He's the same divine being in both instances here. There are many other similar type passages that we don't have time to go through, but this is yet another illustration where Jesus says that He is this God to demonstrate His past identity. We just don't have time to cover all of those. Let's notice a few more proofs that Jesus is the God who interacted with people in the Old Testament times. Let's notice Revelation 22 verse 16. And here at the very end of the book of Revelation, Jesus says this, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. Angel again being messenger. I am the root and the offspring of David. Have you ever thought about that?

I am the root and the offspring of David. Jesus says He is both of those. And the illustration, what is a root? If you are the root of David, that means you are an ancestor of David.

If you are the offspring of David, what does that mean? It means the opposite. Not that you are an ancestor of David, but that you are a descendant of David. You have the roots, you have the branches. One is the ancestors, one is the descendants. But Jesus says He is both. How can He be both? An ancestor of David and a descendant of David. Well, the answer is actually pretty clear if you think about it. He is the ancestor of David how? Because He is the one who created Adam and Eve. He is the one who created Adam and Eve and started the human lineage of the human race that resulted in David being born. But He is also the offspring of David because He is a physical descendant of David through both the lines of Jesus' mother Mary and His stepfather Joseph. So again, He is the Creator of humankind acting on behalf of the Father.

Speaking of David, let's notice a Psalm of David we're all very familiar with, Psalm 23, which we all know the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. But who is this shepherd of David who is also the Lord? Yahweh again. Who is it? Well, let's notice John 10 in verse 11. What does Jesus Christ say? I am the Good Shepherd. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

So Jesus says He is the Good Shepherd. So does Peter. 1 Peter 5 in verse 4. Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. A third time, Hebrews 13 verse 20. Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep. So Jesus is identified and identifies Himself multiple times as the shepherd, as the Lord who was David's shepherd. Back there, there are actually entire books that have been written on this thread that runs throughout the Bible of the Lord being the shepherd and then that same Lord being Jesus Christ in the New Testament period.

Let's take a look at another one of prophecy. Isaiah 8 and verses 13 and 14 have combined them here together. The Lord of hosts, Isaiah prophesies, the Yahweh of hosts, the Lord of hosts as he's often called, will be as a sanctuary but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel. So this is plainly the Lord of hosts will be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. But who is this term, the Lord of hosts, referring to? It's a phrase that appears many times in the books of the Old Testament. Who is the Lord of hosts? Well, again, Peter tells us, 1 Peter 2 verses 7 through 8, to you who believe he, Jesus Christ, is precious, but to those who are disobedient, he is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Clearly quoting from this prophecy of Isaiah and applying it as the Lord of hosts being none other than Jesus Christ himself, showing again that he is the Lord of hosts of the Old Testament period. Let's notice something similar, Isaiah 40 and verse 3, a very familiar prophecy. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Now, who is this a prophecy of? We're probably no doubt familiar with that. It's a prophecy of John the Baptist. But who is he to prepare the way for? As it says here plainly, he's to prepare the way for the Lord, for Yahweh, the word that is used here. How is this prophecy fulfilled? We know from the Gospels how it is fulfilled. Matthew 3 and verse 3. Matthew says, for this, referring to John the Baptist, is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Not prepare the way of the Messiah, not prepare the way for Jesus of Nazareth, prepare the way of the Lord, of Yahweh. So it's very clearly identified that the Yahweh that the forerunner comes to prepare the way for is none other than Jesus Christ, equating the two, Yahweh, with Jesus Christ. Let's notice something else. Isaiah 44 and verse 6.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Israel's Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, that same phrase again, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last. Besides me, there is no God. So here the Lord Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, says he is what? The first and the last.

And he also says this twice more in the book of Isaiah. We won't turn there, but he says twice more, three times in all, that he is the first and the last. Let's turn back to Revelation 1 in verse 17, where the apostle John sees this incredible vision of this being of Jesus Christ in his glory. And what does this being do and say? He touches John and he says, Revelation 1 in verse 17, Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead.

And behold, I am alive forevermore. So this clearly identifies as being as Jesus Christ is the one who lives and was dead and now lives again for all eternity. So we see that the Lord Yahweh, also called the Lord of hosts, says in Isaiah three times that he is the first and the last.

Jesus Christ says in the book of Revelation three times, I am the first and the last. Clearly pointing people back to Isaiah's prophecies here. I've just used one of these for lack of time to illustrate this. And we'll close with with one more familiar one. 1 Corinthians 10 verses 1 through 4. Moreover, brethren, Paul writes, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, the cloud that shielded them by by day, all passed through the sea, the crossing of the sea, all were baptized figuratively, he's referring to, into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, the manna, and all drank the same spiritual drink, referring to the water that came forth out of the rock. For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. A very explicit statement. Who the being was that accompanied Israel. They're in their journey to the promised land, that it was Christ.

So here Paul clearly tells it that the God who interacted with Israel during the exodus and their wandering in the wilderness there, the God who brought them into the promised land, was the being who became Jesus Christ. And there's much more that I could cover, many more scriptures that I could cover, but this is all I have time for today. And I want to note that none of this takes away from God the Father. Jesus Christ always ported people to God the Father. He tells us to pray, our Father which art in heaven. So none of this takes away from the Father in any way, because Jesus and the rest of scripture always continually points us to God the Father as the one who is supreme. And Jesus was continually submissive to him, carrying out the Father's will in his life. So that is very clear from scripture. So please don't take anything I'm saying as elevating Jesus Christ above God the Father. Jesus never did that, nor should we.

But this is a fascinating study, and I hope this does help us understand who and what Jesus Christ was before his human birth, and why that is our belief and understanding within the United Church of God.