The Deity Of Christ Part Three

The Preincarnate Christ

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak... So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face" (Gen. 32:30).

Has Anyone Ever Seen God and Lived?

Moses said to the LORD, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you…” But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Ex. 33:19-20). If God revealed His full glory to Moses, he would have died. However, God gave Moses a glimpse of His glory by letting him see His back as He passed by, but not His face (Ex. 33:21-23).

God revealed Himself to Manoah and his wife by appearing as the angel (messenger) of the LORD (Yahweh). Manoah said to his wife, “We will surely die, for we have seen God” (Judg. 13:21-22). Manoah and his wife did not die when they saw God. In fact, Manoah’s wife “gave birth to a son and named him Samson” (Judg. 13:24). Does this contradict what the LORD said to Moses – no man can see Me and live? Let’s find out.

John wrote, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18). Those who deny that Jesus is God would quote the first half of this verse and deduce that, since Jesus was seen by John the Baptist (John 1:28-29), then He must not be God because no one has ever seen God. The statement “no one has seen God” is referring to the nature of God as Spirit (John 4:24) – He is invisible (Col. 1:15) and “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16). However, Scripture reveals that God appeared to men and women in the Old Testament. Did God visibly manifest Himself as the Father or as the Son?

We know from John 1:1-3 and 14 that the Word who became flesh is Jesus. He testified of Himself, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father” (John 6:46). Jesus is the One who is from God. He gloriously and eternally existed with the Father before the world was created (John 17:5, 24). After His resurrection Jesus told Mary, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (John 20:17). Thus, with the exception of Jesus, no one has ever seen the Father.

Appearances of the Preincarnate Christ

A Theophany is a visible manifestation of God in the Old Testament that is tangible to the human senses. A Christophany is a non-physical appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. In either case every visible manifestation of God in the Old Testament must be that of the Son because no one has ever seen the Father. Thus, Jesus appeared throughout the Old Testament before His incarnation when “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Those who He appeared to recognized that He is God and continued to live.

• The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him” (Gen. 12:7).

• The angel of the LORD appeared to Hagar, Sarai’s maid, “by a spring of water in the wilderness.” He said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count” (Gen. 16:7-10). Hagar “called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees;” for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” (Gen. 16:13).

• The LORD appeared to Abraham as one of three men, two of whom were angels (Gen. 18:22; 19:1). He invited them to come to his home where he and his wife Sarah entertained them (Gen. 18:1-33).

• Jacob wrestled with God who appeared to him as a man. He said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved” (Gen 32:24-30).

• The angel of the LORD appeared to Moses “in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush.” The angel of the LORD said to Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (Ex. 3:2-6).

• Joshua saw a man “standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand.” This man identified Himself as the “captain of the LORD’s host.” He said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy” (Josh. 5:13-15). God instructed Moses to do this same (Ex. 3:5).

• Appearing as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the LORD led the people of Israel through the wilderness enroute to the Red Sea as they fled from Pharaoh and his pursuing army (Ex. 13:17-22; 14:8-9).

• God appeared to Moses, Aaron, and seventy of the elders of Israel (Ex. 24:9-11).

• The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top (Ex. 24:16-17).

• The LORD appeared in a pillar of cloud to Moses and Joshua in the transfer of leadership to Joshua (Deut. 31:14-15).

• The angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.” Gideon asked Him, ““O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” The LORD looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” (Judg. 6:11-14).

• Daniel's three friends – Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego – were “tied up in their trousers, their coats, their caps and their other clothes” as they “were cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire.” The flame was “made extremely hot” to the point that it “slew those men” who carried Daniel's friends up to the door of the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar saw “four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” The blazing fire had no effect on the bodies and clothing of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego (Dan. 3:19-27). Nebuchadnezzar issued this proclamation: “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God” (Dan. 3:28). The fourth man in the furnace is more than likely the preincarnate Christ.

It can be reasonably be concluded that each visible manifestation of God in the Old Testament, whether each appearance is that of the angel of the LORD, a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire, the glory of the LORD, or a man, is the preincarnate Christ, the eternal Son of God.

“Though our Lord was not inactive in His preincarnate state, His greatest works necessitated the Incarnation. Nevertheless, He stands magnificent in His person as the eternal God, but, as it were, in the shadows, waiting the spotlight of the Incarnation to reveal His glory and grace” (Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth; Charles C. Ryrie).

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations cited in this post are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.