“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.”
Micah 5:2
Micah was a prophet who lived 700 years before Jesus was born. He prophesied the exact birth place of the Messiah – Bethlehem. This in itself is remarkable but there something else even more astonishing in this verse.
Micah declares that even though the One comes from Bethlehem, His beginning was not really from Bethlehem. He is from…THE DAYS OF ETERNITY!
Wait! …but only God is FROM ETERNITY!
Exactly!
From eternity, even before time and creation, Jesus had existed eternally and uncreated.
Muslims will counter by saying, “We all existed before we were born. That does not make us God!”
This is conjecture that has no basis in the Quran. None of us existed before we were born! If you existed before you were born, that means, you are eternal! And that does mean you are God, for only God is eternal.
No, we all began our existence at the moment when we were conceived and began forming in our mother’s womb. We did not exist for even 1 second before that!
Muslims may say, “Well, we all existed in God’s knowledge.”
Correct. God is omniscient, All-Knowing. In His perfect and complete knowledge, God knew each of us before we were born but that does not mean we already existed as living beings.
Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Revelation 22:13
Here is a clear, unequivocal, unambiguous claim of Jesus’ claiming to be God. Muslims may recognize this title as, Al-Awwal and Al-Akhir, one of the 99 names of Allah. Jesus claimed this divine title as His, hundreds of years before Muhammad came and taught this name to his followers.
Before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He existed as the Second Person of the Trinity (John 17:5, 17:24). These passages tell us that there was a relationship of love, fellowship, and shared glory that the Father and the Son shared in eternity past.
Davd Guzik
The name “Jesus” was not known as a name for the Second Person of the Trinity until the angel Gabriel announced it to Mary (Luke 1:31). But the eternal Son existed before He revealed Himself as “Jesus.”
Before Bethlehem, Jesus was the creator of all things (Colossians 1:16-17, John 1:1-3). “He was before all things.
Clarke
As he is the Creator of all things, so he is the Eternal, and no part of what was created. All being but God has been created. Whatever has not been created is God. But Jesus is the Creator of all things; therefore he is God; for he cannot be a part of his own work.”
Adapted from David Guzik’s Study Guide for Micah 5
If any are open to it, I would like to offer a little more insight to the life of Christ before the foundation of the world (John 17:5).
Beyond what you have shared, there are a few verses that unequivocally prove the life of Christ before He was brought into the world. We will jump back and forth between the OT and NT so we can show definitively His life before the creation of the world. I will use the ESV except for one instance, I will use the NASB for clarity. It will be marked.
1 Corinthians 1:30 –
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us WISDOM from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
So, who is the Wisdom of God? Who is the personification of Wisdom? Jesus is. Now to the OT to show this person of Wisdom.
Proverbs 8:12 –
“I, WISDOM, dwell with prudence,
and I find knowledge and discretion.
We can see that the WISDOM of God in both 1 Corinthians and Proverbs is Jesus. Can we be sure Proverbs is speaking of Jesus though? Let’s keep digging.
Luke 4:18 & 21
Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me… And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Isaiah 11:2
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of WISDOM and UNDERSTANDING, the Spirit of COUNSEL and MIGHT, the Spirit of KNOWLEDGE and the FEAR of the LORD.
Compare Isaiah 11 with Luke 4. Jesus claimed that the Spirit of YHWH was on Him, which means He was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy. Now compare the words I have capitalized from Isaiah 11:2 with the words I capitalized in Proverbs 8:12-14.
I find KNOWLEDGE and discretion.
The FEAR of the LORD is hatred of evil…
I have COUNSEL and sound WISDOM; I have INSIGHT(understanding); I have STRENGTH (might).
Ask yourselves a question. How can WISDOM have wisdom unless it is speaking of a person? Who is this person? When we look at all 3 of those passages (Luke, Isaiah, Proverbs) it becomes crystal clear that the, I Wisdom, spoken of is none other than Jesus. However, there is one more set of OT & NT verses that will get us to understanding the life of Christ before the foundation of the world better.
John 10:3 & 7
To him the GATEKEEPER opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out… So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the DOOR of the sheep.
Proverbs 8:34
Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my GATES waiting beside my DOORS.
So, we can now see that the one who is the Gatekeeper and Door found in John, is none other than the person of Wisdom found in Proverbs 8:12. We can say WITHOUT ANY question that the Messiah, Jesus the Christ is speaking in the Book of Proverbs. He is claiming to be the personification of Wisdom, the Door, and the Gatekeeper. Those facts are confirmed by 3 different NT writers (Luke, John, & Paul).
Now, when we read the rest of Proverbs 8, we will truly see the existence of Christ before the foundation of the world.
Proverbs 8:22-30 – NASB
“The LORD (YHWH) CREATED me at the BEGINNING of His way,
Before His works of old.
23 From eternity I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. 24 When there were no ocean depths, I was BORN, When there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills, I WAS BORN; 26 While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,Nor the first dust of the world. 27 When He established the heavens, I was there; When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, 28 When He made firm the skies above, When the springs of the deep became fixed, 29 When He set a boundary for the sea So that the water would not violate His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth; 30 Then I was beside Him, as a master workman
We see in these verses very clearly is that the Messiah was with YHWH before the foundation of the world. We also see that the Messiah Himself refers to His own creation before anything else existed. The ONLY, ONLY DIRECT creation of YHWH God was His very Son. After that, YHWH, our God and Father, created everything else THROUGH His ONLY BEGOTTEN (created) Son.
To believe anything else, is to deny the teaching of the Messiah in Revelation 3:14.
And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the BEGINNING of God’s creation.
It also requires us to deny Paul’s words in Colossians 1:15
He is the IMAGE of the invisible God, the FIRSTBORN of ALL creation.
Where did Paul get this information? Proverbs of course… by the direction of the Holy Spirit. Before a Muslim or Jew celebrate too quickly that they are right about the Messiah being created and YHWH, the Father, being the ONLY true God (John 17:3), I would urge caution.
My Trinitarian brothers and Sisters who have bought into the cult of Athanasius and the lie of the Council of Nicaea in 325AD, will be shown far more grace than the Muslim who has bought into the lies of Satan and Islam. And while the Muslim may be right that there is only one true God, they are wrong about who that God is, and they are wrong about the fact that salvation and eternal life have been given to the only begotten Son to determine whom He, in YHWH, will allow into His Gates and Door. Every Muslim will be found on the wrong side of the Door, and I would NOT count on the grace of Yahweh God, our Father, nor the love of the Savior, Yahshua HaMashiach to cover your sin.
I pray your souls may be saved before the return of the Messiah. Your time is short. Don’t expect 50 years, don’t even expect 20 years. In half that time we will have been locked into what we believe and will no longer be afforded the opportunity to change our mind.
The ONLY saving grace for the Jew is they are the very chosen people of God. While I do not admire or wish for your position in believing the Messiah was a blaspheme and liar, I will not pretend to know how your God will deal with your hard hearts and stiff necks. There are indications in the Bible that the Messiah has become your stumbling block, and because of Jewish pride you will walk out the days of Their wrath (Revelation 6:17). My greatest concern is for those in the faith of Islam, other religions, and the atheist. They will face the wrath of God and God’s Son, like no one else. My heart breaks for those who are too hard hearted and prideful to see anything else other than themselves.
You clearly need to do some homework….you don’t even know who the jews are….let alone who JESUS is. The church over the centuries has done a fine job confusing, lying and utterly deceiving the world. Try studying the Bible yourself rather than following these satanic imposters. Find a decent version of it…and where it says “the “WORD” believe me, if means “GOD’s WORD” ”
Start at Deut ch 18 v 18….or John ch 12 vs 49-50….understand them and then re read the Bible. JESUS was born at Bethlehem…and did not exist a moment before then.
Rodd,
Neither Deut 18:18 nor John 12:49-50 state what you claim.
Did Jesus exist before he was born in Bethlehem?
YES.
He existed before creation itself. See John 17:5 “And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world existed.”