Did Jesus Exist Before He Was Born?

“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.

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.”

Davd Guzik

Before Bethlehem, Jesus was the creator of all things (Colossians 1:16-17, John 1:1-3). “He was before all things.

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.”

Clarke

Adapted from David Guzik’s Study Guide for Micah 5