The Pre-Existence of Messiah In The Mind of God

I wanted to write an article about the pre-existence of the Messiah. That is, his existence before his birth. How can you exist before your are born? Well, literally you don’t, but the following is a quote from Rabbinical writings in regards to the Messiah. It demonstrates the thought world that was in existence at the time of the apostles’ writings. The apostles were immersed in this thought world. Their understanding and teaching about the origins of the Messiah is in line with what was taught by the Rabbi’s of their day. They were Jews and they thought like Jews. Their thought paradigm was Jewish and it was immersed in the bible. They had two things in view, that God is one and that he calls those things that don’t exist as though they do. They had no knowledge of a three person God, but a simple un-divided unity. God’s thoughts are real and they are infused with life even before they come into existence in time and space.

“The belief was general that the sending of the Messiah was part of the Creator’s plan at the inception of the Universe. “Seven things were created before the world was created: Torah, repentance, the Garden of Eden (i.e. Paradise), Gehinnom, the Throne of Glory, the Temple, and the name of the Messiah” (Pes. 54a). In a later work there is the observation: “From the beginning of the creation of the world king Messiah was born, for he entered the mind (of God) before even the world was created” (Pesikta Rab. 152b)

This was their view point towards “pre-existence” and I believe what Paul and John had hidden in their hearts as they wrote “he that came after me was preferred before me for he was before me” and “he is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created…” Writing under inspiration in the gospel and epistles they understood Jesus was born before time when he entered the mind/plan of God. Messiah was born in the mind of God before the creation of the world and he was God’s perfect man, so all things were made by this perfect man, who was still a thought in the mind of the Creator. This Jewish understanding was lost and thus ensued the Greek philosophical trinity of persons. The Greeks understood these scriptures in terms of a pre-existent second divine person whereas the apostles that wrote the words understand they were referring to the pre-eminent thought and purpose of God, the Messiah.

Brother Branham stated this, “Jesus is the beginning of the creation of God. How did he begin? In the womb of a virgin.” [Future Home]

Paul said that God calls those things that are not as though they were. Another rendering of the verse is “calls the things which do not exist as existing.” God’s thoughts are real and they have life in them, even if they have not been manifested or brought to pass yet. Thus all things were made by God through Messiah who was born in the mind/plan of God before creation. It is not a contradiction to say that Messiah created all things when in fact at the creation of the world he had not yet been born. He was merely born in the plan or mind of God before the creation of the world.

Some may say that Jesus is the word of John 1:1. Brother Branham said that if you make the word a separate person from God you make him one out of three. [Christ Revealed In His Own Word] I want to take a closer look at this. From the Encyclopedia Britanica. “Greek: “word,” “reason,” “plan”) In Greek philosophy and theology, the divine reason that orders the cosmos and gives it form and meaning.” Logos can literally mean the divine plan. We could render John 1:1-3, 14 as this, “in the beginning was the divine plan and the divine plan was with God and the divine plan was God. The same was in the beginning with God. In it was life and the life was the light of men. The divine plan became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.” The great divine plan prior to the incarnation was with God and was God himself. God’s revelation is God, you cannot separate God from his self-revelation and plan. God’s plan reveals him and his nature and invisible attributes. This divine plan became flesh. That is when the Son was born (brought into existence) the plan was made flesh. All the prophecies concerning Messiah and what God planned to do through the Messiah became flesh. The prophecies literally took on flesh. This is not a second pre-existent person, but rather the divine plan or prophecies becoming flesh.

Jewish Understanding of “Let Us” in Genesis 1:26

This is an article I came across that I thought was very well done and explained Genesis 1:26 very well in light of the oneness of God.

Rabbi Tovia Singer

This verse appears in missionary literature quite often in spite of the fact that this argument has been answered countless times throughout the centuries. Let’s examine Genesis 1:26, as I have quoted it above.

With limited knowledge of the Jewish scriptures, missionaries advance the above verse in as evidence that there was a plurality in the godhead which was responsible for creation. What other explanation could adequately account for the Bible’s use of the plural pronouns such as “us” and “our” in this verse?

This argument, however, is grievously flawed. In fact, a great number of Trinitarian Christian scholars have long abandoned the notion that Genesis 1:26 implies a plurality of persons in the godhead. Rather, Christian scholars overwhelmingly agree that the plural pronoun in this verse is a reference to God’s ministering angels who were created previously, and the Almighty spoke majestically in the plural, consulting His heavenly court. Let’s read the comments of a number of preeminent Trinitarian Bible scholars on this subject. For example, the evangelical Christian author Gordon J. Wenham, who is no foe of the Trinity and authored a widely respected two-volume commentary on the Book of Genesis, writes on this verse,

Christians have traditionally seen [Genesis 1:26] as adumbrating [foreshadowing] the Trinity. It is now universally admitted that this was not what the plural meant to the original author.

The New International Version is hardly a Bible that can be construed as being friendly to Judaism. Yet, the NIV Study Bible also writes in its commentary on Genesis 1:26,

Us . . . Our . . . Our. God speaks as the Creator-king, announcing His crowning work to the members of His heavenly court. (see 3:22; 11:7; Isaiah 6:8; I Kings 22:19-23; Job 15:8; Jeremiah 23:18)

Charles Caldwell Ryrie, a highly regarded dispensationalist professor of Biblical Studies at the Philadelphia College of Bible and author of the widely read Bible commentary, The Ryrie Study Bible, writes in his short and to-the-point annotation on Genesis 1:26,

Us . . . Our. Plurals of majesty.

The Liberty Annotated Study Bible, a Bible commentary published by the Reverend Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, similarly remarks on this verse,

The plural pronoun “Us” is most likely a majestic plural from the standpoint of Hebrew grammar and syntax.

The 10-volume commentary by Keil and Delitzsch is considered by many to be the most influential exposition on the “Old Testament” in evangelical circles. Yet in its commentary on Genesis 1:26, we find,

The plural “We” was regarded by the fathers and earlier theologians almost unanimously as indicative of the Trinity; modern commentators, on the contrary, regard it either as pluralis majestatis . . . No other explanation is left, therefore, than to regard it as pluralis majestatis . . . .

The question that immediately comes to mind is: What would compel these evangelical scholars — all of whom are Trinitarian — to determinedly conclude that Genesis 1:26 does not suggest the Trinity, but rather a majestic address to the angelic hosts of heaven? Why would the comments of the above conservative Christian writers so perfectly harmonize with the Jewish teaching on this verse?

The answer to this question is simple. If you search the Bible you will find that when the Almighty speaks of “us” or “our,” He is addressing His ministering angels. In fact, only two chapters later, God continues to use the pronoun “us” as He speaks with His angels. At the end of the third chapter of Genesis the Almighty relates to His angels that Adam and his wife have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and must therefore be prevented from eating from the Tree of Life as well; for if man would gain access to the Tree of Life he will “become like one of us.” The Creator then instructs his angels known as Cherubim to stand at the gate of the Garden of Eden waving a flaming sword so that mankind is prevented from entering the Garden and eating from the Tree of Life. Let’s examine Genesis 3:22-24.

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” — therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

This use of the majestic plural in Genesis 3:22-24 is what is intended by the NIV Study Bible’s annotation on Genesis 1:26 (above). At the end of its comment on this verse, the NIV Study Bible provides a number of Bible sources from the Jewish scriptures to support its position that “God speaks as the Creator-king, announcing His crowning work to the members of His heavenly court.” The verses cited are: Genesis 3:22, 11:7, Isaiah 6:8, I Kings 22:19-23, Job 15:8, and Jeremiah 23:18. These verses convey to the attentive Bible reader that the heavenly abode of the Creator is filled with the ministering angels who attend the Almighty and to whom He repeatedly refers when using the plural pronoun “Us.”

Outsiders often wonder what binding force keeps the Jewish people united in faith. This is not so odd a question when we consider the inner conflict that has followed our people throughout our extraordinary history. Bear in mind that regardless of the turbulent quarrels that fester among us, the oneness of God remains the binding thread which unites the Jewish people in history and witness. The teachings of the Torah were designed to set forever in the national conscience of the Jewish people the idea that God is one alone and therefore the only object of our devotion and worship.

Why Did God Say “Let Us”?

Here is a question from a brother in Christ.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Why did God speak in the plural when He made man?

A_SUPER_SIGN  JEFF_IN 12-27-59 Morning

26 That’s a sign, that every unrepented sinner will perish in the judgment, that the righteous shall be saved by the mercy of God. He gave another sign at the burning bush. What was it when He caught His runaway prophet? “I have heard the cries of My people, and I’ve remembered My covenant”? He gave another sign there, that He was a covenant-keeping God, that He remembered everything that He said, every promise that He made. He gave a sign at the burning bush, “And I’ve come down to deliver them.” Watch God in His ways of work. When He created the heavens and earth, He called the Angels together, and He said, “Let us.” Every place in the Scripture where He did anything mostly, “Not Me, but My Father.” But when it come to the plan of redemption, He came alone; nobody was with Him. He was the only One that could come. An Angel couldn’t do it. Another man called His son, couldn’t do it. One called something else, a holy virgin, or a holy mother, or–or some saint, couldn’t do it. God had to come.

He was speaking to angels because he desired their participation in his work. First of all notice that after God says, “let us” first and then the scripture says in verse 27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” 
See that Moses used the SINGULAR personal pronouns “HIS own image” “image of God created HE him, male and female created HE them.” 
So the plural pronoun by definition means he was speaking to someone who WAS NOT HIMSELF, ie not God. God is ONE person as evidenced by the THOUSANDS of scriptures that use singular personal pronouns. In this verse it clearly shows that he was speaking to someone OTHER than himself. 
A great example of this is in Isaiah 6. 

6Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

7And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

God is speaking to the angelic beings surrounding his throne. He says whom shall I (singular pronoun pointing to ONE PERSON) send and whom shall go for US (the singular PERSON was speaking to the angelic beings who were NOT him).

Godhead – Part 4 – The Son of God and the Word of God

Here we study the difference and similarities between of the Logos of John 1:1 and the Son of God. Contrary to popular belief Jesus did not exist as God in heaven before his birth. We explore John 1:1, 1 John 1:1-2, Luke 1:35, Galatians 4:4, Psalm 2:7, John 17:5 and Colossians 1:15-18.

There is still an element of mystery to understanding who God is, but there is not a contradiction like there is with Trinitarianism. The Trinitarians accuse me of being a heretic and a false beleiver, but I would turn the tables and say the Trinity is a false doctrine that was erroneous from the start. The original doctrine espoused by the prophets of the OT and the apostles of the NT is the true doctrine of God, it’s simple and easy to understand. The important thing is to go back to the bible to search these things out for yourself to see if they are so.

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Godhead Part 4 The Son of God and the Word

Here we study the difference and similarities between of the Logos of John 1:1 and the Son of God. Contrary to popular belief Jesus did not exist as God in heaven before his birth. We explore John 1:1, 1 John 1:1-2, Luke 1:35, Galatians 4:4, Psalm 2:7, John 17:5 and Colossians 1:15-18.

There is still an element of mystery to understanding who God is, but there is not a contradiction like there is with Trinitarianism. The Trinitarians accuse me of being a heretic and a false beleiver, but I would turn the tables and say the Trinity is a false doctrine that was erroneous from the start. The original doctrine espoused by the prophets of the OT and the apostles of the NT is the true doctrine of God, it’s simple and easy to understand. The important thing is to go back to the bible to search these things out for yourself to see if they are so.

The Godhead – Part 1

The oneness of God is a highly controversial subject. Trinitarians will do their best to plant fear in anyone who seeks to understand God based upon a biblical framework rather than non-biblical terminology being thrust upon the Bible. My hope is that at least you’ll take a look at this, go back to the bible and search out what it says and that you will come to your own conclusion based upon the leadership of the Holy Spirit instead of running from this based upon some fear that man would place in your heart.

Jason DeMars

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