
Anton Raphael Mengs – Angel Appears to Joseph in a Dream (1773/1774)
Critics of the Trinitarian view of Jesus Christ as God incarnate sometimes argue that Jesus could not have existed before he was born. They point out that Jesus received his name “Jesus” when he was born (Matt. 1:21, 25; Luke 1:31; 2:21). Before that time, these critics conclude, Jesus simply didn’t exist. And if Jesus didn’t exist before his birth, then obviously he cannot be God, since God has always existed. For good measure, they often argue that Jesus was also not the Son of God prior to his birth because the angel Gabriel told Mary that her child was going to be “called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, cf. 1:32).
As reasonable as these arguments no doubt seem to those who present them, they simply contradict the facts of what the New Testament writings actually say. As it turns out, in various places the New Testament refers to the person in question, in the context of the period of time preceding his birth, as “Jesus,” “Christ,” and God’s “Son.” Let’s look at each of them.
Jesus
The preincarnate person we know as Jesus is actually called Jesus in the best reading of Jude 5: “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (ESV). Many of the earliest manuscripts actually say “Jesus” instead of “the Lord” in verse 5, and this is most likely the original reading. Older English versions (KJV, NKJV, etc.) and a few newer ones (NASB, NIV, NRSV) follow the more familiar reading “the Lord” here, but several recent versions agree with the ESV in accepting the reading “Jesus” (CSB, NET, NLT). Ed Komoszewski and I give three reasons supporting this reading in our book Putting Jesus in His Place.[1]
It is, of course, reasonable to maintain that the person we call Jesus did not go by that name at the time of the Exodus. Continue reading