When I wrote my novel, The Way of the Lamb, I did not begin with the birth of the infant. I wrote a prologue of God before creation. I suppose to many this might seem downright blasphemous. For who has ever peered into such a mystery? Did I allow my imagination to overreach?
My attempt to capture it was assuredly anemic although I rewrote it many times hoping to share a vision of something so far beyond our comprehension. Yet, I believe it is so very important to our understanding about the advent – the coming of the Christ. Paul assured the Colossian congregation that Jesus is the visible expression of our invisible God, as in the Trinitarian Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed affirms that Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; AND through (the Christ) all things were made.
Despite the many Old Testament theophanies, (appearances of Christ in bodily/angelic form), it was only in the fullness of time that the Christ came down from heaven to become truly human purposed for God’s mission of our salvation.
For many millennia Christ remained a secret, only to be revealed in living parables of the people of faith. Only at the appropriated time was he born of a woman to live a truly human existence.
Yet, Christ was the very reason for all of creation. He is our Alpha and the Omega, our beginning and end. We were created for his pleasure and joy. And as our sovereign, He was ordained in the eternal order of Melchizedek – as our righteous king and high priest, and our Ancient of Days.
Before our inception, Christ already knew us intimately as his own. Our names were written in his Book of Life even before the first flash of light emerged or the first breath was drawn. As the Son, he was ordained to live in obedience to his Heavenly Father long before he was a babe placed in the manger, long before he was born into the flesh of humanity.
I wrote about Jesus before the foundation of creation from an informed perspective influenced by many scriptural details and descriptions that are scattered about in God’s word.
Here are just a few of the pre-foundational scriptures to check out: Matthew 13:35, Matthew 25:34, Luke 11:50, Hebrew 4:3, Hebrew 9:26, John 17:24, Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 1:20, Revelation 13:8, Revelation 17:8. And don’t forget John 1:1-14. These scriptures reveal a lot about Christ’s purposes.
The take away? The person of Jesus Christ has always been God’s plan of salvation for mankind even from before the creation/foundation of the world. Jesus is the Lamb of God. He has always been with God and is actually God. He has always been exactly who He Is. And, He has always been FOR those whom he chose as his own from before the foundation of this world. We are ‘the joy of an eternal relationship’ that he has envisioned. Don’t let anything hold you back from a relationship with him.
K. S. McFarland 