The Pre-Human Existence of Christ Outside the Gospels - Part I

It is often said that John's is the only gospel in which the idea of a personal pre-human existence of Christ could somehow find support. It is claimed that in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, this idea is absent.

In order to appraise the validity of this claim, we will explore what other books of the New Testament have to say on Christ's pre-human preexistence; by doing so, we will determine if it would be likely or not to find any references in the synoptic gospels to Christ's pre-human existence.

The argument is that if we can find the idea of Christ's pre-human existence present before 70 AD, it would be more plausible to find this idea in the synoptic gospels - and one would even expect then to find it there. It would be helpful to see how other Christians viewed this issue, because that would help us put the synoptic gospels into the 1st century context of Christian thought.

In this first part, we will inspect the writings of Paul. As it will be seen, the pre-human existence of Christ is always assumed, not argued for.

In the writings of Paul

The strongest proof of Christ's pre-human existence can be found in the letter to the Philippians.

Philippians 2:5-8

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man [...]^*

Notice how Christ existed in the form of God before emptying himself of this form, taking the form of a servant, becoming a man.

What does "being made in the likeness of men" mean? Being made translates the same Greek verb that appears in John 1:14, ginomai where John says the Word became flesh. Also, the word translated as "likeliness" is homoioma, and it also means "form" according to BDAG 5296. So this phrase can be rendered as "becoming in the form of men".

Furthermore, there's the last phrase: being found in appearance as a man. The word "appearance" translates the Greek schema, which also means "form" according to BDAG 7204. Also, the Greek text says "as a man", it is phrased this way:

σχήματι [in form] εὑρεθεὶς [being found] ὡς [as] ἄνθρωπος [a man]

So the text literally says: in form being found as a man. Therefore notice how this part of Paul's hymn revolves entirely around the "form". The whole phrase then says:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, becoming in the form of men, and being found in form as a man [...]

Before discussing what being in the form of God means, let us observe that Christ emptied himself. This is contrary to what the theory of no preexistence says, that Christ's pre-human existence is only in the mind/plan of God, not a personal pre-human existence. By saying that Christ emptied himself, Paul shows Christ's own participation in the process, his personal willingness to become a man in order to save humanity. He acted in a voluntary fashion in order to make salvation possible. This is paralleled by the statement that Christ humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death - vs. 8.

This shows his pre-human existence in personal terms; he existed in the form of God, and decided he will empty himself of this form and take the form of a servant, become a man. This also echoes the statement he made when he enters the human world⁰:

Hebrews 10:5-7 Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'behold, I am coming (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, o God.'"

The fact that becoming a man is a voluntary act of Christ is significant, because most commentators that see no pre-human existence in Philippians 2 ignore this crucial fact. Most of their arguments are rather concentrated on what being in the form of God means.

But the phrase being in the form of God is clear enough, despite efforts to make it mean Christ was in the mind/plan of God. It is a fact that the verse actually doesn't say that. One can reach that conclusion if one starts from the idea that Christ could not personally exist but in the mind of God, making this a circular reasoning.

So what does being in the form of God mean? We can understand what it means if we start by noticing that it is said Christ was also, later, in the form of men¹; which undoubtedly means he was a man ².

If being in the form of men is being a man, being in the form of God is being a god. This idea was common in Hebrew thought - and Paul is a Hebrew of course, being taught by the famous Rabbi Gamaliel. In Hebrew thought, supernatural beings were sometimes referred to as "gods". For example, when the medium of En-Dor tells Saul what she sees, she says:

1 Samuel 28:13 "I see a divine being coming up out of the earth."

NASB translates divine being but the Hebrew word used by the medium is Elohim, which means god(s). She is literally saying she sees an elohim, in other words a god, a supernatural being. This particularity of Hebrew thought can be also seen in the Septuagint, where there are at least four instances where the Hebrew translators thought that a certain verse referring to elohim was referring to angels - who of course are supernatural beings. The most well-known instance is Psalm 8:4-5 where NASB says:

What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God [elohim], And You crown him with glory and majesty!

The "English Bible in Basic English" translation says a little lower than the gods, while others like NIV say a little lower than the heavenly beings. Indeed, elohim can be translated as god or gods. The Hebrew translators of the Hebrew Scriptures used the plural, and not only the plural, but translated angels:

"Thou madest him a little less than angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour" - Brent's translation of the Septuagint.

They clearly thought that when the psalmist wrote elohim, gods, he referred to angels, therefore viewing angels as gods, because they are supernatural beings, reflecting the power and glory of the Almighty God. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews agrees, quoting the Septuagint:

Hebrews 2:6-7 But one has testified somewhere, saying, "What is man, that You remember him? Or the son of man, that You are concerned about him? You have made him for a little while lower than the angels;

The other instances where the Hebrew idea that angels are gods is reflected, are these:

Psalm 97:7 Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, Who boast themselves of idols; Worship Him, all you gods [elohim in Hebrew, angels here in the Septuagint].

Psalm 138:1 A Psalm of David. I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to You before the gods [elohim in Hebrew, angels here in the Septuagint].

Daniel 2:11 "Moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods [elohim in Hebrew, angels here in the Septuagint], whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh."

Interestingly enough in the case of Daniel 2:11, it is indeed the angels who explain the meaning of Daniel's visions - see 7:16, 23; 8:16; 9:23; 10:12, 14, 21.

It is a well-established fact that the Bible of the first century Christians was the Septuagint ³. Thus Paul was familiar with the light in which the Septuagint presents supernatural beings - as gods. According to this ancient Hebrew way of thinking then, Jesus as a supernatural being can be called a god, being in the form of a god, inasmuch as he can be called later a man, being in the form of a man. As a side note, when the Greek text says Christ existed in the form of God, there's no capital G for "God" in the Greek manuscripts; all manuscripts were written in all capital letters or in all lower case letters. So the text says EXISTED IN THE FORM OF GOD and existed in the form of god. Furthermore, this phrase can be also translated

existed in the form of a god

since the Greek definite article ("the" in English) is missing from the Greek text, and unlike English, which has an indefinite article (a word, an apple) there's no indefinite article in Koine Greek, the language of the NT; the text says

en morphe theou huparchon (ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων)

The Greek definite article is missing from before theou, "god". Frequently, nouns without the definite article are translated "a thing" like in the case of Luke 5:36 where Jesus tells them a parable. Also, there are many places where somebody refers to something of God, where the definite article is present before theou - like Ephesians 5:6: he orge tou theou, the wrath of (the) God.

So if a Greek writer wanted to say "form of a god", he would have wrote exactly what Paul did, without inserting the Greek definite article before "god".

There are many places where virtually the same construction appears, but with an additional definite article:

en + a noun in dative (like morphe, "form"),
+ a definite article in the genitive (tou for example, "the"),
+ a noun in the genitive (like theou - "of (a) god"). That is, like:

en morphe tou theou

An instance would be Genesis 3:19, where the Septuagint says: en hidroti tou prosopou - "in the sweat of the face [of you]".

Or Genesis 23:9, en merei tou argou - "in the part of the land [of you]", etc. This is to show that if Paul would have wanted to make god in Philippians 2:6 to be definite, God, and not a god, which is indefinite, he could have easily added the definite article before "god": en morphe tou theou huparchon. So the translation

being in the form of a god

is legal and in agreement with the grammatical rules of Greek. In fact, it is probable that Paul wrote not that Christ was:

being made in the likeness of men

but:

being made in the likeness of a man

Not men, in the plural, but a man. Why? The oldest manuscript that contains this letter of Paul, P⁴⁶, reads man, in the singular, not men⁴, just as the preceding god and servant are in the singular, as is the phrase after, "found in appearance as a man". Other than P⁴⁶, some Syriac, Coptic and Vulgate manuscripts, Origen, Cyprian, Hillary and Ambrose, read man in the singular⁵.

So if it is man and not men, the parallelism with god and servant is preserved. Christ was in the form of a god, but emptied himself of this form, and came to be in the form of a man, of a servant.

The idea that Christ willingly renounced the high position he held prior to becoming a man, to became a slave - because the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve (Mt. 20:28) - is repeated by Paul in 2 Corinthians 8:9.

2 Corinthians 8:9

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

When was Jesus rich before he willingly became poor? Was Jesus the carpenter⁶ ever rich after he was born through Mary? He once said "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head" - Mt. 8:6.

The fact that he was rich before, but became poor for our sakes, is related to another of Jesus' statements, that he had glory with his Father before the founding of the world - John 17:5.

1 Corinthians 15:47

1 Corinthians 15:47-49 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

The theory of no preexistence says that Christ's existence as a person started on earth; but here Paul contrasts the point of personal origin of Adam and Christ. Adam is from the earth, and he indeed started his existence as a person on earth; but Christ is not from earth, that is, he did not start existing as a person on earth. He is from heaven.

The counter-argument is that Christ is from heaven in the sense that he existed in the mind/plan of God, who is in heaven. But Adam existed as well in God's mind/plan before he was created on earth. He could not exist in God's plan after he was created on earth. So Adam too is from heaven. In fact all of us are from heaven. But Adam being from heaven renders Paul's argument useless.

A similar idea of Christ's origin as a person can be found in Romans 10:6-7.

The Letter to Romans

Romans 10:6-8 But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: "Do not say in your heart, 'who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down), or 'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" -- that is, the word of faith which we are preaching

Paul's argument is based on Deuteronomy 30:

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.

Romans 10:6 is sometimes understood to say that people lacking a solid faith would like to go to heaven where Jesus is now, in order to fortify their faith. But why would they then want to bring Jesus down?

The fact that the going up to bring Christ down does not refer to his present location is showed by verse 7. Who will descend into the abyss, to bring Christ up from the dead? Is Jesus now dead, in the abyss?

It seems that these men's intention was a different one. They wanted to bring Christ down on the earth and they wanted to bring Christ up from the dead (see Mt 12:40) In order for their faith to be stronger, they would have liked to have been eyewitnesses to Jesus' earthly ministry, and to his appearance and ministry after his resurrection. If this is what Paul has in mind, then he is certainly thinking that Jesus came down from heaven, just as he said it in 1 Corinthians 15:47.

Even if this is so, some would argue that Jesus coming down from heaven does not mean he was a person first, in heaven, and then came down; James 1:17 is quoted in support:

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

For example wisdom - mentioned by James in verse 5 - is also from God, and being a perfect gift of God, it can be said that it comes down from heaven, from the Father of lights (see James 3:15). But no one would think that wisdom is a person just because it comes down from God. Indeed, no one would think that, but mainly because we already know that the wisdom God gives to his people is not a person. It is never, ever, said about humans that they came down from heaven. God gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, but of none of them it is said even once that they came down from heaven.

Another verse from Romans:

Romans 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh

Granted, God sending someone does not automatically mean this someone existed before in other form. God has also sent prophets to Israel, and they did not preexist. But the question is, of what prophet is it said he was sent in the likeliness of sinful flesh? Why does Paul find this information valuable enough to mention it, if in his mind, the son of God cannot exist in any other form but in the flesh? Wouldn't this make this information redundant? Yes it would, because all humans are flesh.

But if Jesus existed as a powerful spirit before being sent by God, it make sense to mention the fact that God sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh, in the likeness of humans. This son became flesh (John 1:14); this son came to be (be-came) in the form of men - Philippians 2:7, see above. This is an extraordinary fact, a miracle of God, that was done by God in order for Jesus to be an offering for sin, to condemn sin in the flesh.

In conclusion, the explicit mention of Christ not just being sent, like the other men of God were, but being sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, points to the fact that Christ was in a different "likeness" before he was sent.

The same situation can be found in Galatians 4:4.

Galatians 4:4

Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law

Again we can see how Paul ties Christ being sent by God, with the nature he was sent in, a human nature. Is it necessary in the case of previous servants whom God sent, to mention they were born of a woman, born under the Law? No of course not, that would have been self-understood in the case of every Jew.

What Paul says about the son being born of a woman and under the law is not redundant, but very significant if Paul knew the Son of God existed in a non-human form before his coming, existed without being under the Mosaic Law. By explicitly mentioning that the son God sent was born of a woman and under the law, the writer shows that in the case of Christ, these two characteristics are highly significant, unlike the case of all other men God has sent to his people, in whose case there was nothing extraordinary that they were born under the law, of a woman. It was necessary for this son to come this way in order to be able to redeem those who are born of a woman and under the law.

1 Timothy 3:16

1 Timothy 3:16 By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.

The word translated as revealed here is the Greek phaneroo. According to BDAG, this verb has means:

to cause to become visible, reveal, expose publicly, show or reveal oneself

So no wonder that when used in connection with persons, it always implies their preexistence. Here are some examples:

John 1:31 "I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water."

John the Baptist says he came came baptizing in water in order for Jesus to be manifested to Israel. And that happened indeed, when Jesus was baptized, John revealed the fact that Jesus is the Messiah: "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (vs. 29). There's no question that when Jesus was revealed as the Messiah at John's baptism, he already preexisted.

Another use of this verb:

John 21:1 After these things Jesus manifested Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and He manifested Himself in this way.

Jesus was manifested/revealed/appeared to the disciples after he was resurrected. Obviously, he already existed before that.

John 21:14 This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead.

Same idea. Here are other uses of this verb, outside the gospels:

2 Corinthians 5:10-11 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ [...] Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.

Ephesians 5:13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.

Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

1 Peter 5:4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

1 John 2:28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.

It is obvious then, that when Paul says Christ was manifested in flesh, he viewed him as having existed before in a non-fleshly state.

1 Corinthians 8:6 and Colossians 1:16

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we exist through Him.⁷.

Paul admits that the world has different so-called gods and lords, but in fact there is only one God and only one Lord, the Father and Christ. He supports his statement by referring to the creation of all things. Only the real God can be the source of all things, they are all from Him, and only the real Lord can be the one through whom all these things were made, so the other gods and lords are false because of this.

The appeal to creation to make a point of Yahweh being the only real God was used before Paul by God himself in Isaiah:

Isaiah 44:24 Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, Yahweh, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone

But this verse is also commonly used to raise an objection to Jesus being an agent through whom God created all things. Trinitarians use it to argue that Jesus is the Almighty God because it is said here that no one was with with God when He created all things, and Unitarian adopters of the no preexistence theory use it to argue that Jesus could not be an agent in the creation of all things for the same reason, being said here that no one was with with God when He created all things.

But why ignore the context? The context speaks about false gods, the gods the Jews adopted from their surrounding neighbors and the ones they were making from wood, idols. None of these false gods were with Yahweh at creation! He says "there is no God besides Me" in verse 6, but despite this, God says that the Messiah is a god himself (Isaiah 9:6), and that the unjust judges of Israel are gods themselves (Ps. 82:6, John 10:34-35). It is clear then what God says in 44:24: none of the false gods that the Jews and nations worship were with Him at creation, they are all false gods.

Paul repeats the idea that it is Jesus Christ through whom God created all things, in Colossians 1:16.

Colossians 1:16 For by Him [the Son] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created through Him and for Him.

Paul therefore is firmly convinced that it was through Christ Jesus that God created all things. He firmly believed Christ had a personal existence way before he became human in the first century to fulfill the act of redemption of the human kind. He existed before everything else was created, and served as an agent through whom God created everything, be they visible or invisible things.

Consequently, Paul believes this son of God was involved in the life of God's people even before coming on earth as a human in the first century, as it can be seen two chapters later in 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 10:4

1 Corinthians 10:1-4 For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.

Several explanations have been proposed for how could Christ be the spiritual rock that followed the Jews through the wilderness. Some argue that the rock symbolized Christ, not that Christ in person gave them to drink water.

The Jews going through the sea, and under the cloud (which holds water) , amounted to them being baptized in a spiritual way. They ate a spiritual food because the mana was given to them miraculously. They drank a spiritual drink because the water was miraculously made to come out of the rock (Numbers 20:11).

What is Paul trying to say? He warns the Corinthians not to feel that because they were baptized and were fed spiritually by Christ now, they could do anything, even indulge in immorality and idol worshiping. As an example he presents the ancient people of God, who were baptized at the same time in the same sea and under the same cloud, ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink which was given by the same Christ who is now with the Corinthians; but despite that, "with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness".

Who gave them miraculously water in the wilderness? Christ did, not the literal rock itself; he made the rock to give water, and Christ was accompanying them in the wilderness. They had Christ with them, and still, with many of them God was not pleased, and laid them low in the wilderness.

So if Christ is not the one accompanying them in the wilderness, catering to their needs, Paul's argument doesn't really work. What Paul says is that Christ was with the Jews and they fell from God's favor. This has to serve the Corinthians as an example (verse 6). Today Christ is with the Corinthians, and they better watch what they're doing - they should not be idolaters (verse 7) and they should not act immorally, because thousands of God's people died because of this (verse 8), despite Christ being with them. They should not test Christ - verse 9:

Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents.

But who is the Lord they tried? Jesus is frequently referred to as the Lord because God made Jesus Lord (Acts 2:36). Taking into account that Paul just said Christ was accompanying the Jews through the wilderness, is he intending to say they tried Christ, the Lord, in the wilderness?

It is interesting to note that many translations say in verse 9 "Lord", but also many say here "Christ". What gives?

Several ancient manuscripts have different readings here - see NA27. The following read Lord here:

• Codex Sinaiticus (IV A.D.)


• Codex Vaticanus B (IV A.D.)


• Codex Ephraemi C (V A.D.)


• Codex Porphyrianus P (IX A.D.)


• and several other late minuscules like number 33 (IX A.D.)


• 104 (1087 A.D.), etc.

Others read God: Codex Alexandrinus (V A.D.), minuscule number 81 (1044 A.D.) and a few others.

Others read Christ:

• P⁴⁶ (around 200 A.D., the oldest extant manuscript containg letters of Paul)
• Codex Claromontanus D (VI A.D.)


• Codex Augiensis F (IX A.D.)


• Codex Boernerianus G (IX A.D.)


• Codex Athous Lavrensis (VIII/IX A.D.)


• and other late minuscules like number 1739 (X A.D.)


• 1881 (XIV A.D.), etc


• the M group ⁸


• the Old Latin (IV A.D.) and the Vulgate (VI A.D.)


• the Syriac version (V A.D.)


• the Coptic version (IV/V A.D.)


• Iraeneus - latin translation (395 A.D.)


• Origen as quoted in the margin of manuscript 1739 (X A.D.).

NA27, the eclectic Greek text which many translations follow, chose the Christ reading in this verse. Here's the NA27 committee's motivation:

The reading that best explains the origin of the others is Christ, attested by the oldest Greek Manuscript (P⁴⁶) as well as by a wide diversity of early patristic and versional witnesses (Iraeneus in Gaul, Ephraem in Edessa, Clement in Alexandria, Origen in Palestine, as well as by the Old Latin, the Vulgate, the Syriac, Sahidic and Bohairic). The difficulty of explaining how the ancient Israelites in the wilderness could have tempted Christ prompted some copyist to substitute either the ambiguous Lord or the unobjectionable God. Pauls reference to Christ here is analogous to that in verse 4. - A Textual Commentary on the Greek NT, 2nd Ed., Bruce Metzger.

So it is indeed possible that Paul wrote that the Jews tempted Christ in the wilderness. This should not be so surprising, since God told the Jews at the beginning of their journey:

Exodus 23:20-23 "Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them.

According to HALOT 5198, the Hebrew word translated as angel literally means "messenger". Notice how this messenger was to be obeyed by the Jews, they should not rebel against him but obey his voice, because he will not pardon their transgression. It is easy to see that this messenger was a representative of Yahweh himself. He says "obey his voice and do all that I say"; so they were to obey the messenger's voice and do all that Yahweh, through this messenger, says. This messenger's person represented Yahweh himself and was His mouthpiece, His spokesperson. Incidentally or not, John says about Jesus the he was the Word.

It is probably this angel who says the following, before Exodus 23:20-23:

Exodus 3:7-8 The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

Verse 2 makes it clear that the speaker is "the angel of the LORD". The angel was not Yahweh himself, but was representing him, just as in the case of the angel who God says in Exodus 23:20-23 that will clear the way to the promised land for the Israelites. This angel is again presented in Exodus 14 as being involved in the liberation of the Jews from the Egyptian empire:

Exodus 14:19-21 The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided.

For more information on this, see the section "Liberation from Egypt" in the The Divine Messiah and Ancient Jewish Monotheism article.

Conclusion

In conclusion, like Simon Gathercole says in his book, Paul employs Christ's preexistence in a number of different contexts, perhaps as early as 48-49 A.D. He puts Christ at the creation of all things, way before he came to earth. He also puts him in the wilderness with the ancient Jews. He says he gave up his godly form to take a human form, he thus was "rich" but became "poor" for our sakes.

One would feel probably the need to ask, why aren't all these Paulian aspects mentioned in the Gospels? One of the gospel writers, John - who has Jesus saying many things and involved in many events the synoptic Gospels lack - said that Jesus told his disciples that

John 16:12-13 "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth;

And the Spirit came after his ascension to heaven (Acts 2). John himself also says at the end of his gospel:

John 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.

Returning to Paul, the most striking aspect of this is that he does not argue that Christ had a pre-human existence, he always assumes it. He always uses Christ's preexistence as a base on which he will build a conclusion, an exhortation. That shows that his audience held the same belief, that Christ existed as a person before becoming a human, otherwise none of his arguments would have worked.

It is widely acknowledged that Paul had a great influence on primitive Christianity, so it would be difficult to think that this idea of Christ's preexistence was not also held more widely than some think. Paul's coworkers and his churches must have shared with Paul the same belief. Is Mark of Philemon 1:24, 2 Ti 4:11 and Col 4:10 the one who wrote the Gospel? As Gathercole says in his book (p. 42), much of the 20th century scholarship was dominated by the view that Mark and Paul were entirely independent.

Recently, however, Joel Marcus has commented that "now the tide appears to be shifting, and several scholars have recently contended that Mark should be situated in the Pauline sphere of activity" - J. Marcus, "Mark - Interpreter of Paul", NTS 46.4 (2000), 473-87 (474)

Of course, the association of Paul with Luke is well-known. After all, Luke writes frequently in Acts about "we" ⁹. One would then expect to find references to Christ's pre-human existence in the Gospels as well.

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^* NASB introduces an "and" between "bond-servant" and "being made", but there's no "and" in the Greek text - see NA27. Also, NASB omits an "and" between "likeness of men" and "being found" - idem. I've restored these in the above translation.<sup>(back)

0</sup> NASB renders in vs. 7 I have come instead of I am coming; nevertheless, the verb heko used here is in the present tense.<sup>(back)

1</sup> Actually, the oldest manuscript that contains this letter of Paul, P⁴⁶, reads not men but man, in singular. <sup>(back)

2</sup> As others note - like Simon Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, page 25, ftn - the Greek morphe, form in English, refers not to form in contrast to reality, but as a reflection of reality. <sup>(back)

3</sup> See The Biblical Canon - Lee Martin McDonald, p. 115, 122.<sup>(back)

4</sup> See also Philippians, A Greek Student's Intermediate Reader, Jerry L. Sumney, p. 47.<sup>(back)

5</sup> See NA27 and A Textual Commentary on the Greek NT, 2nd ed., Metzger, p. 545<sup>(back)

6</sup> Mark 6:3.<sup>(back)

7</sup> NASB chooses to translate "Jesus Christ by whom are all things" instead of "trough whom are all things". The Greek dia with an object in genitive mainly means through. Other translations render this in 1 Co 8:6 as through, not by - like NIV, New American Bible, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, etc. The same construction is found in the last part of this same verse, where NASB renders "we exist through Him".<sup>(back)

8</sup> Manuscripts of the Byzantine Imperial text, plus Codex Monsquensis K (IX A.D.), Codex Angelicus L (IX A.D.) and others - see The Text of the NT by Kurt and Barbara Aland p. 249 for what M comprises.<sup>(back)

9</sup> Acts 16:10-16; 20:6-8, 13-15; 21:1-17; 27:1-8, 15-18, 27-29; 28:1,10-16.^(back)