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Jesus EXPLAINS Who He REALLY Was Before the Creation of the World · truthunedited

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  Speaker 1: Who was Jesus before the creation of the world, before Bethlehem,
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  Speaker 1: before Mary, before the first star burned in the black?
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  Speaker 1: Who was he? He answered that question himself, not through
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  Speaker 1: a council of bishops centuries later. In his own words,
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  Speaker 1: in rooms where the reaction was recorded, and the reactions
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  Speaker 1: were violent. The people who heard him picked up stones
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  Speaker 1: and They tore their robes at midnight. They fell to
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  Speaker 1: the ground when he spoke his name. He was not misunderstood.
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  Speaker 1: He was understood perfectly. And they treated his words as
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  Speaker 1: a capital offense. In this video, we are going to
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  Speaker 1: trace every claim Jesus made about who he was before Bethlehem.
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  Speaker 1: From the earliest hymns the church was singing within 30
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  Speaker 1: years of the crucifixion, through the synoptic gospels, into the
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  Speaker 1: temple where they tried to stone him, and all the
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  Speaker 1: way to a prayer he prayed on the last night
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  Speaker 1: of his life. The most extraordinary thing he ever said
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  Speaker 1: about himself. He said to his father, Before the world existed.
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  Speaker 1: That is the question. Let us find out. Jerusalem. Thursday night.
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  Speaker 1: The night before the crucifixion. Thirteen men in a borrowed room.
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  Speaker 1: The meal is on the table. The lamps are lit,
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  Speaker 1: and Jesus knows he is about to die. In these
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  Speaker 1: last hours before the arrest, he does not retreat into silence.
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  Speaker 1: He does not withdraw. He speaks more directly about who
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  Speaker 1: he is than at any other point in his three
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  Speaker 1: years of public ministry. As if time is running out,
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  Speaker 1: and the restraint he has maintained for three years is
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  Speaker 1: finally coming off. Before we hear the big claims, notice
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  Speaker 1: the small ones. In this one evening, Jesus says he
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  Speaker 1: was sent by the Father. Not born into a mission,
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  Speaker 1: not called to a purpose, sent. He uses this language
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  Speaker 1: over 40 times across the Gospel of John, and it
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  Speaker 1: hides in plain sight. Most readers walk right past it.
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  Speaker 1: But look at what the word actually claims. You can
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  Speaker 1: only be sent from a place you were already in.
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  Speaker 1: Every time Jesus says the Father who sent me, He
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  Speaker 1: is making a quiet, persistent, unspoken pre-existence claim. It is
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  Speaker 1: embedded in the verb, let that land. He does not say,
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  Speaker 1: God called me. He says, God sent me. Called implies
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  Speaker 1: you were already here. Sent implies you were somewhere else.
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  Speaker 1: Every time. And then the claims get louder. John chapter 14,
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  Speaker 1: verse 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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  Speaker 1: No one comes to the Father except through me, not
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  Speaker 1: a way among many. The way, not a truth among
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  Speaker 1: competing truths. The truth, not a life offered to those
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  Speaker 1: who qualify. The life, every article definite, every noun exclusive.
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  Speaker 1: John chapter 16, verse 28. I came from the Father
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  Speaker 1: and have come into the world, and now I am
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  Speaker 1: leaving the world and going to the Father. His earthly
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  Speaker 1: life bookended by a prior existence and a return. He
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  Speaker 1: describes his life on earth as a temporary departure from
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  Speaker 1: where he belongs. He came from somewhere. He is going
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  Speaker 1: back to somewhere. And where he came from is where
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  Speaker 1: he is going. Then Philip speaks up. Philip has been
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  Speaker 1: with Jesus for three years. He has heard the teaching.
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  Speaker 1: He has seen the miracles. He has watched water become
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  Speaker 1: wine and blind eyes open. And Philip, in this last night,
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  Speaker 1: asks the question every disciple has probably wanted to ask
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  Speaker 1: from the beginning. Lord, show us the Father. Just once,
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  Speaker 1: let us see Him, and that will be enough for us.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus answers, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
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  Speaker 1: Philip asked to see God. Jesus said, You are looking
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  Speaker 1: at him. And then, quietly, in the intimacy of the meal,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus says something that in any other setting would have
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  Speaker 1: caused a riot. John chapter 13, verse 19. I am
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  Speaker 1: telling you this now, before it takes place, that when
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  Speaker 1: it does take place, you may believe that I am
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  Speaker 1: the absolute ego Amy, the divine name, spoken not to
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  Speaker 1: enemies in a public confrontation, spoken to his closest followers
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  Speaker 1: at the table as a credential. Even here, in the
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  Speaker 1: room with the men he trusts, the claim is on
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  Speaker 1: the table. Before the evening was over, he prayed. And
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  Speaker 1: what he said in that prayer, addressed to his father,
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  Speaker 1: in the hearing of his disciples, is the most explicit
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  Speaker 1: claim to pre-existence in the entire Bible. We will get
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  Speaker 1: to it. But the evidence comes first. Because critics will
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  Speaker 1: tell you these claims only appear in John. That John
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  Speaker 1: was written last, written late, and reflects theology the real
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  Speaker 1: Jesus never taught. That objection is serious. And it deserves
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  Speaker 1: a serious answer. I came from the Father and have
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  Speaker 1: come into the world before the world existed. The most
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  Speaker 1: explicit pre-existence claims do appear in John, the latest gospel,
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  Speaker 1: written around 90 A.D. roughly 60 years after the crucifixion.
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  Speaker 1: Some scholars argue these statements reflect later theological development, not
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  Speaker 1: historical memory, that the historical Jesus never made such claims,
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  Speaker 1: that John put words in his mouth to serve a
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  Speaker 1: developing Christology. This is a real objection. It has been
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  Speaker 1: made by serious scholars. Let us see if it holds.
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  Speaker 1: The earlier Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Synoptics, contain
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  Speaker 1: the same claim, not implicit, explicit. Matthew chapter 22, Mark
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  Speaker 1: chapter 12. Jesus poses a question to the Pharisees. If
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  Speaker 1: the Messiah is the son of David, how does David himself,
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  Speaker 1: writing under the inspiration of the Spirit in Psalm 110,
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  Speaker 1: call the Messiah his Lord? The question only works if
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  Speaker 1: the answer contains a paradox. The Messiah is David's descendant,
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  Speaker 1: He will come from David's line, but he is also
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  Speaker 1: David's Lord. He already existed in David's own time, a
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  Speaker 1: thousand years earlier, ranking above him. Jesus does not answer
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  Speaker 1: the question. He lets it hang in the air. The
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  Speaker 1: Pharisees cannot answer it either, because the answer is standing
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  Speaker 1: in front of them, David's preexistent Lord, his descendant, both.
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  Speaker 1: Mark chapter 14, verse 62. The trial before the Sanhedrin.
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  Speaker 1: Late at night, the high priest, exhausted from failed witnesses
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  Speaker 1: and contradictory testimony, asks the question directly, Are you the Christ,
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  Speaker 1: the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus, who has been
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  Speaker 1: mostly silent through the proceedings, answers with absolute clarity, I am,
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  Speaker 1: and you will see the Son of Man seated at
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  Speaker 1: the right hand of power and coming with the clouds
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  Speaker 1: of heaven. This is a direct claim to be the
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  Speaker 1: heavenly figure of Daniel chapter 7, one who descends from heaven,
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  Speaker 1: who receives dominion and glory from the Ancient of Days himself.
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  Speaker 1: And the high priest understood it. He tore his robe,
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  Speaker 1: the prescribed judicial act for blasphemy. He did not need clarification.
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  Speaker 1: He did not ask a follow-up. He tore his robe
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  Speaker 1: and called for the death sentence. he heard exactly what
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  Speaker 1: Jesus said. That is the synoptic evidence, and it is
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  Speaker 1: not the earliest evidence. Paul's letter to the Philippians was
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  Speaker 1: written around 60 to 62 A.D., roughly 30 years after
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  Speaker 1: the crucifixion, three decades before John wrote a word of
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  Speaker 1: his gospel, and embedded in Philippians chapter 2, recognizable to
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  Speaker 1: scholars by its structure, its rhythm, its elevated Greek, is
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  Speaker 1: what is widely identified as a pre-Pauline hymn, a song
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  Speaker 1: the early church was already singing before Paul wrote it down.
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  Speaker 1: Paul quotes it because his readers already know it. The
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  Speaker 1: words are these, Though he existed in the form of God,
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  Speaker 1: he did not regard equality with God as something to
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  Speaker 1: be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
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  Speaker 1: being made in the likeness of men. This is not
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  Speaker 1: John imposing developed theology decades after the fact. This is
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  Speaker 1: a hymn Christians were singing within 20 to 30 years
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  Speaker 1: of the crucifixion, describing Jesus as one who existed in
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  Speaker 1: the form of God before he took on human nature.
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  Speaker 1: The pre-existence claim is not a late invention. It is
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  Speaker 1: as old as Christianity itself, older than most of the
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  Speaker 1: New Testaments. sung in worship before the Gospels were even written,
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  Speaker 1: and notice the word, emptied. In Greek, the noun form
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  Speaker 1: is kenosis. He was in the form of God. He
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  Speaker 1: did not cling to it. He set it aside. He
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  Speaker 1: emptied himself. He chose the form of a servant. This
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  Speaker 1: is not something that happened to him. It is something
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  Speaker 1: he did on purpose. Remember that word, kenosis. It comes
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  Speaker 1: back at the end. Paul says the same thing to
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  Speaker 1: the Colossians. He is before all things, and in him
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  Speaker 1: all things hold together. same author, same claim, same decade.
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  Speaker 1: Christ is not a creature within creation. He is the
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  Speaker 1: one in whom creation holds together. But there is one
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  Speaker 1: more piece, and it is different from everything else we
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  Speaker 1: have heard so far, because every verse we have looked
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  Speaker 1: at is either Jesus speaking or an apostle writing. Jesus
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  Speaker 1: makes the claim, Paul quotes the hymn, But Hebrews chapter
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  Speaker 1: 1 does something no other passage does. Hebrews chapter 1
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  Speaker 1: quotes the Father speaking about the Son. But about the
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  Speaker 1: Son he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
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  Speaker 1: The Father, God himself, calls the Son God. And then,
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  Speaker 1: quoting Psalm 102, a psalm originally addressed to Yahweh, the
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  Speaker 1: creator of heaven and earth, the Father says to the Son, You, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and
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  Speaker 1: the heavens are the work of your hands. The Father
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  Speaker 1: attributes creation to the Son, using a psalm originally addressed
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  Speaker 1: to Yahweh. This is not Jesus claiming it for himself.
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  Speaker 1: This is not Paul writing it in light of the
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  Speaker 1: Father himself. But there is one statement Jesus made, seven words,
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  Speaker 1: that produced the most violent reaction of his entire ministry.
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  Speaker 1: And it happened in the middle of the temple. They
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  Speaker 1: were singing it within a generation. Paul wrote it. Mark
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  Speaker 1: recorded it. The Father said it. Before the world existed.
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  Speaker 1: That night in the upper room, he said the words,
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  Speaker 1: I am to his disciples quietly, at the table, as
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  Speaker 1: a credential. But that was not the first time he
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  Speaker 1: had spoken those words. Months before that night, in the
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  Speaker 1: temple courts, He had said them in front of his enemies,
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  Speaker 1: and the reaction was immediate. John chapter 8. The temple courts.
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  Speaker 1: A public argument with the Pharisees that has been escalating
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  Speaker 1: for chapters. Jesus has called himself the light of the world.
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  Speaker 1: He has told them they will die in their sins
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  Speaker 1: unless they believe that I am. He has claimed that
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  Speaker 1: Abraham rejoiced to see his day. And now the Pharisees
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  Speaker 1: make their challenge. You are not yet fifty years old,
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  Speaker 1: and you have seen Abraham? Jesus answers with seven words,
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  Speaker 1: and he chose every one of them with surgical precision.
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  Speaker 1: Before Abraham was, I am. Seven words, and they contain
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  Speaker 1: the most direct claim to divine identity that Jesus ever
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  Speaker 1: made in public. Because he does not say before Abraham was,
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  Speaker 1: I was. That would only claim age. that he existed
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  Speaker 1: before Abraham, that he was older than Abraham, that he
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  Speaker 1: had lived longer than Abraham. Instead, he uses two completely
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  Speaker 1: different Greek verbs in deliberate contrast. Before Abraham Genestai came
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  Speaker 1: into being, was born, had a beginning, I, I me,
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  Speaker 1: I am, present tense, continuous existence, no beginning, no end.
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  Speaker 1: Abraham was generated. Jesus simply is. The construction does not
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  Speaker 1: break grammar. It breaks expectation. The present tense, where past
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  Speaker 1: tense should appear, forces the listener to confront the claim
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  Speaker 1: head on. Jesus is not saying he is old. He
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  Speaker 1: is saying he is eternal. He exists outside of time itself.
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  Speaker 1: Abraham had a birthday. Jesus does not. And the phrase,
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  Speaker 1: I am, did not come from nowhere. Every Jew in
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  Speaker 1: that temple courtyard knew where it came from. The traditional
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  Speaker 1: link is to Exodus chapter 3, verse 14. The burning bush,
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  Speaker 1: Moses standing on holy ground, God revealing his name, I
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  Speaker 1: am who I am. That connection is real and resonant.
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  Speaker 1: It is the name. But the closer linguistic match is
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  Speaker 1: in Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 43 verse 10, God declares,
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  Speaker 1: You are my witnesses, that you may know and believe me,
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  Speaker 1: and understand that I am he. Before me no God
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  Speaker 1: was formed, nor will there be one after me. In Hebrew,
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  Speaker 1: ani hu. In the Greek Septuagint that Jesus' audience read,
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  Speaker 1: ego ami, the exact phrase Jesus uses, Isaiah 41 verse 4,
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  Speaker 1: Isaiah 48 verse 12. The same formula. Yahweh's declaration of soul, exclusive,
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  Speaker 1: eternal deity. Jesus is not merely quoting a name. He
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  Speaker 1: is claiming the identity behind it. The God who declares
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  Speaker 1: himself the only one, from everlasting to everlasting. And the
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  Speaker 1: crowd knew it. So they picked up stones to throw
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  Speaker 1: at him. Leviticus chapter 24 verse 16. The penalty for
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  Speaker 1: blasphemy is is death by stoning. They did not misunderstand him.
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  Speaker 1: They understood perfectly, and they responded with the punishment the
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  Speaker 1: Torah prescribed for a man who claims to be God.
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  Speaker 1: And this was not the only time. Two chapters later,
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  Speaker 1: John chapter 10, Jesus says, I and the Father are one.
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  Speaker 1: And the Pharisees pick up stones again. Jesus asks them,
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  Speaker 1: For which good work are you going to stone me,
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  Speaker 1: and they answer with the clearest interpretation of his claim
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  Speaker 1: in the entire New Testament. For blasphemy, because you, being
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  Speaker 1: a man, make yourself God. They said it, in their
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  Speaker 1: own words. Not you claim to be a great teacher.
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  Speaker 1: Not you are delusional. They said, you are making yourself God.
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  Speaker 1: The opponent does the interpretive work for the viewer. They
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  Speaker 1: understood exactly what he was claiming. and they told us.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever any modern reader might think Jesus was really claiming,
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  Speaker 1: the men in the temple who heard him with their
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  Speaker 1: own ears, who spoke his language natively, who lived in
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  Speaker 1: his culture, they heard a man claiming to be God,
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  Speaker 1: and they wanted to kill him for it. And then,
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  Speaker 1: later that same week, the garden, Gethsemane, late at night.
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  Speaker 1: Judas leads a detachment of soldiers and temple guards through
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  Speaker 1: the olive trees and Torches, swords, clubs, they come to
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  Speaker 1: arrest him. Who are you looking for? Jesus of Nazareth.
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  Speaker 1: And he answers with two words, I am. And the
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  Speaker 1: text says they drew back and fell to the ground.
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  Speaker 1: Armed men, temple guards trained in crowd control, Roman soldiers
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  Speaker 1: who had faced armed rebellions, they asked his name. He
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  Speaker 1: gave them the divine declaration and they fell. The text
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  Speaker 1: does not say what caused them to fall. It records
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  Speaker 1: the words and the reaction together. But the connection is unavoidable.
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  Speaker 1: One more piece, John the Baptist. Born six months before Jesus,
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  Speaker 1: according to Luke. Older. And John says of Jesus, He
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  Speaker 1: who comes after me ranks before me, because he was
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  Speaker 1: before me. For John to say he was before me
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  Speaker 1: is a paradox. unless he existed before John was born,
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  Speaker 1: unless he existed before John's mother conceived him, unless he
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  Speaker 1: existed before the world existed. The forerunner recognized that the
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  Speaker 1: one coming after him had been there first. He claimed
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  Speaker 1: to exist before Abraham. He claimed the name God gave himself.
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  Speaker 1: But how far back does the trail actually go? Because
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  Speaker 1: the Bible gives us glimpses, shadows of his presence, long
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  Speaker 1: before the temple, long before Abraham, long before anything at all.
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  Speaker 1: Stones in the temple, a torn robe at midnight, soldiers
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  Speaker 1: on the ground. You make yourself God, before the world existed.
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  Speaker 1: In the upper room, he told them he came from
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  Speaker 1: the Father, but the trail of his presence goes back
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  Speaker 1: further than any of them knew, further than Abraham, further
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  Speaker 1: than Moses. further than the beginning of the world. Throughout
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament, a figure appears who is called the
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  Speaker 1: angel of the Lord. But he does not behave like
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  Speaker 1: an angel. He speaks as God. He acts as God.
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  Speaker 1: He accepts worship, something ordinary angels explicitly refuse. In the
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  Speaker 1: book of Revelation, when John falls at the feet of
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  Speaker 1: an angel to worship, the angel says, You must not
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  Speaker 1: do that. Worship God. Ordinary angels redirect worship to its
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  Speaker 1: rightful object. This one does not. Genesis chapter 16. Hagar,
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  Speaker 1: a pregnant slave woman, alone in the wilderness, running from
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  Speaker 1: a household that had used her and cast her aside,
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  Speaker 1: running from everything she had ever known. And the angel
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord finds her by a spring of water
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  Speaker 1: in the desert. He speaks to her. He blesses the
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  Speaker 1: child in her womb. He tells her the future of
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  Speaker 1: the boy she is carrying. And Hagar, a runaway servant,
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  Speaker 1: a foreigner, a woman on the margin of every category
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  Speaker 1: that mattered in her ancient world, responds with one of
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  Speaker 1: the most remarkable names anyone in the book of Genesis
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  Speaker 1: gives to God. You are the God who sees me.
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  Speaker 1: She names him. She looks at him. She then says,
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  Speaker 1: I have now seen the one who sees me. An
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  Speaker 1: angel of ordinary rank would have redirected that worship immediately.
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  Speaker 1: This one received it and blessed her and let her go.
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  Speaker 1: Exodus chapter 3. The burning bush. The narrator of Exodus
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  Speaker 1: is precise. The angel of the Lord appears to Moses
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  Speaker 1: in the flame, and then, from the flame, God speaks.
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  Speaker 1: And the voice from the bush identifies itself with the
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  Speaker 1: phrase we have already heard, I am. The same words,
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  Speaker 1: centuries before the temple confrontation. delivered from a bush that
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  Speaker 1: burned without being consumed. Judges chapter 13. Manoah, the father
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  Speaker 1: of Samson, sees the angel of the Lord and says
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  Speaker 1: to his wife in terror, We shall surely die because
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  Speaker 1: we have seen God, not an angel, God. The dominant
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  Speaker 1: Christian reading, held for 2,000 years, has identified this figure
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  Speaker 1: as the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son of God. appearing in
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament before he took on human flesh in Bethlehem.
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  Speaker 1: This is the historic and majority Christian interpretation held across Catholic, Orthodox,
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  Speaker 1: and Protestant traditions. Not all scholars agree with this reading.
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  Speaker 1: Presented as the ancient tradition it is, not as the
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  Speaker 1: only possible interpretation, but as the one the Church has
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  Speaker 1: consistently held from the earliest centuries. Then there is Daniel.
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  Speaker 1: chapter 7, verse 13, of vision. I saw in the
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  Speaker 1: night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there
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  Speaker 1: came one like a son of man, and he came
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  Speaker 1: to the ancient of days, and he was presented before him.
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  Speaker 1: And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
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  Speaker 1: that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His
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  Speaker 1: dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.
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  Speaker 1: This is the title Jesus chose for himself more than
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  Speaker 1: any other, Son of Man. He used it over 80
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  Speaker 1: times in the four Gospels. Most modern readers assume it
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  Speaker 1: emphasizes his humanity. It does not. Daniel's Son of Man
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  Speaker 1: is not born on earth. He does not come up
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  Speaker 1: from the dust. He comes with the clouds. He descends
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  Speaker 1: from heaven. He receives eternal dominion directly from God himself.
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  Speaker 1: and he is worshipped by all nations and all languages.
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  Speaker 1: When Jesus claimed this title at his trial, you will
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  Speaker 1: see the Son of Man seated at the right hand
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  Speaker 1: of power. He was identifying himself as this heavenly figure, preexistent, authoritative,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: sharing God's throne, coming from above. But every piece of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: evidence so far comes from before the crucifixion, historical claims
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: made by the earthly Jesus before he died, claims that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: critics can dismiss as later additions or fabrications or misunderstandings.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: There is one claim, however, that closes the loop entirely,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: because it is made after the resurrection, in the final
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: book of the Bible, by the risen Christ himself. The
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Apostle John, exiled to the island of Patmos in his
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: old age, is worshiping on the Lord's Day when he
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: hears a voice behind him like a trumpet. He turns
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and sees the risen Christ. And John, who had leaned
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: against Jesus' chest at the Last Supper, who had stood
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: at the foot of the cross, who had run to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the empty tomb, falls at his feet as though dead.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And Christ speaks, fear not. I am the first and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the last, and the living one. I died, and behold,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I am alive forevermore. And later, in Revelation chapter 22
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: verse 13, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: first and the last, the beginning and the end. These
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: are not new titles Jesus invented. In Isaiah chapter 44
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: verse 6, Yahweh declares, I am the first, and I
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: am the last. Besides me, There is no God. In
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Isaiah 48, verse 12, I am He, I am the first,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and I am the last. These are Yahweh's exclusive titles,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: not shared with any other being, claims to soul, unique,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: eternal deity. And the risen Christ takes them for Himself.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: In the last book of the Bible, decades after His crucifixion,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: The claim that began in the temple courts before Abraham
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: was I Am is still being made after the resurrection,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: after the ascension, in the final vision given to the church.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: From the first I Am to the last Alpha and Omega,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the claim never changes. He never walked it back. He
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: never softened it. He never explained it away. The evidence
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: has built for 25 minutes the earliest hymns, the Synoptics,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the I Am, the Angel, Daniel, the risen Christ in Revelation.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: But there is one passage we have been holding back,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: because it is the climax, it is a prayer, it
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: is addressed to his Father, and it is the most
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: extraordinary thing he ever said about who he was, before Moses,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: before Abraham, before Daniel, before the first star burned in
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the black, before the world existed. We began in this room,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Act 2, the upper room, Thursday night, and now we
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: come back. The meal is over. Judas has taken the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: bread and gone out into the night. The foot washing
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: is done. The teaching is done. The I am the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: way is spoken. The spirit is promised. The disciples are quiet.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: The lamps are low. And now, the last thing before
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: they walk out to the Kidron Valley, across the brook,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: up the slope to Gethsemane, where the arrest is waiting.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Jesus lifts his eyes and prays. This prayer is different
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: from every other prayer he prays in the Gospels. In Gethsemane,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: in an hour, he will plead with his Father, Take
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: this cup from me. On the cross, tomorrow afternoon, he
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: will cry out, My God, my God. Why have you
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: forsaken me? Those are the prayers of a man in agony.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: But this one, spoken here, in the quiet, in the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: borrowed room, surrounded by the eleven men he has chosen,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: is different. He does not speak to his father as
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: a suppliant. He does not beg. He does not plead.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: He speaks as an equal, not begging, reporting, returning. John
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: chapter 17 verse 5 And now, Father, glorify me in
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: your own presence with the glory that I had with
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: you before the world existed. Before the world existed. Not
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the glory you planned for me. Not the glory you
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: promised me. Not the glory you will one day give me.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: The glory I had. Past tense. Personal possession. Shared presence.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Before the cosmos was spoken into being, before the first
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: atom of matter existed, before the first photon of light
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: traveled a single inch, before time itself began, He was there,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: with the Father, in glory. There is a sentence in
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Isaiah that has to be reckoned with. God says through
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the prophet, I will not give my glory to another.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: The original context is idols. God will not share His
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: glory with false gods carved from wood. That is what
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Isaiah is addressing. But the principle has weight. Divine glory
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: belongs to God alone. And here is Jesus, claiming not
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: merely to deserve glory, not merely to be worthy of glory,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: but to have already possessed it, before creation, in the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Father's presence. If God gives His glory to no one,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and Jesus says He had it, then either this is
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the most blasphemous sentence ever spoken by a human being,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: or Jesus is not another. He is the one. The
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: prayer continues. John chapter 17 verse 24. Father, I desire
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that they also, whom you have given me, may be
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: with me where I am, to see my glory that
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: you have given me, because you loved me before the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: foundation of the world, loved me before the foundation of
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the world. This is not a title, not a theological argument,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: not a creedal form. composed by a council. This is
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a relationship, the Father and the Son, in love, before
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: anything else existed, before matter, before time, before light, before angels,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: before dimension, The Trinity is not a doctrine the Church
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: invented at Nicaea in the 4th century. It is a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: relationship described in a prayer, spoken aloud by one person
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: of the Godhead to another, in a room in Jerusalem,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: on the night before he died. And one more thing
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: about this prayer. Something most readers miss entirely. Jesus could
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: have prayed silently. He could have withdrawn to a corner.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: He could have prayed alone later. in Gethsemane, and no
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: one would have heard a word. But he prayed this
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: prayer in the hearing of his disciples. John chapter 17
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: is recorded because Jesus said it, where his followers could
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: hear it. He wanted them to know. He wanted them
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: to remember. He wanted it on the record. The most
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: explicit claim to pre-existence in the entire Bible was not
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: whispered in private to his father alone. It was spoken aloud,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: in front of witnesses, on purpose. He intended for this
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to be heard. He intended for this to be remembered.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: He intended for John to write it down. He intended
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: for you to hear it right now. And here is
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: what makes the prayer devastating. He is about to be arrested, beaten, mocked, stripped,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: spat on, flogged until the skin comes off his back,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: nailed to a Roman cross. left to die of exposure
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and suffocation over the course of six hours in front
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of a jeering crowd. And in these last three hours
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: before it all begins, He does not beg for His life.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: He does not ask for rescue. He does not ask
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the Father to change the plan. He prays for His disciples.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: He prays for everyone who will ever believe through their word.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: That includes you, if you believe. And He asks His
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Father for one thing for Himself, to return to the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: glory they shared before the world began. He is homesick.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: The Creator of the universe, standing in a borrowed room
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in occupied Jerusalem, hours from arrest, is asking to go home.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And home is not a place on a map. Home
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is a presence. The presence He had with the Father
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: before the first star burned in the emptiness. before there
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: was a here or a there, before there was a where.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: He asked to go home. He did not go home.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: He went to the cross. And that, the choice to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: go to the cross instead of going home, is what
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: changes what pre-existence means for you. He said it himself,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: in his own words, in his own prayer, to his
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: own Father, before the world existed. If Jesus existed in
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: glory before creation if he was there when the foundations
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of the earth were laid, if he shared the Father's
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: presence before the first atom, if he was loved by
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: the Father before anything else existed, then the crucifixion is
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: not something that happened to him. It is something he
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: chose from outside of time on purpose. The Philippians hymn,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the one we heard in Act 3, the one Christians
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: were singing within a generation of the crucifixion, describes it
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: in a single word, kenosis. He emptied himself. He was
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in the form of God. He did not cling to it.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: He did not grasp it. He set it aside. He
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: took on the form of a servant. He was made
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: as a man, he humbled himself. He became obedient, to death,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: even death on a cross. The Creator walked into his
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: own creation and and his creation killed him, and he
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: knew they would, and he came anyway. If he existed
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: before creation, then he did not discover you when you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: were born. He already knew you. Every person he healed
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: on earth, he had known before their illness. Every person
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: he forgave, he had known before their sin. Every disciple
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: he called, he had known before their birth. When he
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: looked at Peter on the shore of Galilee, and said,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Follow me. He was not meeting a stranger. He had
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: known Peter before Peter had a name, before Peter's parents
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: had met, before the Sea of Galilee held its first
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: drop of water. When he told the Samaritan woman at
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the well everything she had ever done, he was not
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: reading her face. He had known her before she was born,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: before her first husband, before the first mistake she ever regretted.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: When he wept at the tomb of Lazarus, he was
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: not encountering death for the first time and reacting to it.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: He had existed before death existed. He grieved from the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: far side of it. And when he chose the cross
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: over going home, he was not making a spontaneous decision
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: in a garden under the pressure of an unfolding crisis.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: He was not caught off guard. He was not overtaken
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: by events. He was completing something HE HAD INTENDED BEFORE
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: THE WORLD BEGAN, BEFORE THERE WAS SUCH A THING AS
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: A WORLD TO INTEND ANYTHING IN. THE ONE WHO PRAYED,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: GLORIFY ME WITH THE GLORY I HAD WITH YOU, BEFORE
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: THE WORLD EXISTED. THE ONE WHO COULD HAVE GONE HOME
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: THAT NIGHT, BACK TO THE PRESENCE HE HAD LEFT BEHIND,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: BACK TO THE LOVE THAT PREDATED MATTER ITSELF, BACK TO
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: THE GLORY THAT WAS HIS BY RIGHT, STAYED. HE STAYED
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: FOR THE ARREST, He stayed for the trial. He stayed
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: for the flogging. He stayed for the cross. There is
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: one more thing. In a borrowed room in occupied Jerusalem,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: on the last free night of His life, the Creator
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: of the universe lifted His eyes to His Father and
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: asked to come home. He did not go home. He
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: went to the cross before you existed. If this video
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: blessed you, like and subscribe. On this channel, we explore
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the deep Bible mysteries. You can also become a member
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: of this channel and go deeper with us. And before
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you go, tell us what you learned in this video.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And you can check out this channel for more videos
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: that will bless you.