Latest / truthunedited / Jesus Explains Who He Was BEFORE The Creation of The World
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Before there was a universe, before there was light, before
- 0:04Speaker 1: there was time, Jesus Christ says he was already there.
- 0:09Speaker 1: But it's not just that he claims to have existed
- 0:12Speaker 1: before creation. It's what he said about himself that made
- 0:16Speaker 1: his own people pick up stones to execute him on
- 0:20Speaker 1: the spot. A single sentence, two words in Greek. And
- 0:26Speaker 1: the moment he spoke them, trained theologians who had spent
- 0:29Speaker 1: their entire lives studying the Torah knew exactly what he
- 0:34Speaker 1: was claiming. And here's what makes it even more shocking.
- 0:39Speaker 1: That wasn't the only time. Scattered across the Old Testament,
- 0:43Speaker 1: centuries before Jesus was born, there are clues. A mysterious
- 0:48Speaker 1: figure who appears at the most critical moments in Israel's history.
- 0:53Speaker 1: He looks like an angel. He speaks as God. He
- 0:57Speaker 1: accepts worship that every other angel in Scripture refuses. And then,
- 1:02Speaker 1: after thousands of years of appearances, he suddenly vanishes. Never
- 1:07Speaker 1: appears again. Not once. Why? What happened? And what does
- 1:13Speaker 1: this figure have to do with what Jesus said in
- 1:15Speaker 1: that courtyard that nearly got him killed? Today, we're assembling
- 1:19Speaker 1: the evidence, chapter by chapter, from Genesis to Revelation. And
- 1:25Speaker 1: by the end, you will see a pattern so overwhelming
- 1:29Speaker 1: that every page of your Bible will look different. Subscribe
- 1:33Speaker 1: to Bible Origins, because what you're about to discover has
- 1:36Speaker 1: been hidden in plain sight for 3,000 years. Open your
- 1:41Speaker 1: Bible to the very first page. Genesis chapter 1. God
- 1:46Speaker 1: is creating the universe, and for 25 verses, every action
- 1:50Speaker 1: is singular. God said, God saw, God made, one God,
- 1:55Speaker 1: one voice, one creator. Then, suddenly, in verse 26, the
- 2:00Speaker 1: language changes. Then God said, let us make mankind in
- 2:04Speaker 1: our image, in our likeness. Who is God talking to?
- 2:08Speaker 1: He has been alone for 25 verses. There are no
- 2:12Speaker 1: angels yet. There is no creation yet. There is nothing
- 2:15Speaker 1: but God. And suddenly, God is speaking to someone who
- 2:19Speaker 1: shares his image. The Hebrew word for God in Genesis
- 2:23Speaker 1: is Elohim. It is a plural noun. But throughout Genesis
- 2:28Speaker 1: chapter 1, it is consistently used with singular verbs, preserving
- 2:33Speaker 1: strict monotheism. God said, not gods said, one God, one creator.
- 2:40Speaker 1: But in verse 26, the pronouns shift to plural. Let
- 2:44Speaker 1: us make man in our image. This is not a
- 2:48Speaker 1: grammatical accident. This is not poetic license. This is the
- 2:52Speaker 1: first fingerprint of a mystery that will take the entire
- 2:55Speaker 1: Bible to solve. In the second century, a church father
- 2:59Speaker 1: named Irenaeus wrote a theological treatise called Against Heresies. In it,
- 3:05Speaker 1: he addressed this exact verse. He explicitly argued that God
- 3:09Speaker 1: was not speaking to angels. Angels cannot create. Angels do
- 3:14Speaker 1: not possess the power to speak matter into existence out
- 3:17Speaker 1: of nothing. And Genesis chapter 1 verse 27 makes it
- 3:22Speaker 1: even clearer. So God created mankind in His own image,
- 3:26Speaker 1: not in the image of angels. In His image, man
- 3:30Speaker 1: was not made in the image of created beings. He
- 3:33Speaker 1: was made in the image of the Creator. God was
- 3:37Speaker 1: not talking to His servants. He was talking to His equals.
- 3:41Speaker 1: Justin Martyr, writing in the year 150, and Tertullian, writing
- 3:46Speaker 1: decades later, made the same argument independently. Three different church fathers,
- 3:53Speaker 1: in three different decades, in three different cities, all reached
- 3:57Speaker 1: the same conclusion. The U.S. in Genesis 1.26 is the
- 4:02Speaker 1: earliest recorded evidence of a plurality within the Godhead, and
- 4:07Speaker 1: skeptics will immediately object. They will say God was speaking
- 4:12Speaker 1: to His divine counsel, His angelic court. But that interpretation
- 4:17Speaker 1: collapses under the weight of the text itself. Angels do
- 4:22Speaker 1: not have the power to create. And more importantly, Genesis 1.27
- 4:27Speaker 1: says God created mankind in his own image. If God
- 4:31Speaker 1: had been consulting with angels, the verse would say in
- 4:35Speaker 1: our image, meaning God and the angels together. But it
- 4:39Speaker 1: does not. It says in his image. Singular. The plurality
- 4:44Speaker 1: in verse 26 is internal to God himself, not external
- 4:48Speaker 1: to a council of created beings. The church fathers understood this.
- 4:53Speaker 1: The text demands it. The very first chapter of the
- 4:57Speaker 1: Bible contains a clue so subtle that most readers walk
- 5:00Speaker 1: right past it. But once you see it, you cannot
- 5:04Speaker 1: unsee it. Before anything existed, God was not alone. Someone
- 5:09Speaker 1: was with him, someone who shared his image. Genesis 3.22
- 5:14Speaker 1: The man has now become like one of us. Genesis 11.7
- 5:21Speaker 1: Let us go down and confuse their language. Isaiah 6.8
- 5:25Speaker 1: Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?
- 5:29Speaker 1: Four passages, spanning thousands of years, all preserving the same
- 5:34Speaker 1: mysterious plural. This is not one isolated verse. This is
- 5:39Speaker 1: a pattern, and it starts on page one. but Genesis
- 5:43Speaker 1: only gives us a shadow. The real evidence explodes in
- 5:47Speaker 1: the strangest place imaginable, in the Old Testament appearances of
- 5:52Speaker 1: a mysterious figure called the Angel of the Lord, a
- 5:56Speaker 1: figure who walks like an angel, talks like God, accepts
- 6:01Speaker 1: worship like God, and then one day vanishes from Scripture entirely.
- 6:07Speaker 1: Throughout the Old Testament, There is a figure who appears
- 6:10Speaker 1: at the most critical moments in Israel's history. He is
- 6:14Speaker 1: called the angel of the Lord. But he is no
- 6:18Speaker 1: ordinary angel. In Genesis 16, the angel of the Lord
- 6:22Speaker 1: finds Hagar in the wilderness. She is a runaway slave,
- 6:27Speaker 1: pregnant and desperate. The angel speaks with divine authority and
- 6:32Speaker 1: promises to multiply her descendants. A promise only God can make.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Then Hagar says something extraordinary. She calls him the God
- 6:43Speaker 1: who sees me. She does not call him a messenger.
- 6:47Speaker 1: She does not call him an angel sent by God.
- 6:50Speaker 1: She identifies the angel as God himself. In Genesis 22,
- 6:55Speaker 1: the angel of the Lord stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac.
- 7:00Speaker 1: Abraham has the knife raised. His son is bound on
- 7:03Speaker 1: the altar, and the angel calls out from heaven. Now
- 7:07Speaker 1: I know that you fear God, because you have not
- 7:10Speaker 1: withheld your son from me. The angel does not say
- 7:14Speaker 1: you have not withheld your son from God. He says
- 7:18Speaker 1: from me. The angel claims the sacrifice was offered to himself.
- 7:23Speaker 1: In Exodus 3, the angel of the Lord appears to
- 7:26Speaker 1: Moses in the burning bush. But the voice from the
- 7:30Speaker 1: bush says, I am the God of your father, the
- 7:33Speaker 1: God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
- 7:37Speaker 1: of Jacob. Then he reveals the most sacred name in
- 7:41Speaker 1: all of Scripture, I am who I am. The angel
- 7:45Speaker 1: looks like a messenger, but he speaks as the Almighty.
- 7:50Speaker 1: He receives worship that every other angel in Scripture refuses,
- 7:54Speaker 1: and he carries the divine name. In Judges 6, the
- 7:58Speaker 1: angel of the Lord appears to Gideon. The text seamlessly
- 8:02Speaker 1: switches between calling him the angel and the Lord. When
- 8:06Speaker 1: Gideon realizes who he has been speaking to, he cries out, Alas,
- 8:12Speaker 1: sovereign Lord, I have seen the angel of the Lord
- 8:15Speaker 1: face to face. He is terrified because in Jewish theology,
- 8:20Speaker 1: no one can see God and live. Gideon believes he
- 8:25Speaker 1: has just looked into the face of the Almighty. In
- 8:28Speaker 1: Judges 13, the angel of the Lord appears to announce
- 8:31Speaker 1: the birth of Samson. When Manoah asks the angel his name,
- 8:36Speaker 1: The angel responds, Why do you ask my name? It
- 8:41Speaker 1: is beyond understanding. The Hebrew word is peli. It is
- 8:45Speaker 1: the same root word used in Isaiah 9.6. His name
- 8:49Speaker 1: shall be called Wonderful. Then comes the most cinematic moment
- 8:53Speaker 1: in the entire Old Testament. Manoah offers a sacrifice on
- 8:57Speaker 1: a rock altar. As the flame blazes upward, the angel
- 9:01Speaker 1: of the Lord steps into the flame and ascends to
- 9:04Speaker 1: heaven inside the fire. He does not walk away. He
- 9:08Speaker 1: does not fly. He rises inside the burning sacrifice itself.
- 9:13Speaker 1: Manoah falls on his face and tells his wife, We
- 9:17Speaker 1: are doomed to die. We have seen God. Every person
- 9:22Speaker 1: who encounters the angel of the Lord has the same
- 9:24Speaker 1: terrified reaction. They believe they have just seen God face
- 9:29Speaker 1: to face. And this figure never corrects them. He never says,
- 9:34Speaker 1: I am just a messenger. He never says, do not
- 9:38Speaker 1: worship me. He accepts the identification. He accepts the worship.
- 9:44Speaker 1: In Revelation chapter 19, the Apostle John falls at the
- 9:48Speaker 1: feet of an angel to worship him. The angel recoils
- 9:51Speaker 1: and says, do not do it. I am a fellow servant.
- 9:55Speaker 1: Worship God. Every created angel in scripture refuses worship. But
- 10:01Speaker 1: the angel of the Lord never refuses. He never corrects.
- 10:06Speaker 1: He accepts it as his right. That is not the
- 10:09Speaker 1: behavior of a messenger. That is the behavior of the
- 10:12Speaker 1: message himself. He carries the name. And then, after centuries
- 10:17Speaker 1: of appearances... the angel of the Lord simply vanishes. He
- 10:23Speaker 1: never appears again. Not in the prophets, not in the
- 10:27Speaker 1: intertestamental period, not in the gospels, not in Acts, not
- 10:31Speaker 1: in the epistles, not in Revelation. Why? Because you cannot
- 10:37Speaker 1: have a pre-incarnate appearance of someone who has already been incarnated.
- 10:43Speaker 1: The angel of the Lord disappeared because he had finally
- 10:46Speaker 1: arrived permanently. the mysterious visitor put on human flesh and
- 10:51Speaker 1: walked into Bethlehem as a baby. The one who appeared
- 10:55Speaker 1: to Moses in the burning bush and said, I am
- 10:59Speaker 1: later stood in a Jerusalem courtyard and said the same words,
- 11:03Speaker 1: Before Abraham was, I am. And skeptics will immediately object.
- 11:09Speaker 1: They will say an angel of the Lord appeared to
- 11:12Speaker 1: Joseph in Matthew 1 and to Peter in Acts 12.
- 11:16Speaker 1: But there is a critical distinction. The New Testament features
- 11:20Speaker 1: an angel of the Lord, a generic messenger, a created
- 11:24Speaker 1: being delivering instructions. But the angel of the Lord from
- 11:28Speaker 1: the Old Testament, the one who spoke as Yahweh, accepted worship,
- 11:34Speaker 1: carried the divine name, and was identified as God, that
- 11:38Speaker 1: figure disappears completely. The English definite article makes all the difference.
- 11:44Speaker 1: The divine visitor ceased to appear because... He had permanently arrived.
- 11:50Speaker 1: Justin Martyr, writing in the year 150, was among the
- 11:54Speaker 1: first church fathers to formally argue that the angel of
- 11:58Speaker 1: the Lord in the Old Testament was the pre-incarnate Logos,
- 12:02Speaker 1: the same word who became flesh and dwelt among us.
- 12:06Speaker 1: But the Old Testament goes even further. There is a
- 12:10Speaker 1: passage in the book of Proverbs where a mysterious figure
- 12:13Speaker 1: speaks in the first person and makes a claim so
- 12:16Speaker 1: staggering that it triggered the biggest theological war in the
- 12:20Speaker 1: history of the church. In Proverbs chapter 8, wisdom is personified.
- 12:27Speaker 1: But this is not a poetic abstraction. Wisdom speaks in
- 12:30Speaker 1: the first person. She makes autobiographical claims, and listen to
- 12:35Speaker 1: what she says. The Lord brought me forth as the
- 12:39Speaker 1: first of his works, before his deeds of old. I
- 12:43Speaker 1: was formed long ages ago at the very beginnings, when
- 12:47Speaker 1: the world came to be. Before the mountains were settled,
- 12:51Speaker 1: before the hills, I was given birth. When he marked
- 12:55Speaker 1: out the foundations of the earth, I was the craftsman
- 12:59Speaker 1: at his side. I was filled with delight day after day,
- 13:04Speaker 1: rejoicing always in his presence. This is not a metaphor speaking.
- 13:10Speaker 1: This is a person, a person who was with God
- 13:13Speaker 1: before the earth existed. a person who participated in the
- 13:17Speaker 1: act of creation as the craftsman at his side, a
- 13:21Speaker 1: person who existed in joyful, intimate communion with the Father
- 13:26Speaker 1: before anything was made. In the 4th century, a brilliant
- 13:31Speaker 1: theologian named Arius read Proverbs 8.22 in the Greek Septuagint,
- 13:36Speaker 1: which says, The Lord created me. Arius argued, If wisdom
- 13:40Speaker 1: is Christ, and wisdom was created, then Christ is a
- 13:44Speaker 1: created being. He is the highest, most glorious creature God
- 13:49Speaker 1: ever made. But He is still a creature. He had
- 13:53Speaker 1: a beginning. There was a time when He did not exist.
- 13:56Speaker 1: A deacon from Alexandria named Athanasius rose to oppose Him.
- 14:01Speaker 1: Athanasius argued the word created refers to the incarnation, the
- 14:06Speaker 1: moment the eternal Son took on human nature. The Son
- 14:10Speaker 1: was not made out of nothing. He was eternally begotten
- 14:14Speaker 1: by the Father. He has no beginning. He shares the
- 14:18Speaker 1: same divine substance as the Father. The debate shook the
- 14:22Speaker 1: Roman Empire so violently that Emperor Constantine himself called the
- 14:27Speaker 1: Council of Nicaea in the year 325 to settle the question.
- 14:33Speaker 1: Over 300 bishops gathered from across the known world. They debated,
- 14:38Speaker 1: they argued, they searched the scriptures, and at the end,
- 14:43Speaker 1: the Council declared, begotten, not made, of one substance with
- 14:49Speaker 1: the Father. What does begotten mean? It means eternally proceeding
- 14:54Speaker 1: from the Father, like light radiating from the sun. There
- 14:58Speaker 1: was never a moment when the light was not there.
- 15:01Speaker 1: The sun has no beginning. He was not assembled. He
- 15:05Speaker 1: was not promoted. He was not created and then elevated
- 15:09Speaker 1: to Godhood. He is and always has been fully God.
- 15:14Speaker 1: That is the difference between Christianity and every other religion
- 15:18Speaker 1: on earth. We do not worship a man who became
- 15:22Speaker 1: a god. We worship the God who became a man.
- 15:26Speaker 1: A single verse in the book of Proverbs triggered a
- 15:30Speaker 1: theological earthquake that split the Roman Empire, produced the Nicene Creed,
- 15:36Speaker 1: and defined the identity of Jesus Christ for every generation
- 15:40Speaker 1: that followed. That is how much was at stake in
- 15:43Speaker 1: this single question. Was Jesus created or was he eternal?
- 15:49Speaker 1: And the Apostle Paul connected the dots. In 1 Corinthians 1.24,
- 15:54Speaker 1: he wrote, Christ is the power of God and the
- 15:58Speaker 1: wisdom of God. The wisdom who was with God before
- 16:01Speaker 1: the world began is not an abstract concept. He has
- 16:06Speaker 1: a name. But everything we have seen so far, the
- 16:10Speaker 1: plural God, the angel of the Lord, the wisdom before creation.
- 16:15Speaker 1: Those are all clues buried in the Old Testament. Now
- 16:19Speaker 1: we are about to hear from Jesus himself, in his
- 16:22Speaker 1: own words, on the last night of his life. And
- 16:26Speaker 1: what he says will take your breath away. It is
- 16:30Speaker 1: Thursday night. The Last Supper has just ended. Judas has
- 16:34Speaker 1: already left to betray him. In a matter of hours,
- 16:38Speaker 1: Jesus will be arrested and beaten and nailed to a cross.
- 16:43Speaker 1: He knows this. And in this moment, he lifts his
- 16:47Speaker 1: eyes to heaven and prays the most intimate prayer ever
- 16:51Speaker 1: recorded in Scripture. And now, Father, glorify me in your
- 16:56Speaker 1: own presence with the glory that I had with you
- 16:59Speaker 1: before the world existed. No prophet in the Old Testament
- 17:04Speaker 1: ever prayed a prayer like this. Moses never said, Give
- 17:08Speaker 1: me back the glory I had before the universe. David
- 17:12Speaker 1: never said, Restore me to the position I held before creation.
- 17:17Speaker 1: This is a prayer that only someone who was personally,
- 17:21Speaker 1: consciously present with the Father before the world began could
- 17:25Speaker 1: ever pray. And Jesus continues, Father, I want those you
- 17:30Speaker 1: have given me to be with me where I am
- 17:33Speaker 1: and to see my glory, the glory you have given
- 17:36Speaker 1: me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Loved.
- 17:42Speaker 1: Before the creation of the world. This is not a title.
- 17:46Speaker 1: This is not a role. This is a relationship. A
- 17:49Speaker 1: father and a son, bound in love before time itself existed. Now,
- 17:55Speaker 1: connect John 17 to John 1. In the beginning was
- 17:59Speaker 1: the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
- 18:01Speaker 1: Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
- 18:06Speaker 1: Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was
- 18:10Speaker 1: made that has been made. And the word became flesh
- 18:14Speaker 1: and dwelt among us. The Greek word logos means word.
- 18:18Speaker 1: But it is not just speech. It is divine reason,
- 18:22Speaker 1: creative power, the organizing intelligence behind all reality. To the
- 18:27Speaker 1: Greek philosophers, logos was the rational force that turned chaos
- 18:32Speaker 1: into order, randomness into design. To the Jewish mind, Logos
- 18:38Speaker 1: was the voice of God in Genesis, the creative speech
- 18:41Speaker 1: that said, Let there be light. John is saying Jesus
- 18:45Speaker 1: is both. He is the blueprint and the builder, the
- 18:49Speaker 1: design and the designer. The thought of God and the
- 18:53Speaker 1: voice of God made flesh. The same person who was
- 18:57Speaker 1: face to face with the Father before the universe was
- 19:00Speaker 1: formed walked into a carpenter's shop in Nazareth and picked
- 19:04Speaker 1: up a hammer. the Creator disguised Himself as a creature.
- 19:09Speaker 1: And earlier in His ministry, Jesus made another claim that
- 19:13Speaker 1: nearly got Him killed on the spot. He stood in
- 19:16Speaker 1: the temple courtyard and said to the Pharisees, Your father
- 19:20Speaker 1: Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He
- 19:24Speaker 1: saw it and was glad. The Pharisees scoffed, You are
- 19:28Speaker 1: not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?
- 19:31Speaker 1: Jesus answered, Before Abraham was born, I am. I am,
- 19:36Speaker 1: not I was, I am. Present tense, eternal tense, the
- 19:41Speaker 1: exact name God revealed to Moses in the burning bush.
- 19:45Speaker 1: I am who I am. And the text says they
- 19:48Speaker 1: immediately picked up stones to kill him. Why? Because they
- 19:52Speaker 1: did not misunderstand him. They understood exactly what he was claiming.
- 19:57Speaker 1: He was not saying I existed before Abraham. He was
- 20:01Speaker 1: claiming the sacred, unspeakable covenant name of God. The name
- 20:05Speaker 1: from the burning bush. The Pharisees were trained theologians. They
- 20:10Speaker 1: spent their entire lives studying the Torah. When Jesus said,
- 20:15Speaker 1: Ego eimi, I am, they did not need a seminary
- 20:19Speaker 1: degree to decode it. They picked up rocks to execute
- 20:23Speaker 1: him for blasphemy on the spot. Their murderous rage is
- 20:27Speaker 1: the strongest proof that Jesus was claiming to be God
- 20:31Speaker 1: because his own enemies understood him perfectly. He did not
- 20:35Speaker 1: say before Abraham, I was. He said, I am. Present tense,
- 20:41Speaker 1: eternal tense, the same name, the same voice, the same
- 20:46Speaker 1: person who spoke from the burning bush was standing in
- 20:49Speaker 1: the temple courtyard. But if Jesus truly was the eternal God,
- 20:54Speaker 1: possessing glory beyond human imagination before the universe existed, then
- 21:00Speaker 1: the incarnation is not just an inspiring story. It is
- 21:04Speaker 1: the single most shocking, violent, incomprehensible act of self-sacrifice in
- 21:10Speaker 1: the history of existence. And the next chapter will show
- 21:14Speaker 1: you exactly what he gave up. Most people read the
- 21:18Speaker 1: Christmas story and see a sweet baby in a manger
- 21:21Speaker 1: surrounded by shepherds and starlight. But Paul describes the incarnation
- 21:26Speaker 1: in terms so staggering, so violent in their implications that
- 21:30Speaker 1: that we often read right past them without feeling the weight, who,
- 21:35Speaker 1: being in very nature God, did not consider equality with
- 21:39Speaker 1: God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking
- 21:44Speaker 1: the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness,
- 21:48Speaker 1: and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
- 21:52Speaker 1: himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
- 21:57Speaker 1: The Greek word is ekenison, he emptied himself. He did
- 22:01Speaker 1: not lose his divinity. He veiled it. The infinite, eternal,
- 22:06Speaker 1: omnipotent creator of galaxies voluntarily compressed himself into the fragile
- 22:12Speaker 1: body of a Jewish baby in a borrowed animal feeding trough.
- 22:17Speaker 1: The sun is the image of the invisible God, the
- 22:20Speaker 1: firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created,
- 22:25Speaker 1: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisibles. whether
- 22:30Speaker 1: thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have
- 22:35Speaker 1: been created through him and for him. He is before
- 22:39Speaker 1: all things, and in him all things hold together. And
- 22:44Speaker 1: cults will flood the comments. They will say, see, firstborn
- 22:48Speaker 1: means he was created. He had a beginning. But the
- 22:53Speaker 1: Greek word is prototokos. And in the ancient Near Eastern world,
- 22:57Speaker 1: firstborn was a title of rank, sovereignty and inheritance rights
- 23:03Speaker 1: not biological birth order god calls king david the firstborn
- 23:07Speaker 1: of all kings in psalm 89 27 even though david
- 23:11Speaker 1: was literally the youngest of eight brothers firstborn over all
- 23:15Speaker 1: creation means he holds supreme authority over everything that exists
- 23:21Speaker 1: not that he was the first thing made the very
- 23:24Speaker 1: next verse proves it for in him all things were
- 23:28Speaker 1: created through whom he made the universe. The sun is
- 23:33Speaker 1: the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of
- 23:37Speaker 1: his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. The
- 23:43Speaker 1: hands that held the molecular structure of the cosmos together
- 23:47Speaker 1: were the same hands that a Roman soldier drove iron
- 23:50Speaker 1: nails through. The mind that conceived the laws of physics,
- 23:55Speaker 1: the distances between stars and the DNA code of every
- 24:00Speaker 1: living thing, that mind chose to learn how to walk
- 24:04Speaker 1: as a toddler in Nazareth. The one who designed the
- 24:07Speaker 1: human body had to learn how to control his own limbs.
- 24:11Speaker 1: The one who encoded hunger into the biology of every
- 24:14Speaker 1: creature had to cry for milk from his mother's breast.
- 24:19Speaker 1: The one who invented language had to be taught Hebrew
- 24:22Speaker 1: words by Mary and Joseph. the one who holds the
- 24:25Speaker 1: orbits of planets in perfect mathematical precision, had to learn
- 24:30Speaker 1: basic arithmetic from a village rabbi. He did not arrive
- 24:34Speaker 1: with omniscience blazing from his infant eyes. He emptied himself
- 24:38Speaker 1: so completely that he experienced human limitation from the inside.
- 24:44Speaker 1: The God who knows all things chose to learn. The
- 24:48Speaker 1: God who needs nothing chose to need everything. If the
- 24:53Speaker 1: creator of the universe was willing to empty himself of
- 24:56Speaker 1: infinite glory, to trade the worship of angels for the
- 24:59Speaker 1: spit of Roman soldiers, to leave a throne that holds
- 25:03Speaker 1: the cosmos together for a wooden cross on a garbage
- 25:07Speaker 1: hill outside Jerusalem, then what exactly are you holding on
- 25:11Speaker 1: to that is too precious to surrender to him? What comfort,
- 25:16Speaker 1: what ambition, what grudge, What secret sin are you gripping
- 25:20Speaker 1: so tightly that you refuse to open your hands to
- 25:24Speaker 1: the God who opened His? He emptied Himself of everything,
- 25:29Speaker 1: and He asks you to do the same. But the
- 25:32Speaker 1: story does not end with the emptying. It ends with
- 25:36Speaker 1: the most terrifying title ever given to any being in
- 25:39Speaker 1: the history of the universe, a title that proves Jesus
- 25:43Speaker 1: did not just exist before creation. He will exist after
- 25:48Speaker 1: creation ends. He is not just the beginning. He is
- 25:53Speaker 1: the end. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
- 25:56Speaker 1: first and the last, the beginning and the end. Alpha
- 26:00Speaker 1: is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Omega is
- 26:04Speaker 1: the last. Jesus is not saying he is important. He
- 26:08Speaker 1: is saying he is the boundary lines of existence itself.
- 26:12Speaker 1: Nothing precedes him. Nothing outlasts him. He was there before
- 26:17Speaker 1: the first Adam was formed, and he will be standing
- 26:20Speaker 1: when the last star burns out. Now connect this to
- 26:24Speaker 1: Isaiah 44.6. God says, I am the first and I
- 26:29Speaker 1: am the last. Apart from me there is no God.
- 26:33Speaker 1: The exact same title. Applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament.
- 26:37Speaker 1: Applied to Jesus in the New Testament. Either Jesus stole
- 26:41Speaker 1: the most sacred title of the God of Israel, or...
- 26:45Speaker 1: He is the God of Israel. Stack the evidence one
- 26:49Speaker 1: final time. Genesis 1.26 God said, Let us. Exodus 3.14
- 26:56Speaker 1: The angel said, I am. Proverbs 8.30 Wisdom said, I
- 27:00Speaker 1: was the craftsman at his side. Micah 5.2 The prophet said,
- 27:05Speaker 1: His origins are from of old, from ancient times. John 1.1
- 27:10Speaker 1: John said, In the beginning was the Word, and the
- 27:13Speaker 1: Word was God. John 17.5 Jesus said, Give me back
- 27:18Speaker 1: the glory I had with you before the world existed.
- 27:22Speaker 1: Philippians 2.6 Paul said, Being in very nature God, he
- 27:27Speaker 1: emptied himself. Colossians 1.16 All things were created through him
- 27:33Speaker 1: and for him. Hebrews 1.2 Through whom he made the universe.
- 27:38Speaker 1: Revelation 22.13 I am the Alpha and the Omega. 10
- 27:43Speaker 1: Passages ten different books, written across 1,500 years by shepherds, fishermen, kings, prophets,
- 27:52Speaker 1: and a Pharisee. And every single one of them points
- 27:55Speaker 1: to the same staggering, impossible, inescapable conclusion. Jesus Christ was
- 28:01Speaker 1: not a created being. He was not a good teacher
- 28:05Speaker 1: who became divine. He was God before there was a
- 28:08Speaker 1: universe to be God of. The same Jesus who said,
- 28:12Speaker 1: I am in John 8, 58 The same Jesus who
- 28:16Speaker 1: prayed for his pre-creation glory in John 17. The same
- 28:20Speaker 1: Jesus who Revelation identifies as the Alpha and the Omega.
- 28:26Speaker 1: He is the one the prophet Zechariah said would be pierced.
- 28:31Speaker 1: They will look upon me, the one they have pierced.
- 28:34Speaker 1: The one they pierced on a Roman cross was not
- 28:37Speaker 1: a human prophet. He was the eternal word who spoke
- 28:41Speaker 1: the world into existence. and the nails that held him
- 28:44Speaker 1: there did not hold him by force. They held him
- 28:48Speaker 1: by love. This is the scandal of the gospel, the
- 28:52Speaker 1: one who was before all things, the one who created
- 28:56Speaker 1: all things, the one who holds all things together, that
- 29:00Speaker 1: one chose to become the smallest, weakest, most vulnerable thing
- 29:05Speaker 1: in all of creation, a human baby. He traded the
- 29:10Speaker 1: infinite worship of heaven for 33 years of hunger exhaustion, betrayal,
- 29:15Speaker 1: and ultimately the most agonizing death ever devised by the
- 29:20Speaker 1: Roman Empire. Not because humanity deserved it, but because he
- 29:25Speaker 1: had loved us before we existed. He is not a
- 29:28Speaker 1: good teacher who earned his way to divinity. He is
- 29:32Speaker 1: the eternal God who emptied himself to become a servant.
- 29:36Speaker 1: And he stands before you today, not as a distant
- 29:40Speaker 1: cosmic force, but as a person who knew your name
- 29:44Speaker 1: before the foundations of the earth were laid. What struck
- 29:48Speaker 1: you the most? Was it the mysterious angel of the
- 29:51Speaker 1: Lord who vanishes after Bethlehem? The devastating Proverbs 8 verse
- 29:57Speaker 1: that split the Roman Empire? or the simple, breathtaking prayer,
- 30:02Speaker 1: Give me back the glory I had with you before
- 30:05Speaker 1: the world began. Tell me below. Subscribe to Bible Origins.
- 30:11Speaker 1: We uncover the hidden architecture of Scripture that most people
- 30:15Speaker 1: walk right past. Until next time, may the eternal Word
- 30:20Speaker 1: who spoke light into existence speak light into your life today.