by Denise Kohlmeyer

On July 4, 2001, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl at 11:46 p.m. Ironically, my doctor had to be called down from the roof of the hospital two hours beforehand because he’d been watching the local fireworks.

While my “firecracker” daughter dislikes sharing this patriotic holiday with millions of people (we used to tell her the fireworks were to celebrate her), it’s a fun story to tell. And it’s certainly embedded in my memory!

Like most mothers, I know the exact dates and times of my children’s births. Within the year of each one’s birth, I cross-stitched their birth details — name, weight, height, and birth date — and framed them. Not because I need reminding but because I love these endearing keepsakes.

God incarnate

This cannot be said of Jesus, who has always existed. His Being did not begin when he was conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit and was born nine months later. “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” states Galatians 4:4.

At a specific time and space in history — in 4 bc, in the spring, at the time of lambing, in the town of Bethlehem — Jesus became incarnate, God in human form. Flesh and blood were added to His already existent, divine nature.

Scripture also affirms the truth that Jesus preexisted creation, stating He actually superintended over it as God, with God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:1-3).

The New Testament further supports Jesus’ work in creation:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:15, 16).

In these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (Hebrews 1:2).

Later, as the incarnate One, Jesus provided sufficient support for His preexistence: “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

For millennia, Christendom has accepted the fact of Jesus’ preexistence. The early church fathers even crafted the Nicene Creed — their version of a cross-stitched birth record — affirming this truth: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”

There has never been a time when Jesus did not exist. He has always been. He will always be.

How does and should this doctrine impact our faith and spiritual walk, though?

Secure salvation

No fallen, finite human — no matter how powerful, noble, or wise — could ever secure eternal salvation for sinful humankind. A human sacrifice would never be sufficient to redeem our brokenness. If it were possible, it would be considered human achievement — what Scripture calls a result of works (Ephesians 2:8, 9). Instead, salvation comes only by grace.

Only a preexistent being uncorrupted by sin (which means they had to have existed prior to the Fall) could secure our salvation. That divine being is Jesus. His preexistence, with its unstained nature, made Him uniquely qualified to be the perfect, blameless sacrifice to appease God’s holy wrath and to atone for humanity’s sins. His divine, preexistent nature made it possible for Him to not just die but then rise again — something a mere mortal could not do.

Because Jesus was, is, and evermore shall be, He alone holds the propensity to forgive sins and make a person righteous, the power to conquer sin and death, and the promise to secure eternal life.

True gift

Because salvation is not a human achievement but through the preexistent One, it truly is a gift — freely given (unconditional and unmerited) and freely to be received by grace through faith alone (pistis, belief, trust, reliance).

And because salvation is a gift from God, it must be credited solely to God, attained through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. Therefore, “of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption — that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:30, 31).

Unique faith

No other belief system in the world can claim that its founder existed before time — not Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, New Ageism, or any other philosophy. Every religion began with human agency, with a person who initiated an earthly movement that included a strict set of precepts, beliefs, and practices for its followers: shaving one’s head, adopting a monastic lifestyle, honoring ancestors, observing karma, taking vows of poverty or celibacy, embracing reincarnation, performing ritual baths, or countless other customs.

More importantly, those founders were not God: omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, just, immutable, sovereign, self-sufficient. They were born sinful, like the rest of humanity. Their power, though potentially potent in human terms, was and is limited, and ultimately, useless.

Their lives or deeds could not save people from their sins, from eternal damnation. Their deaths were final; they remain in the ground to this day, decayed, awaiting their own resurrection and judgment at the end of time.

Because of Jesus’ divine, preexistent nature, however, He had the power to rise from the dead and defeat death and sin. His resurrected, glorified body resides in heaven. He is seated at the right hand of His father, interceding for His co-heirs back on earth and awaiting the “fullness of time” when He will return to gather up God’s elect.

Secure future

Since Jesus has no beginning and no end, He securely holds our eternal destiny in His hands, for those who believe in Him as their Savior and Lord. As the one who spoke creation into being, Jesus will one day gather us all to Himself and usher in the new heaven and the new earth.

On this truth we hang our hope. Our future is secure and everlasting.

Our worship

Jesus’ eternality and authority over creation deem Him worthy of worship by every living being. With united voices, we declare here and in heaven, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11).

It will be so here but also in the hereafter, as witnessed by the apostle John in a vision:

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:

“Blessing and honor and glory and power

Be to Him who sits on the throne,

And to the Lamb, forever and ever!” (5:13).

And not just by animate beings but the inanimate as well, posits Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” The same is similarly affirmed in Psalm 66:4: “All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; they shall sing praises to Your name” (cf. 96:11, 12).

Worship by all of creation is the only right response regarding Jesus’ nature as the everlasting Divine.

Unshakeable faith

Our faith, hope, and salvation are unshakeable because of the eternal Word. Jesus is from everlasting to everlasting, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Because of this, we echo the words of the apostle Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).