Jesus Before Bethlehem
Why the Christmas Story Starts in Eternity
If you have kids, odds are they have asked you, “When was Jesus born?”
December 25th, right? A manger, shepherds, angels, that annoying drummer boy. But the story of Jesus doesn’t start in Bethlehem. It starts before stars, before galaxies swirled into being, before the word time1 even meant anything.
When we talk about the pre-existence of Christ, we’re saying something almost impossible to wrap our minds around: Jesus is eternal. He didn’t become God, He always was, and always will be.
New Testament Account
The clearest place the Bible teaches the pre-existence of Christ is John 1.
John begins his Gospel not with shepherds and angels, nor with Mary and Joseph, but with eternity itself:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made2.”
This is a resonance of Genesis 1. Genesis opens, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth3.” John says, “In the beginning, the Word already was.”
That little verb was matters. It doesn’t say the Word ‘came into being’; rather the Word already was. When creation began, Christ was not beginning, He was there; eternal, present, and divine.
The same theme is picked up in Colossians:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together4.”
Jesus is the image of the invisible God, He makes the unseen God visible. To see Him is to see the Father.
The text then says, ‘He is the firstborn over all creation.’ This doesn’t mean He was created. In Greek, the word can be used in a literal or figurative way—here it is used figuratively. He has the status and authority of the heir. He reigns over creation, not from within it.
Now, maybe you are thinking why is it figurative? Why not literal? Who gets to decide that? Fair point, I would argue the text does.
‘Firstborn of all creation’ is an appositive phrase that expands the clause before it: ‘He is the image of the invisible God.’ An appositive gives identity or status—like ‘Alexander the Great,’ where ‘the Great’ is not literal, but honorific.
In the same way, ‘firstborn of all creation’ functions as a title of preeminence. Because it’s an appositive phrase rather than a full clause, the weight falls on identity or title, not on an action of ‘being born.’ It functions adjectivally: ‘He… the firstborn (meaning supreme heir, ruler) of all creation.’
The next line further clarifies this thought, “By Him all things were created.” This signifies along with the Father and Holy Spirit, Jesus was creating the world in the beginning. Only one who is divine and eternal can create out of nothing. The writer of Hebrews says it beautifully: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.5”
Creation is not a machine wound up long ago, but a song still sung by the eternal Word. Bethlehem would be Jesus birthplace, but not the origin of His being. His homeland is the eternal country6.
The Bible closes where it began. In Revelation 22:13, Jesus Himself says: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Early Church Reflections
The early church knew this mattered. Justin Martyr called Jesus the Logos, the eternal Word of God who was active before Bethlehem, appearing as the ‘Angel of the Lord’ in the Old Testament. He wrote: “The Son, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God7.”
Athanasius fought against Arius, who claimed, “there was a time when the Son was not.” Athanasius countered: “The Son is eternal, not made from nothing, but begotten from the Father’s very essence.8” In his famous work On the Incarnation, he argued: if Christ were a creature, He could not save creatures. Only the eternal Word can give eternal life.
The Nicene Creed enshrined this declaration: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ… God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father.” That’s the theological way of saying: Jesus didn’t begin in Bethlehem. He always was.
Theological Implications
Without the pre-existence of Christ the Gospel collapses. Here are three reasons why.
1. Jesus is not Plan B.
The pre-existence of Christ means God’s redemptive plan didn’t start after humanity’s failure, it was always His purpose. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:4 that God, “Chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” This is why Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus, “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
2. The Cross is Older than the Stars.
Before God said “Let there be light,” He had already purposed the light of salvation through Christ. When the stars were flung into space, the cross was already in God’s heart, the manger in His view and the empty tomb decreed. Augustine captured it this way: “What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it, I do not know. But this I know: before time began, the eternal Word was with God.9”
3. Only the Eternal Christ Can Save.
If Christ had a beginning, then His power to save would have an ending. A created Christ cannot give eternal life. You cannot give what you don’t possess. Only one who is truly God can reconcile others to God. If Jesus is less than eternal, our salvation is less than secure.
Historical Challenges
In the 4th century, a presbyter in Alexandria named Arius began teaching, if the Father begat the Son, then the Son had a beginning of existence. He believed Jesus was the highest and greatest of all created beings, exalted above angels, but still created. For Arius, this protected the Father’s uniqueness. But to Athanasius and others, it was a direct assault on the crux of the Gospel. This controversy spread so widely that the Roman Emperor Constantine called the first great ecumenical council in Nicaea. Bishops from across the empire gathered together. The question before them: Is Jesus Christ fully eternal God, or is He a creature?
Arius’s side argued for the Greek word homoiousios, ‘of similar substance’ to the Father. Close, but not quite the same.
Athanasius and the defenders of orthodoxy insisted on homoousios, ‘of the same substance.’
That one little iota, a single Greek letter, marked the difference between worshiping Christ as God or reducing Him to a creature.
In the end, the council confessed in the Nicene Creed:
“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, one in being with the Father. Through him all things were made10.”
Even after Nicaea, the battle raged for decades. Arius had powerful allies, and at times it seemed like the whole empire was sliding back into his teaching. The saying arose: “Athanasius contra mundum,” meaning Athanasius against the world. He was exiled five times, chased from his city, and slandered endlessly. But he would not yield, because he knew what was at stake.
In his Orations Against the Arians, Athanasius wrote: “If the Son is a creature, then He too needs salvation. But what needs salvation cannot itself save others. It is the Word’s eternity that secures our eternity.11” The pre-existence of Christ wasn’t a doctrine to be debated but a line in the sand. Either Jesus is eternal God, or He is no Savior at all.
The Pre-Existence Across the Bible’s Story
If Christ truly has no beginning, then we should expect to see His fingerprints all over the Bible (not only in the Gospels), and that’s exactly what we find. Throughout the Old Testament, a mysterious figure appears again and again; the Angel of the Lord.
In Genesis 16, Hagar flees into the wilderness. The Angel of the Lord finds her and promises her descendants. And then the text says, “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: You are the God who sees me.12” The angel speaks as God and is worshiped as God.
In Exodus 3, Moses meets God in the burning bush13. In Judges 13, Manoah encounters the Angel of the Lord14. The early church fathers saw these appearances as more than angels. Justin Martyr argued they were pre-incarnate appearances of Christ, the eternal Word revealing God before Bethlehem15.
In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown into the furnace for refusing to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. When the king looks in, he’s astonished: “Did we not throw three men bound into the fire? But I see four men walking unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods16.”
Who was that fourth man? Many Christians through the centuries have said: this was Christ. The eternal Word, walking with His people, protecting them in the flames. Even before He took on flesh, He drew near in their suffering.
By the time we reach the New Testament, the hints and shadows coalesce into light. John declares: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.17”
The Apostle Paul re-reads Israel’s story through this lens. In 1 Corinthians 10:4, he writes that Israel drank from the spiritual rock in the wilderness, “and that rock was Christ.”
From Genesis to Revelation, the testimony is consistent: the Christ who appeared in Bethlehem is the Christ who has always been. The manger wasn’t His first step onto the stage. It was the unveiling of the One who wrote the play.
The pre-existent Christ is the thread binding the whole Bible into one story. When we read the Old Testament, we’re not just imaginging shadows. We are seeing glimpses of the eternal Word, moving toward the fullness of His incarnation.
The hands that shaped constellations curled into the fists of an infant. That’s the scandal of Christmas, not that God ‘showed up,’ but that the eternal Christ humbled Himself to become one of us.
If this kind of big-picture Advent theology resonates with you, my Advent devotional The Gift of Waiting will take you even further. It’s written to help you slow down, breathe, and experience the hope you already know is true.
Yes, I land with St. Augustine that God is outside time.
John 1:1–3
Genesis 1:1
Colossians 1:15–17
Hebrews 1:3
How dare you mix the LOTR canon with Narnia.
Justin Martyr. (1994). Dialogue with Trypho. In A. Roberts & J. Donaldson (Eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol. 1). Hendrickson Publishers.
Athanasius. (2011). On the Incarnation (J. Behr, Trans.). St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Augustine. (1991). Confessions (H. Chadwick, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
You can see the whole Creed here: https://www.marquette.edu/faith/prayers-nicene.php
Athanasius. (1994). Against the Arians. In P. Schaff & H. Wace (Eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Series 2, Vol. 4). Hendrickson Publishers.
Gen. 16:13
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed (Exodus 3:2).
And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her (Judges 13:9).
Justin, Trypho 61.
Daniel 3:25
John 1:14