The Pre-Incarnate Glories of Christ
Text: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1)
In studying the lives of great men, biographers generally begin with the birth of their subjects. But when we consider the career of the Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot properly start with the manger scene in Bethlehem, or with the prenatal announcements of the angel Gabriel. Unfortunately, too many writers do begin there and present the Blessed One as though He were but a man whose existence started in the Judean stable. Such is a grave mistake fraught with dishonour to Christ and with disaster to the souls of men. If He is nothing more than man, though the best of men, His own words condemn Him as either self-deceived or as an imposter. Certainly, either the victim of fancy or the perpetrator of fraud cannot be the Saviour of sinners, or righteousness would become a byword and holiness a dream.
In any attempt to study the manifold glories of Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son, we must begin to consider Him before He came into this world, before He took upon Him His human form. To this end, therefore, let us gaze with the Psalmist upon the indescribable splendour of the ivory palaces, His eternal dwelling place; let us fill our nostrils with the sweet fragrance of the myrrh, the aloes, the cassia which eminates from the glorious garments of His divine character.
In His great intercessory prayer, our Lord said: “And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory that I had with Thee before the world was.” It is to this glory we should look, His eternal glory, not of the Eternity which lies behind.