Did JESUS live in the past?

[Mike 2]

12 minutes ago, HAZARD said:

El, is the Hebrew word for "God" in 250 places in Scripture. It means the Strong One, or Elohim the Omnipotent, while Elohim is God the Creator, putting His omnipotence to work. All three persons are also omnipotent.

Elyon, is the Hebrew word for "Most High," and it is so translated 40 times in Scripture. It means Supreme, Most High, Highest, Lofty. It is El, the posessor of Heaven and Earth, and Elohim, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. It is translated "High" (Ps. 78:35; Dan. 4:2); and "higher" in referring to Jesus as God's "first born" (Ps. 89:27). Jesus of the New Testament is never called the Most High, but only the Son of the Most High God (Mark 5:7; Luke 1:32-35; 8:28). Angels, when Christ was born, sang to the "God in the Highest," who was not Jesus (Luke 2:14). The Father is still the "head of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:3); so He is rightfully the Most High God.

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you are saying (I'm sure others can).

Can you rephrase what you said?

 

Thanks

[HAZARD]

2 minutes ago, Mike 2 said:

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you are saying (I'm sure others can).

Can you rephrase what you said?

 

Thanks

The Word, who was with God, in the beginning, who created everything, and who became a man, Jesus Christ, had willingly agreed with the Father that He would become a man so He could die for us should we become lost "before the foundation of the world."

1 Peter 1: 20, Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

[Mike 2]

3 minutes ago, HAZARD said:

The Word, who was with God, in the beginning, who created everything, and who became a man, Jesus Christ, had willingly agreed with the Father that He would become a man so He could die for us should we become lost "before the foundation of the world."

1 Peter 1: 20, Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

Ahhh, yes. I can agree with that. To rephrase 1 Peter...before time, God had decided that at some point in time a Messiah would be needed. 

We come to know Jesus as the one that works as the Messiah.

We know the Messiah was decided upon before the foundations of the world and assume, I believe rightly that it would be in the form of Jesus, but that wasn't until the time of the cross "in these last times for you". Not the Old Testament.

 

[HAZARD]

5 minutes ago, Mike 2 said:

Ahhh, yes. I can agree with that. To rephrase 1 Peter...before time, God had decided that at some point in time a Messiah would be needed. 

We come to know Jesus as the one that works as the Messiah.

We know the Messiah was decided upon before the foundations of the world and assume, I believe rightly that it would be in the form of Jesus, but that wasn't until the time of the cross "in these last times for you". Not the Old Testament.

 

This is how I see this. The Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit are one in unity. They always were and always will be. When the Word willingly divested Himself of His Divine personage to become a man so He could die for us, He was and is the same being. He lived, worked, and appeared before men throughout the OT as the Word, and then He became the saviour in the NT. He was and still is the same being. He now is in Heaven in His GLORIFIED flesh and bone body, Luke 24: 39. He was one in unity throughout eternity past and is still one in unity with the Father now and into eternity future.

 "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, AS WE ARE" (John 17:11).

And, "That they MAY BE ONE; as thou, Father art IN ME, and I, IN THEE, that they MAY BE ONE IN US: that the world may believe that thou has sent me" (John 17:21).

"And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, even AS WE ARE ONE: I in them, and thou IN ME, that they may be made perfect IN ONE; and that the world may know etc., (John 17:22-23). "And I have declared unto them thy name, and I will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, AND I IN THEM" (John 17:26).

Jesus prayed to the Father to keep His disciples and all His followers "one in unity" as He and the Father were. He never asked the Father to allow all the followers and disciples all to get inside one of them and form "one body" as fundamental Christianity wrongly teaches Jesus and the Father are.
 
The Word became flesh so He could die for us. As God He could not die as a man He could. The father remained in Heaven the whole time Jesus was on the Earth. It was the Father in Heaven who raised Jesus from the dead. Both the Father and Jesus, 2 beings, sent the Holy Spirit another being to the Earth when Jesus went to Heaven. That's three separate divine being who are nothing more than "one" in unity as they have been since, "In the beginning."

[simplejeff]

3 hours ago, Mike 2 said:

I can agree with that, in the sense of what they mean and stand for, starting 2000 years ago.

I don't think I can before that though, because then Jesus would have had to be alive in eternity past.

Why do you have any problem confessing Jesus as Master,  One with God, eternity past, present, and future?

Who told you any different ?  (they lied)

He and YHWH have ALWAYS been ECHAD .  Always,  without beginning, and without end.

[Anonymous Aristotle]

17 hours ago, Mike 2 said:

I've posed these questions in another thread but it may be appropriate to ask it separately.

Are there any specific references to JESUS having been alive or interacting with humans in the past (the Old Testament)....not the Christ, or the Son, but JESUS? And if so, what is the context, is it actually using the name Jesus to direct us to the Son or the Christ?

Please use a reference and keep in mind context.

 

Is this what you may be looking for? 

Old Testament Appearances of Christ

Jesus is first seen in the Old Testament as the person who appeared as “the Angel of the Lord” in his sudden confrontation with Sarah’s maidser- vant, Hagar (Gen 16:7). Thereafter, he continued to appear intermittently throughout the earlier books of the Old Testament. These real occur- rences, initiated by God, were characterized by the fact that they were convincing revelations of his person and work, as much as they were also

transitory, fleeting, but audible and clearly visible appear- ances. He came temporally in the form of a human, much before his final incarnation as a babe in Bethlehem, yet this same “Angel of the LORD” is called and is addressed often as “the LORD/Yahweh” himself (Gen 12:7; 17:1; 19:1; etc.).

This “Angel of the LORD” was a title that stood for his office, but it did not describe his nature. The Hebrew word for “angel” (mal’ak) had the basic idea of one who was “sent,” a “messenger.” Of the 214 usages of the He- brew term used for “angel,” about one-third of them refer to what is labeled by theologians as a “Christophany,” a temporary appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. It is certain, however, that this special angel of the Lord is divine, for Hagar “...gave this name to the LORD, who spoke with her [as the Angel of the LORD]: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ as she observed, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Gen 16:13). 1

Other instances of Jesus’ appearances in the Old Testa- ment can be seen representatively in Genesis 22:11, 15, where it was the Angel of Yahweh who spoke from heaven to Abraham when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, and stopped him from proceeding. Again, it was the Angel of Yahweh who appeared to Moses in the flame of fire in Exodus 3:2. Throughout the dialogue at that burning bush, it was also declared that he was no one less than “Yah- weh,” who spoke at that time, causing Moses to hide his face from him (Ex 3:6).

Later, it was the same Angel of the Lord who appeared to the wife of Manoah (Judg 13:2-25), mother of Samson, whom she reported to her husband was indeed a “man of God” that had appeared to her. When Manoah asked for the “Angel of the LORD” to also appear to him as he had appeared to his wife, the Angel repeated the appearances and his conversations to him, after which he ascended in the flame of the altar (Judg 13:20), implying the sacrifice was in worship of the Lord himself! Moreover, this “An- gel” is regarded as a “Redeemer,” who saves Israel from evil (Isa 63:9).

How can readers of the Old Testament doubt that these sample instances, along with a host of other such descrip- tions in the earlier Scriptures, were anything less than pre-incarnate appearances of our Lord Jesus in real flesh, even if it was in those days only a temporary in-flesh-ment/ incarnation for the immediate needs of the people until he would come and take on flesh permanently? Oftentimes Jesus came to earth to help his people in their distress and their need for direction. The only examples of the Angel of Yahweh turning against Israel occur in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, where the Angel is the agent of God’s punishment of David, because he disobeyed God and conducted a national census. This continues at >Jesus in the Old Testament By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Ph.D.,President Emeritus Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary

Edited June 14, 2017 by Anonymous Aristotle

[Mike 2]

6 hours ago, simplejeff said:

Why do you have any problem confessing Jesus as Master,  One with God, eternity past, present, and future?

Who told you any different ?  (they lied)

He and YHWH have ALWAYS been ECHAD .  Always,  without beginning, and without end.

Sinplejeff I think what you are saying here is exactly why I have asked this question. There is confusion in the way we use the name Jesus.

You have jumped to the statement that I am having a problem confessing Jesus as Master when that is far from the truth.

What I am trying to do is get us talking about what we mean when we talk about Jesus, particularly the context in which we use his name.

You see for some, saying the name Jesus encompasses the Son of God incarnate in the body of Jesus and doing the work of the Messiah.

For others it is someone that walked the earth for about 35 years.

Many people trying to understand Christianity just cannot comprehend what we are talking about when we say "Jesus lived in eternity past" because they are correctly seeing Jesus as someone that was born and died on a cross. How could he possibly be alive through eternity past?

Now when we understand that Jesus is the chosen physical form...in the flesh (incarnation) of the Father, we then look at "Jesus" as the Son of God/ the Word, who has lived in eternity past doing the work of the Father in creation. When we talk about Jesus as Lord and Savior we are actually talking about The Son of God as Lord and Savior we see living in creation in the body of Jesus. No different than you and I are living in the bodies known as Mike and Jeff.

I think Yowm understands what I am getting at.

 

This is not a hill I am ready to die on and I most certainly don't want to ruffle any feathers in trying to share my understanding.  I just think it is something we should be aware of when someone is trying to understand how someone that is obviously a human (Jesus) can be said to have lived in eternity past. Logically because we are talking about something created it can't be possible.

Once we see that it is the Son of God (who has lived in eternity past) creating (Col 1:16 created all things) we understand that every time we "see God" in the physical all through the Old Testament we are seeing The Son of God, not "Jesus", creating something in the physical (like arms or a burning bush) to do the Fathers work.  This is something I think is biblical, but,..

..... we are so used to interchanging the words Jesus, Christ and the Son to describe what God was doing at the times of the cross that we don't realize that each of those words have a separate meaning and function. I don't have any problem at all describing Jesus as my Lord and Savior, but I know I am ultimately talking about God coming to me as my Savior.

There is a reason we don't see reference to Jesus interacting with man in the OT, because it was the Son of God that did the interacting.

It can create confusion for someone seeking, heck even for believing Christians.

In the end, I don't see it as a big deal for most people, but for some........

[Mike 2]

1 hour ago, Anonymous Aristotle said:

Is this what you may be looking for? 

Old Testament Appearances of Christ

Jesus is first seen in the Old Testament as the person who appeared as “the Angel of the Lord” in his sudden confrontation with Sarah’s maidser- vant, Hagar (Gen 16:7). Thereafter, he continued to appear intermittently throughout the earlier books of the Old Testament. These real occur- rences, initiated by God, were characterized by the fact that they were convincing revelations of his person and work, as much as they were also

transitory, fleeting, but audible and clearly visible appear- ances. He came temporally in the form of a human, much before his final incarnation as a babe in Bethlehem, yet this same “Angel of the LORD” is called and is addressed often as “the LORD/Yahweh” himself (Gen 12:7; 17:1; 19:1; etc.).

This “Angel of the LORD” was a title that stood for his office, but it did not describe his nature. The Hebrew word for “angel” (mal’ak) had the basic idea of one who was “sent,” a “messenger.” Of the 214 usages of the He- brew term used for “angel,” about one-third of them refer to what is labeled by theologians as a “Christophany,” a temporary appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. It is certain, however, that this special angel of the Lord is divine, for Hagar “...gave this name to the LORD, who spoke with her [as the Angel of the LORD]: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ as she observed, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Gen 16:13). 1

Other instances of Jesus’ appearances in the Old Testa- ment can be seen representatively in Genesis 22:11, 15, where it was the Angel of Yahweh who spoke from heaven to Abraham when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, and stopped him from proceeding. Again, it was the Angel of Yahweh who appeared to Moses in the flame of fire in Exodus 3:2. Throughout the dialogue at that burning bush, it was also declared that he was no one less than “Yah- weh,” who spoke at that time, causing Moses to hide his face from him (Ex 3:6).

Later, it was the same Angel of the Lord who appeared to the wife of Manoah (Judg 13:2-25), mother of Samson, whom she reported to her husband was indeed a “man of God” that had appeared to her. When Manoah asked for the “Angel of the LORD” to also appear to him as he had appeared to his wife, the Angel repeated the appearances and his conversations to him, after which he ascended in the flame of the altar (Judg 13:20), implying the sacrifice was in worship of the Lord himself! Moreover, this “An- gel” is regarded as a “Redeemer,” who saves Israel from evil (Isa 63:9).

How can readers of the Old Testament doubt that these sample instances, along with a host of other such descrip- tions in the earlier Scriptures, were anything less than pre-incarnate appearances of our Lord Jesus in real flesh, even if it was in those days only a temporary in-flesh-ment/ incarnation for the immediate needs of the people until he would come and take on flesh permanently? Oftentimes Jesus came to earth to help his people in their distress and their need for direction. The only examples of the Angel of Yahweh turning against Israel occur in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, where the Angel is the agent of God’s punishment of David, because he disobeyed God and conducted a national census. This continues at >Jesus in the Old Testament  By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Ph.D.,President Emeritus Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary

There is no specific biblical reference to "Jesus". Just a supposition that any time God works in the physical it is Jesus.

What we are seeing is THE SON OF GOD creating these things, not the Christ (which by definition is a"job / purpose") or Jesus.

I am not saying that  this paper and explanation is wrong except it was not "Jesus" but the Son/Word.....well, I guess I am.

Jesus did not physically appear in the Old Testament, the Son of God, on behalf of the Father did. It is a matter of definition, but I think for some it can create confusion in trying to understand how the same physical person walking around 2000 years ago was also walking around thousands of years before that and completely miss the spirituality of God.

On another note: Among other things, the writers second and also last paragraphs add to the confusion...he is calling the physical appearance pre-incarnation. In both paragraphs he himself is giving evidence of incarnation/ taking on flesh and is as much as saying so. This in itself is contradictory because if this were an incarnation then the appearance of Jesus would then be...... POST incarnation?!?. I think both you and I understand what he is saying in using the word Jesus, but he is using what I believe is a misleading description. 

Not sure we're going to find any references to Jesus coming to earth either (now anyone looking to show that there is, please look at the context in how the word Jesus is being used).

Edited June 14, 2017 by Mike 2

[MorningGlory]

12 hours ago, Mike 2 said:

Thanks for bringing that up. I have edited my OP to identify that I am looking for references to occurrences in the Old Testament

Oh...I understood the OP to be asking about historical references to Jesus. 

[Mike 2]

5 minutes ago, MorningGlory said:

Oh...I understood the OP to be asking about historical references to Jesus. 

Sorry, I wasn't clear. You helped me to clarify that.

Now, if I could be a little more clear in the rest of what I write.......