Homily
for December 25 (Daytime)
CONNECTION TO THE
PRE-EXISTENT LOGOS
Our eleventh Messianic
connection is about Jesus Christ’s claim to both Christhood and the godhead
(Jh. 10:30) through the
Logos of God (Jh. 1:1, 1 Jh 1:1), which is the pre-existent Christ (Jh. 1:30, 8:24, 8:28).
But
before making this claim, let us first see the connection between the man Jesus
and the pre-existent Logos, or the pre-incarnate Christ.
The
following places in Holy Scriptures try to tell us that the man Jesus had
indeed a pre-existent state before being incarnated:
1. Jh. 1:2-3 - “He was with God in the beginning. Through
him all things came to be.”
2. Jh. 1:30
- “This is the one I spoke of when I
said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because he existed before me.”
3. 1 Jh. 1:1-2
- “Something which has existed since the
beginning, that we heard, and we have seen with our own eyes; that we have
watched and touched with our hands...”
4. Col. 1:17 -
“Before anything was created, he existed,
and he holds all things in unity. As he is the Beginning, he was the first to
be born from the dead, so that he should be first in every way; because God
wanted all perfection to be found in him and all things to be reconciled
through him and for him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, when he
made peace by his death on the cross.”
5. Jh. 17:5 - Now, Father, it is time for you to glorify
me with that glory I had with you before ever the world was.”
6. Ph.. 2:6 - “His state was divine, yet he did
not cling to his equality with God”.
7. Rev. 3:14 -
“Write to the angel of the church in
Laodicea and say, “Here is the message of the Amen, the faithful, the true
witness, the ultimate source of God’s creation”.
8. Jh. 8:23 - “Jesus went on: ‘You are from below; I am from above. You are of this
world: I am not of this world.”
9. Jh. 8:58 – “Jesus replied, ‘I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was I
AM’”.
What was
he in his pre-existent state?
1. He was the
“Logos”, or Word of God. On this, the following places in Holy Scripture tell
about the Logos, or Word of God:
1.1. Jn. 1:1 -
“In the beginning was the Word; the word
was with God; and the Word was God.”
1.2. Gn. 1:1 - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
1.3. 1 Jh.
1:1-2 - “Something which has existed
since the beginning...the Word who is life- this is our subject.”
1.4. Ps. 33:9 - “He spoke and it was created; he commanded, and there it stood.”
1.5. Col. 1:15 - “He is the image of the unseen God and the first born of all creation
for him were created all things in heaven and on earth.”
1.6. Heb. 1:3 - “He is the radiant of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining
the universe by his powerful command...”
1.7. Ps. 147:15 – “He gives an order, his word flashes to earth”
1.8. Jdt. 16:14 - “For you
spoke and things came into being, you sent your breath and they were put
together, and no one can resist your voice.”
1.9. Si. 39:16,17 - “All
that he orders is promptly carried out. At his word water stops running and
piles up...”
1.10. Is.
48:13 - “I summon them and they all come
forward together.”
1.11. Lm. 3:37 - “Who has only to speak to make things exist,
who commands, if not the Lord? From where, if not from the mouth of the Most
High do evil and good come?”
1.12.. Jh. 10:35 - “So the Law uses the word gods of those to whom the word of God was
addressed, and scriptures cannot be rejected.”
1.13. Heb. 1:1-2 - “At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke
to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he
has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit
everything and through whom he made everything there is.“
2. This
Logos, or Word of God, is the Son of
God, as mentioned in several places in the scriptures, such as in the
following:
2.1. Heb.
1:1-2 - “At various times I the past and
in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but
in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the Son
that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything
there is.“
2.2. Jh.
5:18,20 - “We know that anyone who has
been begotten by God does not sin, because the begotten Son of God protects
him, and the Evil One does not touch him. We know, too, that the Son of God has
come, and has given us the power to know the true God. We are in the true God,
as we are in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God. This is eternal life.”
2.3. Jh. 1:18 - “No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son who are nearest to the
Father’s heart, who has made him known.”
2.4. Jh. 11:27 - ‘Yes, Lord’, she said, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of
God, the one who was to come into this world.”
2.5. Rm. 1:3-4 - “This
news is about the Son of God who, according to the human nature he took, was a descendant
of David:; it is about Jesus Christ our Lord who, in the order of the spirit,
the spirit of holiness that was in him, was proclaimed Son of God in all his
power through his resurrection from the dead.”
2.6. Jh. 3:17 - “For God sent his sent into the world, not to condemn the world, but so
that through him the world might be saved.”
2.7. Ps. 2:7
(Ac. 13:33, Heb. 5:5) - “He has told me, ‘You are my son, today I
have become your father’”
2.8. Jh. 1:14 – “And we saw his glory, the
glory that is his as the only Son of the Father”
Now, concerning this Logos, or Son of God, the
footnote (e) on Jh. 3:11
in the Jerusalem Bible says:
“He himself is the Word, 1:1,14. This word is not idle: it calls all
things from nothing, 1:1+; it calls the dead from the tomb, 11:43,44, 5:28-29;
it gives life to the soul, 5:24, 6:63, 8:51; it confess the Spirit, the source
of immortality, 1:33+, 20:22, and so make men children of God, 10:35, 1:12. It
is only required only that man should have faith in the Word, 1:12, ‘dwell’ in
it, cf. 8:31, ‘keep’ it, 8:51,55; 12:47, 14:23, 15:20, 17:6, obey its command
which is love, 13:34. Nevertheless, the Word is enigmatic, 2:20+, and
difficult, cf. 6:60, 7:36;
it makes its way only into humble hearts. Those who hear it, therefore, respond
differently, 7:43, 10:19; some believe, 4:41, 7:40f, 46; 8:30, others go away
disappointed, 6:66, in spite of the ‘signs’, 2:11+; this same rejected Word
will judge them at the last day, 12:48.
What happened now to this pre-existent Logos Son of
God?
1. He took human flesh. “The
Word was made flesh” (Jh. 1:14);
2. He took our
human nature. “This news is about the Son
of God who, according to the human
nature he took, was a descendant of David” (Rm. 1:3).
3. He appeared
on earth. “So causing her to appear on
earth and moved among men” (Ba. 3:38).
4. He became a
man. “His state was divine, yet he did
not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition
of a slave, and became as men are, he was humble yet, even accepting death,
death on the cross.” (Ph. 2:6-8);
5. He took
human flesh. “He was made visible in the
flesh, attested by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the pagans,
believed in by the world, taken up in
glory.” (1 Tim. 3:16).
6. He was made
visible. “The Word, who is life - that
life was made visible: we saw it and we are giving our testimony, telling you
of the eternal life which was with the Father and has been made visible to us”
(1 Jh. 1:2).
7. He took
descent from Abraham. “For it was not the
angels that he took to himself; he took to himself descent from Abraham. It was
essential that he should in this way become completely like his brothers so
that he could be a compassionate and
trustworthy high priest of God’s religion, able to atone for human sins.”
(Heb. 2:16-17).
8. He was
descended from David. “Does not the
scripture say that the Christ must be descended from David and come from the
town of Bethlehem?”
(Jh. 7:42).
9. He lived among us (Jh. 1:14).
Although,
in the Biblical tradition, the phrase “sons of God” refer to angels (Gn. 6:1,
Job 1:6, 2:1, Ps. 29:1, 82:1, 89:6), but
Jesus Christ, the pre-incarnate Logos, “is now above the angels as the title
which he took he has inherited as higher than their own name” (Heb. 1:4).
What
is the effect of the presence to the world, or to men, of the incarnate Logos,
Jesus Christ?
1. Ho. 2:1 - “And the number of the sons of Israel will be
like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the
place where they were told, ‘You are no people of mine’, they will be called,
‘The sons of the living God’”.
2. Jh. 1:12 -
“But to all who did accept him, he gave
power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was
born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man, but of God
himself.”
3. 2 P. 1:4 -
“In making these gifts, he has given us
the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come: through them you
will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world
that is sunk in vice.”
4. 1 Jh.
2:15-16 - “You must not love this passing world or anything that is in the world.
The love of the Father cannot be in any man who lives the world because nothing the world has to offer - the sensual
body, the lustful eye, pride in possessions
- could ever come from the Father but only from the world”.
5. 1 Jh. 3:1-2
- “Think of the love that the Father has
lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we
are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not
acknowledge us. My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we
are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it
is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is”.
4. 1 Jh. 5:13 - “I have written all this to you so that you
who believe in the name of the Son of God may be sure that you have eternal
life.
How
did Jesus Christ fulfill this work of making men the children of God during his
ministry on earth?
“The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming
into the world.” (Jh. 1:9)
“On these grounds the sentence is pronounced: that though the light has
come into the world, but man have shown they prefer darkness to light” (Jh.
3:19).
“I, the light, have come into the world, so that whoever believes in me
need not stay in the dark any more” (Jh. 12:46).
“For Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, she pervades
and permeates all things” (Ws. 7:26).
“We really know that he is the savior of the world” (Jh. 4:42).
“If a man serves me, he must follow me, wherever I am, my servant will be there too” (Jh. 12:26,31).
While Jesus Christ was in
the human flesh, he claimed to be one with the Father: “The Father and I are one” (Jh. 10:30).
“I have told you already: “You will die in your sins. Yes, if you do not
believe that I AM HE, you will die in your sins.” (Jh. 8:24)
“So Jesus said: ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will
know that I AM HE, and that I do nothing of myself. What the
Father has taught me is what I preach.” (Jh. 8:28)
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This’, he added, ‘is what you
must say to the sons of Israel:
‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14+)
“I, I AM Yahweh, there is no other savior but me.”
(Is. 43:11)
“It is entirely for the sake of the NAME, that they set out, without
depending on the pagans for anything” (3 Jh. 7+)
And when the work that his
Father had given him was accomplished, he recognized that “the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father”
(Jh. 13:1), therefore, he had to go back to the One who sent him, in the first
place, to this world, in order to “take his place in heaven at the right hand
of the Divine Majesty” (Heb. 1:4). and “was proclaimed Son of God in all his
power through his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4).
This
connection of the man Jesus Christ to the pre-incarnate Logos, had made firm
his claim, in the minds of the people, to the Christhood as the only-begotten
Son of God. Hence, his birth, in the human form, is important in the
dispensation of salvation which was effected and carried out through the direct
intervention of God in human history by bringing forth the expected Messiah
that was promised from the time of Abraham up to the time of King David and to
our times.
By
way of a general summary, we want to
basically underline our discovery regarding the connection and the claim of
Jesus Christ to the Messiaship, Christhood, that had been clearly established
in both the Old and the New Testament Holy Scriptures, which is, that he was
the fulfillment of the Priest-King Messiah that had been promised by God long
ago who would be the Savior of the world.
Jesus
Christ did this by assuming later the priestly power, which, although he was
legally a priest like John the Baptist since Jesus was a descendant of the
priestly Levitical tribe through the Virgin Mary, but because Mary registered herself in the
census called by Caesar Augustus in the kingly
tribe of Judah, out of deference and submission to her husband Joseph, who was a descendant
of King David, had forfeited the priestly power, which Jesus Christ could have
legally inherited through her, in favor of the kingly power which Patriarch
Joseph legally possessed since he is a direct descendant of King David. By a
priestly ordination which John the Baptist conferred to Jesus Christ during his
baptism in the river Jordan, and because of his actual assumption of the priestly
ministry of John the Baptist, by baptizing and preaching like his predecessor
in the whole Palestinian country, after John’s arrest and death, Jesus had assumed legitimately the priestly power,
which made him a priest-king Messiah, in the pattern of the priest-king
Melchizedek, a figure himself of the Son of God.
In conclusion, let us once
more assert the biblical principle that we discovered and formulated at the end
of the homily for December 16, 2004, which says that: it is not proper and right for the priestly (spiritual) power to
assume the kingly (political) power, just like what happened during the
Maccabean times, which created the Hasmonaean and Herodian dynasty which ruled
Israel until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. But it is right
and proper for the kingly (political) power to assume the priestly (spiritual)
power, as it was began by King David and King Solomon when, as kings of Israel,
started to build, and finally completed,
the building of the First Temple, and, which precedent, was followed by Jesus
Christ, the Messiah Savior, in order to fulfill what God has spoken through the
prophet that he shall be both “(spiritual) shepherd and (political)leader of my
people Israel” (1 Ch. 11:2).
Here ends our topics
regarding the eleven Messianic connections.
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