The New Testament, in fact, teaches that Christ was himself the Creator of all things. "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him" (Col. 1:16). Note also such Scriptures as John 1:3, 10; Hebrews 1:2-3; Ephesians 3:9; Revelation 3:14, etc.
After the creation of the world and of man, Christ in His pre-incarnate state occasionally came down for direct communication with man. In fact, whenever God appeared to man in any visible form, it was none other than Christ who thus appeared. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18). He is "Alpha and Omega" (Rev. 22:13), the living "Word" which "was God" and which "was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1-2). He thus has the office in the godhead of direct executive and communicational activity with respect to all of God's created works and beings. "All things were made by Him" (John 1:3), and He now is "upholding all things by the word of His power" (Heb. 1:3). Whenever we read such statements as "the Lord appeared unto Abram" (Gen. 12:7), we may properly understand this to be a theophany, in which the pre-existent Christ was making God and His will known to man by direct manifestation.
When John the Baptist came to announce the imminent appearing of the Messiah, he said: "He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me" (John 1:15, 30). He applied the terms "Lord" (Jehovah) and "God" (Elohim) in Isaiah 40:3, both to Jesus Christ, whose coming he had been sent to proclaim.
A good example of Christ's claims to this pre-incarnate existence is found in John 8:56-58. On this occasion, He confronted the Jews with a remarkable claim: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." They replied incredulously, "Hast thou seen Abraham?" Jesus answered with an emphatic claim, not to reincarnation, but to pre-incarnation: "Before Abraham was, I am!"
Quite probably this was a reference to Genesis 15:1, in which it says: "The word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision." This is the first use of "word" in the Word, and thus stresses that God's Word is personalized in God himself, the living Word (John 1:1). On that historic occasion, the Word said, "I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward," this constituting the first of the many great "I am's" of Christ.
The Descent from Heaven
Long before it actually occurred, the incarnation had been planned in heaven. Jesus Christ was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet. 1:20). Indeed, He was the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).
It was promised through the Old Testament Scriptures that God himself would enter the human family in order to suffer and die and rise again, to redeem the lost world and reconcile all things to himself.
The first of these promises was given immediately after man's first sin, concurrently with God's imposition of the great curse on man and his dominion. In Genesis 3:15 (known as the "protevangel" or "first announcement of the gospel"), God promised: "And I will put enmity between thee [i.e., the Serpent, or Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [or, better, 'He'] shall bruise [literally 'crush'] thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Since neither Satan nor "woman" could produce literal seed, it is clear that this promise refers to a spiritual seed in both cases. Nevertheless, the "seed of the woman" requires an actual birth into the human family. In some way, therefore, the promised deliverer would be born of woman, but without genetic connection to His human parents. Clearly implied, though in veiled terminology, is the supernatural entrance of God himself into human life, in a great incarnation.
This primeval promise was made much more explicit over three thousand years later, through the prophet Isaiah. "Behold, [the] virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isa. 7:14). The use of the definite article (the virgin) is justified by the Hebrew original and thus implies a very specific virgin, most likely referring to the "seed of the woman" of Genesis 3:15. This primeval promise is seen reflected in the early traditions of many nations, and even in the primeval signs seen by man in the heavens, the zodiacal sign Virgo being a case in point. When Isaiah spoke of the virgin, there is little doubt that his hearers and readers would have tied it in with the ancient Edenic promise, and this, in fact, was exactly the interpretation placed upon it by the Rabbinic teachers of pre-Christian Israel.
As far as the word "virgin" is concerned (Hebrew ha-almah), modern liberal commentators notwithstanding, it means exactly what its King James translation suggests. It is used six other times in the Old Testament, and in every case could mean virgin, and in some cases must mean virgin. In the Septuagint translation of this verse, as well as its quotation in Matthew 1:23, the Greek parthenos is used, which can only mean "virgin." Also, the definite article, "the virgin" appears in the Greek translations as well.
The name Immanuel means "God with us," and clearly refers to a supernatural birth in which God would become one of humankind. The same thought is amplified in Isaiah 9:6: "For unto us a child is born …and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
Even more specific is Micah 5:2, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah …out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Note also the striking prophecy of Jeremiah 31:22: "The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man."
In due course, "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman" (Gal. 4:4). Jesus frequently made reference to the fact that He proceeded "forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father" (John 16:28).
John says, "God sent his only begotten Son into the world" (1 John 4:9), and Paul says that God sent "His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3). "Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16).
The Incarnation
In order to redeem man, therefore, God must somehow become man. He must enter His space-time cosmos in a finite, temporal form, yet without ceasing to be the infinite, eternal God. This apparent paradox is resolved in the triune nature of God. God's eternal Son can also become the Son of Man.
"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). The classic passage on the incarnation of Christ is Philippians 2:6-7, which can be paraphrased as follows: "Christ Jesus, being in the outward form of God, not fearful of losing his deity, divested himself of that appearance, and took upon himself the outward form of a slave, and was made in the physical likeness of men."
This divestiture (Greek kenosis) of His heavenly glory, did not mean that He gave up His essential deity. He was still the infinite and holy God, and continued to manifest His divine attributes when occasion required. At the same time, He now became a man, perfect man. As God, He can do all things consistent with His character, and so He could, and did, become man also.
The importance of the Incarnation is incalculable. Satan had become the ruler of this world when he persuaded the first man to follow him. All men since had become through Adam, "children of disobedience" and "children of wrath," walking according to the "prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2:2-3). In order for man to be reconciled to God and Satan to be crushed, God must become the "seed of the woman," taking up residence, first of all, in embryonic form in the womb of a prepared woman, and then undertaking His great work of redemption among men.
Not only, therefore, did Satan do all he could to prevent the Incarnation, but even yet refuses to let his hosts acknowledge that it was successfully accomplished. The very touchstone by which evil spirits