Prologue – The Eternal Pre-Existence of Jesus Christ as the Logos (Joh. 1, 1-5)

The Gospel of John begins just like the Bible itself. It says Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning" and John 1:1 also: "In the beginning". While in Genesis (first book of Moses) it now continues to say: "God created the heavens and the earth", John shows us what was already there in the beginning as the essential being, namely the Creator Word, the Logos.

So John goes much further back to the true origin of all being than the Mosaic account of creation. It shows us not only the one who makes the eons (world times), God as the Creator, who becomes active through his speaking, that is through the Logos (Christ), but also centralizes himself with him and culminates everything in Christ, the Son of God, who has become vivid.

And just as John goes backwards to the true origin, so he also shows forwards the true goal, i.e. an end without end, the perfection in the true (eternal) life. Whoever therefore believes in the Son has eternal life (chap. 3, 36; 5, 24; 6, 40. 47)".

In his prologue John shows the eternal pre-existence (prehistoric existence) of Jesus, the divine, personal Logos, as the prophet Micha already did when he wrote: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, which art little among the cities of Judah, out of thee shall go forth unto me a ruler in Israel, whose exits are from prehistory, from the days of prehistory (olam)" (Mich. 5, 1).

The Messiah therefore has several outputs. According to Amos 9,11 the beginning of the Davidic house is already in the days of prehistoric times (olam). But the prophet goes even further back to the older promises for Abraham, Jacob and Judah, which all point to the coming Messiah.

The same had been coming since time immemorial. Isaiah 48:16 says: "I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time it came, I am there. And now the Lord Jehovah has sent me and His Spirit. This backward line is endlessly extended in Scripture. It is therefore noteworthy that Jesus does not derive his eternal pre-existence and divinity from these passages, but provides another scriptural proof for it.

So we read in Matthew 22:41-46: "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he? They say to him, David. He speaks to them: "What then does David call him Lord in the Spirit, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet? (Ps 110:1). So when David calls him Lord, what is he his son? And no one could answer him a word, nor dared any man from that day to question him any further.

The concept of the eternity of the Messiah is formed in prophetism in a vigilant manner. In connection with Isaiah, the contemporary of Micah, Micah 5:1 must be addressed as a prophetic testimony to the eternal preexistence of the Messiah, so that the temporal exit from Bethlehem is contrasted with the exit from eternity; Isaiah 9:6: "For a child is born to us, a son is given to us, and dominion rests on his shoulder, and his name is called: "Wonder council, strong God (el), father of eternity" (abi ad). The evidence for the eternal divinity of Christ in the Old Testament, however, is not obvious with legal precision, so that even an unbeliever could be brought to recognition, but it becomes obligatory only to the one who opens himself in faith to the spirit of the prophetic total image and lets his knowledge be controlled.

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