“In order to appreciate fully this unique significance of Christ, we must proceed from the idea of the Scriptures that Christ began to exist, unlike us, at His conception and birth, but centuries before— in fact, that from eternity He was the only-begotten and beloved Son of the Father.
In the Old Testament already the Messiah is designated as the Father of eternity who is an eternal Father for His people (Isa. 9:6), and as one whose goings forth (origin and source) have been from of old, from everlasting (Micah 5:2).
The New Testament carries on that idea, but gives even clearer expression to the eternity of Christ. It is implied in all those passages in which the whole earthly work of Christ is presented as the fulfillment of a work which was laid upon Him by God. True, it is said of John the Baptist also that He had to come and did come as a second Elijah (Mark 9:11–13 and John 1:7). But the emphasis put upon the fact that Christ came into the world to fulfill His work, and the number of times this is said, point to the truth that this expression is used in a special sense.
We do not read in a general sense only that He went out from the Father in order to preach (Mark 1:38), that He came in order to call sinners to repentance and to give His soul as a ransom for many (Mark 2:17 and 10:45). Something else is added. It is expressly said also that He is sent out for the preaching of the Gospel (Luke 4:43), that it is the Father who has sent Him (Matt. 10:40 and John 5:24ff.), that He has proceeded from the Father and has come in His name (John 5:43; 8:42, and elsewhere), that He came down from heaven and came into the world.
Thus Jesus knows Himself to be the only Son who was beloved of the Father and was sent out into the vineyard after all the other servants (Mark 12:6). He who was the Son of David was already David’s Lord (Mark 12:37), was before Abraham (John 8:58), and had glory with the Father before the world was (John 17:5 and 24).
This self-awareness of Jesus concerning His eternal existence is more specifically unfolded in the apostolic witness. In Christ that eternal Word which at the beginning was with God and itself was God became flesh (John 1:1 and 14).
He was the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, who stands higher than all the angels not only but can lay claim to their worship also, who is an eternal God and an eternal King, who always remains the same and whose years shall not fail (Heb. 1:3–13).
He was rich (2 Cor. 8:9), found Himself in the form of God so that He was like the Father not only in essence, but also in form, status, and glory. He regarded this equality with God not as something which He should keep and use for Himself (Phil. 2:6), but instead He laid it aside to put on the form of a man and a servant (Phil. 2:7-8), and in that way was exalted to the Lord who was from heaven and as such was a contrast to Adam, the man of the earth (1 Cor. 15:47).
In one word, Christ, just as the Father, is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Rev. 1:11, 17; and 22:13).
Hence the activity of this incarnate Son of God did not begin only at His appearance upon the earth, but goes back to the creation. By the Word were all things without exception made (John 1:3 and Heb. 1:2, 10). He is the firstborn, the head, the beginning of every creature (Col. 1:15 and Rev. 3:14).
He is before all things (Col. 1:17). Creatures are made through Him not only, but they consist by Him also (Col. 1:17) and are from moment to moment upheld by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). And they are also created for Him (Col. 1:16), for God appointed Him, who was the Son, as the heir of all things (Heb. 1:2 and Rom. 8:17).
Hence from the very beginning there is a close relationship between the Son and the world and an even closer one between the Son and men. For in Him was life, the full, rich, inexhaustible life, the source of all life in the world, but that light was for men who were created after the image of God, and were in possession of a rational, moral nature, a source of Divine truth which men had to know and regard (John 1:14).
It is true that man by sin then became darkness, but the light of the Word nevertheless shone in that darkness (John 1:5), it lightened every man that came into the world (John 1:9), for the Word was and remained in the world, and continued working in the world, although it was not known by that world (John 1:10).
The Christ who appears on earth in the fulness of time is therefore, according to the account which Holy Scripture gives of Him, not a man as other men are, not a founder of a religion and a preacher of a new moral law. His position is unique.
He was from eternity as the only-begotten of the Father. He was the Creator, Sustainer, and Governor of all things. In Him was the life and the light of men. When He appears in the world, He comes to it not as a stranger, but as its Lord, as one who is related to it.
The redemption or re-creation is related to the creation, grace to nature, the work of the Son to the work of the Father. Redemption is built on foundations laid in creation.”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 264-265.
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