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Does God Come to Earth before Jesus’ Birth?Bethany Pyle
Does God Come to Earth before Jesus’ Birth? - Explore the Bible
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).When we look for God in the Bible, we often look in the most obvious places: t...www.biblestudytools.com
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UpdatedApril 23, 2021
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“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
When we look for God in the Bible, we often look in the most obvious places: the Gospels, which tell us about the incredible life of Jesus. But when we flip back to the Old Testament, God can often feel more distant. After all, as humans we were made to interact and connect with other humans – it’s easy for us to relate to God through Jesus.
But if we dig a bit deeper into the Old Testament, we see a personal, human God who came bodily to earth on more than one occasion. These appearances of God are known as a theophany, and they can come in many forms. These can be nature-related, as when God appears on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16-20), vision-related, like what Daniel see in Daniel 10, or one of many others. There are several examples in the Old Testament of angels coming to earth for various reasons, but these should not be confused with a theophany. Angels, while heavenly beings, are not equivalent in power to God the Father or God the Son.
There is a type of theophany where God appears as a man. We’ll look at three of these, and see that although God’s plan was to send Jesus to earth in the early 1st Century, He did not leave humanity unattended in the meantime. Our God is personal and compassionate, and He always has been.
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Who Does Jesus Say He Is?
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
“’She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)” (Matthew 1:21-23).
When we look at the appearance of God in the Old Testament, we can ask ourselves – “is this Jesus?” That’s the question that sparked my interest in this article, so let’s look at who Jesus says He is.
The foundation of our Christian faith rests on the fact that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but God Himself. But Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection reaffirms this fact. It isn’t just something that we can guess at or gather – Jesus says that He is the Son of God. His life points to His deity on no uncertain terms. Let’s let Scripture speak for itself:
“’I and the Father are one.’ Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any good work,’ they replied, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God’” (John 10:30-33).
“Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-14).
“But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’ (Mark 14:61-62, emphasis added).
Jesus isn’t the only one who speaks about His deity. We see several examples later in the New Testament as well:
“…While we wait for the blessed hope — the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage” (Philippians 2:6).
The very concept of the Trinity is beyond human understanding. It’s certainly beyond my understanding. But, based on the evidence above, it is fair to assume that Jesus is God. They are the same; they are one. When we hear the voice of God speaking to Moses in the burning bush, it is Jesus also. When Jesus healed the sick on earth, it was the power of God at work within Him.
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Jesus with Abraham
Ephesians 1:4 reminds us that God chose us to be His “before the foundation of the world.” Indeed, the first words of Genesis say that before creation, the earth was formless and void, with only the Spirit of God “hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
If, by our previous reasoning, Jesus and God are one, and by this new evidence, that God has always been, and will always be, then we can conclude that Jesus has also always been. He says so Himself:
“’Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’” (John 8:58).
In Genesis 18, Abraham receives three heavenly visitors. He knows right away that they are no ordinary men, as he hurries out of his door and bows to them the moment he sees them. Genesis 18:1 spoils it for us by leading with “The LORD appeared to Abraham…”
But unlike a vision or pillar of smoke, this is a flesh-and-blood man who sits with the patriarch. Verses 4-8 list the ways that Abraham shows hospitality to his guests – he offers them fresh water and prepares quite a nice meal while they wait. Genesis 1:8 tells us that the four of them ate together.
This seems like a small point to make, but it’s important to note that Abraham broke bread and ate together with these men. It’s a sign of this heavenly being’s humanity. Tim Chaffey of Answers in Genesis makes a similar point, even earlier in Genesis:
“Remember, after Adam and Eve sinned and sewed fig leaves together, they ‘heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Genesis 3:8, emphasis added). The implication is that God appeared in physical form since they heard Him walking in the garden prior to confronting Adam and Eve.”
God bodily walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve. God bodily came to earth to give Abraham the good news that he would soon be a father. He is never distant from His people.
But, as so often happens with us, we sometimes need God to come to earth and knock some sense into us. In some cases, literally.
Jesus with Jacob
If we fast-forward a few generations past Abraham, we find the story of Jacob. For a patriarch of Judaism, and eventually Christianity, Jacob was a bit problematic. By Genesis 32, he has already tricked his older brother out of his birthright, and tricked his dying father into giving him Esau’s blessing. Following this, Jacob goes on the run. But by Genesis 32, he is ready to reunite with his brother and seek forgiveness.
The night before this reunion, Jacob finds himself locked in a fierce wrestling match with a mysterious man. Just like Abraham before him, Jacob knows this is no ordinary man.
“When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’ ‘Jacob,’ he answered. Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome’” (Genesis 32:25-28).
“So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared’” (Genesis 32:30).
Once again, God came to earth to interact directly with men. This time, it was as a challenge. Jacob physically wrestled with God, on the eve of a significant challenge in his life. Maybe you can relate to this, spending the night wrestling with God. But this struggle is never one-sided, and it is never pointless. It can be difficult for us to follow the path God has laid out, and turning from that path will have consequences, as Jacob sees both physically, in his injured hip, and emotionally and spiritually.
But God is with us in our moments of doubt. He is with us as we struggle to follow the path of righteousness, and He will guide us through.
Jesus in the Fiery Furnace
“The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, ‘Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?’ They replied, ‘Certainly, Your Majesty.’ He said, ‘Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods’” (Daniel 3:22-25).
In the book of Daniel, we find our last example. After refusing to bow to the pagan idols, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are sentenced to execution. They are thrown into a fire pit so hot, it kills the soldiers who tossed them in. But the three men are not consumed; in fact, Nebuchadnezzar is shocked to see a fourth man among the flames.
We may be tempted to zero in on his exclamation “the fourth looks like a son of the gods,” but it’s important to remember that Nebuchadnezzar is pagan – he is probably referring to plural gods, not recognizing the Son of the one true God. And in all fairness, this could be an angel that God sent in His place - not a true theophany. Unlike with the previous encounters, there is no statement affirming that it was God Himself, so this passage is up for interpretation.
Regardless, both we the reader, and Nebuchadnezzar, recognize that something supernatural has happened (not the least of which is that the three condemned men refuse to die.)
We see in this story that God is with his people in their trials. God protected the three faithful men, saving them even from death. God doesn’t just sit idly by as we struggle, He is with us no matter what dangers and trials we face. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of this when he writes of God:
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze” (Isaiah 43:2).
God Is Unchanging
Chaffey writes “Rather than undermining the uniqueness and importance of Christ, theophanies affirm the uniqueness of Jesus. They also show the intimacy of God with His creation, unlike the distant god of deism that some people incorrectly associate with the God of the Bible.”
These Old Testament examples do not mean that Jesus’ birth and our Christmas celebrations are less important. Because we see examples of God coming in bodily form in other places in the Bible, it does not lessen Jesus’ power and importance. As Chaffey explains, it should make us even more awed by Him.
The three examples I listed above are not the only times we see God in the Old Testament. I'd encourage you to do your own investigations; look for the ways that God reveals Himself to humanity, and ponder what that shows about His character and compassion. Our God is not distant, and never has been. We see Him walking among and interacting with human beings in both Testaments of the Bible. And even if we don’t see it in the same way in our modern world, we can be absolutely confidant that God is still among us today, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God is unchanging. He cared for Abraham, Jacob and the three faithful men in the Old Testament. He cared for His disciples, His family and the crowds around Him in the New Testament. And He cares for you now, 2,000 years later.
