There is no such thing as a Christian who doesn’t believe that Jesus is God. Trinity is essential. Last weekend was a weekend of cults or, at the very least, semi-cults for me. I was ordained the privilege to speak of Christ with a Seventh Day Adventist on Thursday, a Mormon on Friday and some Jehovah’s Witnesses on Saturday.
Both Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) have nothing to do with God as Father because they both have a dreadfully wrong Jesus, 1 John 2:23; 1 John 4:1. As I considered my conversation throughout the week I began asking myself about new ways to illumine Jesus’ eternal nature. Of course He was alive before He was incarnated in Mary. He was the one who created this world, John 1:1; cf. John 1:14. Even a JW doesn’t deny this. Both Mormons and JWs have a Christ who existed prior to coming to earth as a baby. Both, however, deny that there was never a time when the Son was not. They both teach that Jesus was created by God at some point. They both deny that Jesus is God thereby making them non-Christian, Colossians 2:9. It’s because they deny that Jesus is God that they cannot acknowledge His eternal existence. Only God is eternal. This is true of JWs. Mormons do not believe that their “heavenly father” is eternal. He was not always god. He was once a man like us they say. They are polytheists who acknowledge the existence of millions of gods. For monotheists such as the JW and myself, however, God alone is said to be eternal. Even God cannot ever create another God because anything created is by its very definition not God. Jesus was never created! He is the eternal God, a member of the trinity. I began to think over all the many places where I can establish Jesus’ eternal existence. When I say eternal I mean it in the sense of what went before this world, and not only after. Of course Jesus will exist into eternity future. So will I. Unlike God I didn’t exist throughout eternity past. I was taken to Isaiah. I’d like to take you there.
Isaiah 43:10-11 reads: “You are My witnesses,” says the Lord, “And My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no savior.”
God told Israel there was no other Savior than He. Jesus lived out the names that were spoken of Him without fail. If there’s one most certainly chief among them it’s that of, “Savior.” Matthew 1:21; Jude 1:25; 1 John 4:14. To the extent that I can establish the eternality of the God spoken of here in Isaiah 43 I can establish the eternality of the Savior.
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us,” Matthew 1:23. They who know this God call Him Savior; they who know this Savior call Him God.
