What was Jesus before he became man?

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Jesus is known as the second person of the Holy Trinity- God the Son.

My question is why is Jesus called God the Son?

Now, obviously Jesus is the son of God and Mary. But what about before that? Before Jesus became man? If God the Father was not yet his father then what was Jesus? Jesus did not just come into being after Mary gave birth to him. He was alive before that.

John says that he was the word. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” It is the word of God that John said became flesh.

So if God spoke the world into existence. And Jesus is the word. Then did God create the world through Jesus?

Some people have also argued that Jesus is the personification of God’s wisdom (the one described in the psalms). If so then does that mean that God the Father is the head of the trinity that works through the son who is the power, wisdom, and word of God that became man?
 
John 1:14

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.
 
The inner life of the Blessed Trinity and the relations between the three divine persons is obviously the deepest mystery of our faith, and something that we will spend eternity contemplating, but there are some things that we can know from revelation.

First of all, God the Father has always been Jesus’ Father. That wasn’t something that only became true at the Incarnation. In the Nicene Creed, we say the Son is “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” What does that mean?

What is basically meant by saying that the Son is begotten by the Father is that he is the Father’s image of himself, and he has received the divine nature from the Father. “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power.” (Hebrews 1:3) This begetting is spiritual, not physical, and eternal, meaning there never was a time that the Son did not exist. So he is not created. But the Father is the source of the Son, not the other way around. That’s why Jesus says “All things have been given to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matt 11:27)

All things have been given to the Son by the Father, including the one divine nature, which leads to the second half of that sentence of the creed, that the Son is “consubstantial” with the Father. The previous English translation used the term “one in being” with the Father, which wasn’t as precise but got at the same point, which is that the Father and Son are not two separate beings that possess the same nature, like a human father and son are, but that the Father and Son (and Holy Spirit) are ONE being. They are three distinct persons, but one Divine being, because each person possesses the one divine nature equally.

But within the inner life of the Trinity, there is a sort of hierarchy, because the Father is the source of the Divine nature, and the Son (and the Spirit) receive the divine nature from Him. That’s ultimately why Jesus is called “The Son.” That’s who he is in relation to the Father.

But again, it’s important to remember that this “begetting” is a) spiritual and b) eternal. It’s not like the Father existed alone and then begot the Son. That would make the Son a creature. From all eternity the Father begets the Son, and from all eternity the Son loves the Father, and from all eternity the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love between the Father and the Son.

Does this help a little? I’m sure it’s probably added a million other questions, but I hope that it helped at least a little in understanding what Jesus was doing before he became man, and why he is called “the Son.”

By the way, a much better explanation of this than what I just gave can be found in Frank Sheed’s book “Theology and Sanity”. I would recommend checking that out.
 
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Great explanation! My question–which I think I’ve asked before, but not to you–is what does the word “Person” mean with regard to the relation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? It cannot mean an individual in the human sense, can it? Neither can Person mean a part because then the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would not be consubstantial. Nor can it mean an entity for then one would have three entities instead of one G-d. So is there anything written about what the word Person means? I know the Persons are distinct although not separate, but I’m not sure what that means either. If the Persons’ functions are distinct, then aren’t they either parts or entities?
 
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A person is a self determined self aware conscious being. A species unto it’self. Only God can say ‘I always was’ there are three persons who can say ‘I always was’ and those three Persons are Being God. So god is three Persons in One Being. The divine Persons are identicle in relation to creation. They are distinct only to themselves. Without Divine revelation it is impossible for human reason to apprehend the trinity of Persons of God. There is a lot more to it but that’s basic theology of the Trinity.

If you look up Superkenosis that is some relatively current theology on the Trinity. Too new to be accepted but not rejected either.
 
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I understand that God the Son was with the Father in the beginning and that God the Father was not alone.

But would God the Son still be called God the Son even before the incarnation?
The definition of Son is male descendant or offspring.
An offspring is the product or result of something.
So in the beginning before the world was created would this definition still apply? How would Jesus be the offspring of God before he was conceived as human?

Jesus could not have been conceived as God before he was human because Jesus is God and would already have been at the beginning.

Therefore how did the father-son relationship exist in the beginning before God the Son was conceived as a human?
 
The title asked “What was Jesus before he became man?”


Philippians 2:7

rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
 
“Father” and “Son” are the human terms we apply to the first two Persons. Obviously they aren’t biologically true (not even after the Incarnation — the Father is not a human male with genes that can combine with Mary’s to make a new human), but they are the best description we have of the relationship between the two.

You are correct that both Persons are eternal. The Son didn’t come into existence after the Father; God has always existed as the Trinity. But the Son (and the Spirit) still “come from” the Father in a way that is not true in reverse. We use the words “begotten” for the Son and “proceeding” for the Spirit. We also see the Biblical concepts of God’s Word (applied to the Son) and God’s Spirit (literally meaning Breath) for the HS, again referring to things that come forth from God (the Father).

The usual Western Christian image (which is not a necessary part of the dogma but may be helpful in picturing the relationships) is that the Father is God per se, the Son is the Father’s perfect idea of Himself (and being perfect, is also and equally God), and the Spirit is the love that flows between the two ((and being perfect love, is also and equally God. Of course, this isn’t a time thing — we shouldn’t imagine the Father being alone for awhile and then contemplating Himself to bring forth the Son and then realizing He really loves Himself. Rather, the fact that God “contains” these relationships is as eternally and inherently a part of God’s nature as His power and knowledge and love.
 
meltzerboy2, have a look at my previous post. According to the Athanasian Creed (which devotes most of its text to an exacting breakdown of orthodox teaching on the Trinity),those non-reciprocal relationships are the only distinction between the Persons. There is one God, one Eternal, one Almighty. The Father, Son, and Spirit all share those attributes while remaining one, not three. Yet the Father is not the Son or the Spirit and so on for the other two. The Father is neither created nor begotten nor proceeding. The Son is not created but is begotten by the Father. The Spirit is neither created nor begotten but proceeds (from the Father or from both of the others depending on one’s take on the filioque). And that is the only distinction. The Persons don’t have to communicate or discuss their actions because they also share one divine Mind and Will.

As for “Person,” you are correct in not thinking of the standard definition. Remember that that’s an English translation of a Latin translation (persona) of a Greek philosophical term (hypostasis) that the Council Fathers at Nicea pressed into service to describe something about God that does not otherwise exist in human experience. I’m not sure that they could have told you in concrete terms what they meant for it to mean, except that it’s defitely not the same as an ousia, dangit.
 
Jesus wasn’t just born through Mary. He is Eternally Begotten of the Father.

In the depths of eternity, upon contemplating Himself, the Son is begotten eternally. Not created. He always Has been and always will Be.
The Holy Spirit is the “Heart” of the Trinity.

All 3 Persons, One God, have always been there eternally, and though words that typically describe some sort of new beginning are used to refer to them, this is due to human limitations.
 
Thanks for the explanation here and in your previous post. Now I have more questions. First, why do you think G-d would require a “perfect image of Himself” and what does this mean? Second, I thought the Holy Spirit resides in us, so is It also the love between the Father and the Son? And who decided on this definition of the Holy Spirit: the Church Fathers, the Apostles, Jesus? My final question is what should we make of the notion that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, and what does this mean? It seems to me the hypostatic union adds further complexity to the already challenging idea of a Trinitarian G-d. Thanks for any light you can shed.
 
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Thank you for this explanation. What does “distinct only to themselves” mean, and if this is so, then how do WE know they are distinct? More essentially, what does the word “distinct” mean in this context?
 
Wingz said:
So if God spoke the world into existence. And Jesus is the word. Then did God create the world through Jesus?
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Jesus was a spirit prior to assuming flesh. The Father created the world for Jesus.

God exists eternally as Trinity, so Jesus always was and always will be. God is eternally one in essence, three in Person.
 
The Catholic Church defines “person” and “nature” in terms of Aristotelian philosophy.
You cannot expect to understand even the definitions (let alone that of the Trinity which makes use of this terminology) without understanding the philosophic system of both Aquinas and Aristotle.

But for what its worth “person” was acceptably defined by Boethius as follows:

“a person is an individual substance of a rational nature.”

This discussion may help those who do not:

 
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Jesus was never a “human person”.

He was always a pre-existing “divine person” - who at a point in time acquired a human nature.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Thank you for this explanation. What does “distinct only to themselves” mean, and if this is so, then how do WE know they are distinct? More essentially, what does the word “distinct” mean in this context?
Click to expand...
I apologize for the lengthy response.Hope I make it understandable.

They are distinct only to themselves in that to know there are distinctions requires that they themselves reveal it. If God doesn’t reveal what is distinct between them then God as a Trinity is unknowable.

The Trinity is revealed when God becomes man. Believing Jesus is God through faith requires reason to confirm that faith in Jesus as God is reasonable. The New Testament does exactly that. Christian theology is the study of the Trinity as revealed by the Apostles witness of Jesus public ministry. That study of Jesus as the Son of God reveals the Father. This leads to the understanding of the Divine procession of Persons.

The Divine Procession is happening eternally and not in time.It’s not a sequence happening but is now happening,and has always been happening.

So Jesus is everything the Father is because the Father gives the Son everything He has. The only thing the Father can’t give to the Son is what distinguishes Him from the Son. The Son can’t be the Father. The Son is understood to be the Father’s cognizance of Himself and the Father’s cognizance which is His Word generates another Person who is God the Word who is the Son. Only God can know God fully.

The Love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the father spirates another Person who is God. This is God that hovers over the deep and who is doing the will of the Father to reveal the Son. The Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father for the Son. It’s the Holy Spirit who inspires the Prophets to reveal the Son as the coming Messiah. Jesus comes as a Son so that reveals God the Father. This Divine Procession of Persons is operating throughout salvation history and reveals the distinctions between the Divine Persons.
 
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Thank you for the detailed explanation. I think I now understand the relationship of the Persons (not completely of course). Do Protestants of various denominations believe this same dogma as Catholics or is there a slightly different interpretation?
 
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This seems to be an important and profound distinction.
 
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Most mainstream Protestants do. There are many, as more denominations emerge, that teach heresies corrected in the past. The denominations that don’t believe Jesus is a divine person among three in one being or don’t believe the three are really distinct persons and those that don’t believe Jesus is God are believing something different. Some are using the same terms as developed by Catholics but they don’t mean the same thing attached to their beliefs. Many don’t understand that how they are conceptualizing the Trinity is not in line with their mainline brothers.
 
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