The Glory of Christ Before He Entered the World

I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas. It’s great for us to be able to assemble together this morning and to study, as I prayed, the majesty of Christ. As I ponder the mystery and the pageantry of Christmas, I’m struck by how unaware the world was when the Son of God made His quiet entry. Like in the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, it says, “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.” The innkeeper did not know what was going to happen that night nor did the shepherds nor King Herod or his soldiers, certainly not Caesar Augustus in his halls of marble in Rome or the Governor Quirinius ruling over Syria. They just went to bed like any other night. And that night, shepherds outside the little town of Bethlehem were just doing their usual job at that time of year and at that hour of the night, watching over their sheep in the fields. No one knew, no one could guess what would enter human history, so silently that memorable night.

For myself, I enjoy reading stories or watching videos of great individuals who disguise themselves and show up incognito in certain places and do what they do and then astonish people by an unveiling. I love those kinds of things. I watched one video of the Portuguese soccer star Ronaldo dressing up as an elderly homeless man doing increasingly amazing soccer tricks in a crowded public square somewhere in Europe while people just walked by and looked at this guy. Or a number of years ago, violin virtuoso Joshua Bell took his 300-year old, $14 million Stradivarius into a subway station in Washington, DC and stood there with his case open and a few bucks in it while he was playing Bach and Mozart and other things while people walked by. You would have had to pay $150 for the ticket the night before, but they got it for free at that DC subway. Nobody knew who he was; they just walked right by. Or we saw Uncle Drew, Kyrie Irving dressing up. We’ve got the same with Chris Bryant, Eli Manning, Greg Maddux; they all do these kinds of things.

This great person incognito theme is very old. The story is told of Joan of Arc, proven to be divinely inspired, because she picked out King Charles VII of France from among 300 courtiers as he disguised himself as one of them. Often kings and emperors and rulers have disguised themselves and gone out into the general population to ask the loaded question, “What do you think about the king?” Not knowing who a person would be talking to at that point, to get an honest appraisal of what the king’s reign was doing, finding out what that was like.

It’s funny, Jesus Himself did this after his resurrection. Remember the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? They’re just walking along talking about all of the events that had happened. They still hadn’t put two and two together, didn’t quite know what to make of it. This stranger [Jesus] in Jerusalem comes along seemingly oblivious about all the things that have happened. They walked along and they did not recognize Him until He broke bread and their eyes were opened. But before that, He shared with them the Scriptures, all the things that Christ had to suffer and go through for our salvation and how they’re all written in the prophecies. They said afterward, “We’re not our hearts burning within us when He opened the Scriptures to us.” Jesus there, incognito, but showing the truth of the Scripture.

It was definitely that way with Jesus at the time of his birth. He entered the world with no advanced notice, with no glory at all surrounding Mary and Joseph, actually far less than normal. How many babies are born in a stable where animals are? How many babies, once born, are wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a feeding trough for animals? Therefore, it is only by faith that we can see the glory of this man, Jesus Christ.

One of the most theologically rich Christmas hymns is Charles Wesley’s, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Last year, I devoted my entire Christmas sermon to the theme of the angels’ celebration of Christ’s birth, their involvement in His life, their announcement of His resurrection. It was Christmas from the perspective of angels. This year, I want to think about another line from Wesley’s hymn. He says, “Mild, He lays his glory by; born that man no more may die.” I think Wesley was undoubtedly meditating musically on Paul’s statement about Christ’s incarnation in Philippians 2, “Have this mind in you,” which was also in Christ Jesus, “who being in the form of God did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature, the form of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” “Being in the form of God,” Paul writes there, “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped or held onto, seized or taken almost as if by robbery, but emptied Himself, made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant made in human likeness.”

This theologically rich concept of the emptying of Jesus is fraught with all kinds of possibilities of misunderstanding. In what way was Jesus no longer equal to God in the days of His incarnate humility? We totally affirm that Jesus of Nazareth was fully God as He walked the dusty roads of this earth. He was fully God in the manger, fully God as He grew to manhood, fully God when He was baptized by John in the Jordan River. He was fully God when He was tempted in the desert by the devil. He was fully God as He walked by the sea of Galilee and called Peter and Andrew, James and John to follow Him. He was fully God when He sat at table with them and discoursed with them and ate meals with them. He was fully God when He had no place to lay His head. He was fully God when He slept on a cushion in the boat before the storm. He was fully God when He was tired and sat down at that well of Samaria and asked that woman for a drink. He was fully God when He prayed in Gethsemane and sweat great drops of blood.

He was fully God when He was despised and rejected by the Jewish leaders. He was fully God when the soldiers spat on Him, mocked Him, slapped Him, put a crown of thorns on His head. He was fully God when He was nailed to the cross, fully God when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And He was fully God when He said, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” Fully God when He died. At no time did He cease to be God, for then the universe would’ve ceased to exist, for it is by Him and through Him and for Him, that God, the Father, created all things and sustains all things. Jesus could not lay down His deity.

In what way did Jesus give up equality with God when He chose to be born of the Virgin Mary and live that life I’ve just described? The prayer that you heard read a moment ago gives us a strong clue, especially in verse 5. John 17:5, “Jesus prayed the night before He died, ‘And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.’” That glory is what He laid down.

This morning, I want to probe the infinite dimensions of the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ. We’ll speak not only of the glory Christ had with the Father before they created all things, but also various dimensions of His glory after creation but before His incarnation that He had in the heavenly realms before He entered the world. Why would I do that? My purpose is to draw all of our minds into, as I prayed, exalted meditations of Jesus Christ, to lift us up from the lowliness of carnal conceptions of Christmas and of Christ into the heavenly realms of His greatness. All such meditations inevitably lead us to worship Christ and to yearn to serve Him more in this present age. That’s my purpose. They also feed our hope for heaven and empower us if need be to suffer well, because in contemplating the glory Jesus left and the glory to which He returned, we’re also contemplating our future when we will see that glory with our own eyes if we’ve repented and believed in Jesus. We’re talking about our own future blessedness in heaven. Also, it’s a call on us, as in Philippians 2, to imitate His downward journey of humiliation while we live in this world, a willingness to suffer, to consider others better than ourselves, a willingness to put others’ needs ahead of our own and to follow ethically His pattern of self-denying and dying for the benefit of others.

I. The Glory Christ Shared with the Father

Let’s begin with the glory that Christ shared with His Father. Look again at verse 5 of John 17, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” The context there in John 17, it is the night, as I said, before He was crucified. He’s in the upper room with His apostles. He’s taking part in the last supper. In John’s Gospel, He has already washed their feet as a sign of His servant heart. Satan has already entered into Judas Iscariot when he took that piece of bread and determined to go out and to betray Jesus, and he left.

Then Jesus in John 13, 14, 15, and 16 gives incredible instructions to His apostles, and through them to us, about loving service that we give to one another as He has loved us, so we should love one another. Especially about the ministry of the Counselor, the Comforter who would come and guide us into all truth and convict us of sin and work in us;  the ministry of the Counselor, of the Comforter, the mission that we would have in the world and the expectation of suffering, that we would be rejected and would be hated as we carry on that mission. All of that, the vital lessons of John 13-16.

But now Jesus wants to finish His time with them there by praying for them. In John 17, this is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the Bible. He’s praying what theologians call this magnificent, high priestly prayer. It’s very different than the prayer He prays a little while later in Gethsemane. John has no record of that prayer in which Jesus is greatly abased and humbled and is on the ground, as I said, sweating drops of blood. But this is an exalted high priestly prayer. It has three basic parts. First, He prays for Himself, secondly, He prays for His apostles, and third, He prays for the world who will believe in Him through the Apostles’ mission. That’s the basic outline of that prayer.

But He begins by praying for Himself and specifically for His own glory. Jesus has already asked God to glorify Him in His death. Look at verse 1, it says, “Father, the time has come; glorify your son, that your son may glorify you.” We know that He’s thinking about His death because He says, “The time has come.” There’s no doubt what He means, for throughout the Gospel of John, it’s been said of Him, or He says Himself, “My time has not yet come.” That it is the time for Him to die. But now the time has come.

glorify means ‘put my attributes, my perfections on radiant display.’ …That’s what it means, the attributes of God and of Christ specific to the salvation of the world.

Now, before that time had come, Jesus in His ministry brought glory to God day after day by the miracles and the teachings in the life that He poured out for the people. Look at verse 4, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” But the cross of Christ the next day would be a quantum leap forward. The death of Christ has a specific kind of glory for God and for Christ. The glory, “glorify” means “put my attributes, my perfections on radiant display.” Let people see your nature and my nature. Glorify me. That’s what it means, the attributes of God and of Christ specific to the salvation of the world. Those are on display at the cross of Christ. On the cross, God’s perfections, His attributes were put on display. His powers, love, His wisdom, justice, wrath, and many others. Jesus prays for those attributes to shine in the midst of this world of darkness, from the darkness of the cross itself that the glory of God would shine forth, the glory of Christ would shine forth, “Glorify me in my dying.”

Here in verse 5, His prayer for His own glory is not selfish. Usually when human beings seek to glorify themselves, it stops there with their own glory. They make of themselves an idol. It’s an end in itself, what the Bible would call vain glory, a stoking up of the ego. That’s not what we have going on here in verse 5 when Jesus says, “Father, glorify me.” Jesus’ motive in His own glory displayed on the cross is that God’s glory may be seen through it, that God’s love might be seen in the death of His son. For it says in Romans 5:8, God demonstrates or puts on display His own love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You can see the love of God in the cross. We can see also God’s justice in the cross so that He could be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Christ. His justice is put on display, a radiant display at the cross.

We see also in 1 Corinthians 1 both the power of God and the wisdom of God in the cross of Christ. We see the power of God in the cross of Christ. In a single day, Jesus atoned for the sins of all those that would be saved in every generation of redemptive history. In one afternoon, He atoned for their sins. That’s power. We see also the wisdom of God because Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “In the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God. God was pleased to save sinners through the foolishness of the cross by humbling us.” It was very wise of God to save us by the cross. Those four attributes, and those are a gateway to all the other attributes. It doesn’t mention wrath, but it’s clearly a display of the wrath of God. All of these things are on display.

Now, in verse 5, there’s a slight difference, though. He’s not just praying for His own glory that will be put on display in His death, but for the glory that He’s going to receive back from the Father when He ascends back into heaven, when He returns to heaven. “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” Before the universe was created, God the Father shared a unique glory with God the Son. This is the glory that God made plain in Isaiah that He would never share with a created being. He would never share that glory with a creature. In Isaiah 42:8, He says, “I am the Lord; that is my name. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” The unique glory that God will not share with any creature is the glory of being God, His deity, His divinity that He will not share with the creative being. That would be the definition of an idol.

God the Father shared with God the Son all of His plans for making a universe. They completely agreed and concurred.

He will not share that glory with another, but He will share that glory with His Son. There is a shared oneness, there’s a perfect fellowship, a shared purpose and plan intention that God the Father and God the Son had together before the world began. The glory of God the Father and God the Son. God the Father shared with God the Son all of His plans for making a universe. They completely agreed and concurred. He shared with His Son all of His plans for the creation of the human race in His image, in His likeness, and a full awareness that they would fall into sin, that was in no way a surprise, and a determination to save some people called the Elect, chosen in Christ before the creation of the world, and that He would spend eternity with them and that the Son would at some moment, in the fullness of time, enter history and die for them and atone for their sin. There was full agreement before the world began.

It was for this purpose that God the Father created all things through God the Son. That glory, the glory of God the Father and God the Son, was then just magnificently rolled out in put on display in creation. The six days of creation, and step by step we see the glory of God and all that He made. Together the Father and the Son labored on that creation. They worked on it together. As it says in John 1, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” He was with God in the beginning. “Through Him, all things were made. And without Him, nothing was made that has been made.”  Also, Hebrews 1:3, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Through the Son, God created everything. And through the Son, God sustains everything and has sustained everything. This is the glory the Son had with the Father before the world existed. 

And by God the Father through God the Son, by the power also of God, the Spirit, the heavenly realms were made with spiritual beings. We just generally call angels, but we have other names for them such as cherubim and seraphim. Other spiritual beings were created before the earth was created.  In Colossians 1:16-17, it says, “For by the Son, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Those heavenly thrones and powers and dominions refer to what we generally call angelic beings or angels who are created by God the Father through God the Son. The Son shared a throne of power ruling over all of these lesser thrones before the earth was created.

II. The Glory of Christ’s Pre-incarnate Power

Secondly, we see the glory of Christ’s pre-incarnate power. Christ is enthroned before those angels, as I just mentioned. The Bible reveals the infinite power of the pre-incarnate Christ on a throne of power and glory. God, the Father and Son, spoken into existence all of these angelic thrones and all of these angelic servants. Then we’re told that they watched and applauded and celebrated while God made the earth. God said to Job in Job 38, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you understand, who marked off its dimension? Surely, you know. Who stretched out a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set? Who laid its cornerstone while all the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” Isn’t that awesome? They’re just blown away by creation as God the Father through God the Son made everything. The angels were looking on and celebrating and applauding. The angels shouted for joy as God laid the foundation to the earth. But we’ve already said that God laid the foundations of the earth through the Son.

It’s interesting that God challenged Job, saying, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” But if you were to ask that of His only begotten Son, we know where He was. It was by the Son that God laid the foundations of the earth, as the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 1:10, God also says to His Son, “In the beginning, oh Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” What an honor the Father gives to the Son there. He didn’t say that to the angels. As Hebrews 1:13 says, “To which of the angels did God ever say, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot still for your feet’?” We see the exaltation of Christ before He entered the world on a throne above every other throne, on the throne of God, ruling over all lesser thrones.

We have a picture of that, a vision of that in the calling of Isaiah, the prophet in Isaiah 6, 1-3. There it says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple and above Him were seraphs, each with six wings, and with two wings they covered their faces and with two they covered their feet and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.'” Scholars tell us that the year that King Uzziah died was 731 BC. Over seven centuries before Christ was born in Bethlehem, Isaiah the prophet had a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ on that throne of glory.

“Seraphim”, it’s just a Hebrew word meaning “burning ones”, it’s like they’re on fire, a holy fire. They’re just burning bright, the seraphim. They’re in the presence of the enthroned, pre-incarnate Christ. John 12:41 tells us that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about Him. There’s no doubt that was Christ’s glory. It is clear from this that Jesus was reigning in absolute power and overwhelming glory before He entered the world. His glory is so overpowering that the seraphim, who are themselves burning with their own holy fire, have cover their eyes in the presence of Jesus’ glory. They cannot look at Him fully, though they are themselves perfectly free from any evil or sin. They cannot look on Him, and they never stop celebrating the glory of the Lord Jesus, saying, “The whole earth is full of His glory.” But what really overwhelms the seraphim is the holiness of the exalted Christ; “Holy, holy, holy,” they say, “is the Lord Almighty.”

Jesus’ holiness there is His infinite otherness from them. That is the glory shared with the Father before the world began, the glory of being God, the existent one from whom all other existence derives its essence. He is the uncreated Creator of all things and is therefore infinitely above all creatures. That’s His holiness there. I know that holiness in other places means freedom from all moral evil. That is true. He is perfectly free. He is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. But the holiness they’re celebrating there is that He is other than the seraphim are. He’s infinitely above the seraphim. They see that infinite gap, and He is holy.

A. W. Tozer captured this, saying, “We must not think of God as the highest and ever ascending order of being, starting with a single cell and then going on up from the fish to the bird to the animal to man to angel to cherub to God. That would be to grant God eminence, even preeminence, but that is not enough. We must grant Him transcendence in the fullest meaning of the word forever. God stands apart in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as He is above a caterpillar, for the gap, the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The caterpillar and the archangel, though far removed from each other and the scale of created beings, are nevertheless one in that they are alike created beings. God is holy above all of them. Jesus is God, infinitely above the seraphim.” There are other images in the Old Testament of Christ enthroned. The most famous is the one I just quoted, Isaiah 6.

The most incomprehensible is in Ezekiel 1. When I immersed my mind for a year and a half in the book of Ezekiel, it was Ezekiel 1 that dominated me more than any other chapter. A number of years ago, I heard a great sermon from a black preacher, S.M. Lockridge, called “My King.” You can look it up. They capture a part of the sermon where he goes on for five minutes layering descriptions of Jesus one after the other with ever ascending music. It’s very dramatic. It frequently brings me to tears. “That’s my king,” he says. He goes on and on. And at one point, he stops himself and he says, “I wish I could describe Him to you,” and they all laugh. You can hear the congregation laughing. It’s like, what have you been doing the last three minutes but trying to describe Him?  2 Corinthians 9:15 says, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.”

You want a great example of Scripture trying to put into words what cannot be put into words? Ezekiel 1 is it, describing the indescribable. What’s it about? The glory of the enthroned, pre-incarnate Christ and the cherubim who serve Him. That’s what you have there. Ezekiel, the prophet was in exile to Babylon. He had a vision of the glory of God. He was by the Kibar River in Babylon. Ezekiel 1, 4 and 5, “I looked and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north, an immense cloud with flashing lightning surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures.” He goes on to define or describe, as best he can, these living creatures in overwhelming detail: how they were brilliant like flashes of lightning, how they moved back-and-forth quickly and effortlessly, like flashes of lightning back and forth. They moved by means of wheels that had eyes all around and were great and awesome but didn’t touch the ground. These incredible angelic beings he later identifies in Ezekiel as cherubs or cherubim. But because they’re so bright and like they’re on fire, I wouldn’t necessarily think they were different than the seraphim of Isaiah 6. But I don’t know; maybe there are different orders of angelic beings. Seraphim, cherubim different; I don’t know.

But the real focus of the vision in  Ezekiel 1, is not the cherubim at all, however amazing and awesome they were. They’re moving back and forth rapidly over the surface of the earth and they’re glowing as if on fire, that fire I later came to identify as the fire of holiness, their own holiness, purity from all evil and a readiness to serve Him. They have wings. But the purpose, the focus of vision was what was above their heads. “High above their heads was”, we were told, “in what looked something like a vault. The expanse sparkled like ice, and was awesome… And high above that expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire. And high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be His waist up He looked like glowing metal as if full of fire. And that from there down He looked like fire and a brilliant light surrounded Him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so is the radiance around Him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell face down and I heard the voice of one speaking.“

Given that the one seated on that throne high and exalted had the appearance of a man, a human being, I think we are to surmise this was the pre-incarnate Christ appearing like a human being, like a son of man on a throne of fire. It’s amazing. When He spoke from His throne, the cherubim, these mighty, awesome beings stood still with their wings lowered. They were so reverent at the words that came from the throne of Christ. Though they themselves are awesome in power and glory, they stand in awe of Christ enthroned. This is the power of Christ’s throne. By that power, all things were made. By that power, all things sustained. By that power, He rules over all things and guides all of them to God’s predestined purpose. This is the power of Christ’s throne. This is the glory He shared with God before He entered the world.

III. The Glory of Christ’s Pre-incarnate Honor

We see also, therefore, the glory of Christ’s pre-incarnate honor. From these two visions, Isaiah 6 and  Ezekiel 1, we see the honor, the adulation, the worship paid to Jesus. They continually cry out about His glory. They continue to lavish on Him praise. They can’t stop worshiping Him. And in Ezekiel, when they stand with lowered wings, they’re reverent. They tremble at the word that comes from Jesus’ mouth. Before Christ entered the world, all of heaven adored Him. His Father adored Him and honored Him. Now, we should not imagine that the son of God was some needy being and entered the world to see if He could cobble up some followers that could stoke His ego. Nothing could be further from the truth, for various orders of angelic beings, thrones and dominions, powers and principalities, all of them lavish praise on Jesus.

IV. The Glory of Christ’s Pre-incarnate Wealth

We see also the glory of Christ’s pre-incarnate wealth. How wealthy was Jesus before He entered the world? Well, pretty wealthy. We have this in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor so that you, through His poverty, might become rich.”

How rich? Let’s start with a vast but pretty famous understatement. In Psalm 50 God says, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or goats from your pens.” This is an animal sacrificial system. “I don’t need any bull you bring me. Just know that. Why? Because I own the cattle on a thousand hills.” That’s very well known. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. I’m telling you it’s an understatement. He owns cattle on more than a thousand hills. He owns every cattle there is. He owns everything there is. That’s how rich Jesus was on that throne of the universe, because everything belonged to the Father and the Son.

That means no offering we bring Him can in any way move the needle in terms of His own possessions and His own wealth. Isaiah 40, 15-6 says, “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They’re regarded as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires nor all of its animals enough for burnt offerings.” Again, Isaiah 66: 1-2, this is what the Lord says: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. I put my feet on the earth. Where is the house you will build for me? And where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being.” Jesus owned everything in the universe. We see the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ in His position, a shared deity with the Father, in His power enthroned over the entire universe, in the honors lavished on Him by the angels, and in the wealth in that He owned everything. This is what He left to come to the earth.  And though once He was born, like any ordinary infant, He knew nothing in His humanness. He had to grow in wisdom and stature and in favor of God of men. He had to be educated like any human being. 

V. Jesus’s Downward Journey of Humility

When He came down, it was an infinite downward journey of humility, stripped of radiant glory, the shining radiant glory, stripped of it, stripped of a position of power. He had no position of power. Stripped of honor, stripped of respect, stripped of wealth. He made Himself nothing.

Listen to the familiar words of the circumstances of his birth in Luke 2, “Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and lineage of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped in cloths and placed Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” Take all that I’ve been saying over the last twenty minutes and compare Him to that. But that was just the beginning of His humiliation. Later, He would say to His own disciples, “Foxes have holes and birds may have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay His head.”  It says in Luke 8 that there were some women there, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Cusa, Susanna, and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. He didn’t have enough money just to make it day by day. These women were helping to contribute to His work.

The one, that the angels covered their faces before, was flagrantly disrespected by His enemies. Isaiah 53 says, “He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not.”

The level of disrespect shown to Jesus is staggering to me. Jesus’ enemies came up to Him at one point and said, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon possessed? Your mother, Mary, fornicated with some Samaritan man, and you’re demon possessed.” Jesus said, “I’m not possessed by a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.”

But it would get worse. During His trial, some soldiers came up and blindfolded Him and began spitting on Him, slapping Him and saying, “Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?” What do you think the archangels thought when they saw that going on? Can you imagine the fiery zeal that burned within their hearts to vindicate Him, but being perfectly obedient to the plan of God, they stayed in their lane and they stayed in heaven and didn’t come pouring down out of heaven to destroy those disrespectful men who were spitting on Jesus and slapping Him.

But of course, the maximum humiliation was the crucifixion. It was the reason that God prepared a body for His Son. It was the reason that He knit Jesus’ body together in His mother’s womb, that He gave Him bones, that He gave Him blood and blood vessels and a heart. It was so that He could give that body on the cross to atone for our sins, to shed His blood to pay the death penalty we deserve for our sins. That’s why He came.

There’s an inevitable connection between Christmas and Easter, as we’ve already said, between Christmas and Good Friday. While Jesus came into the world with no glory at all, He died with the exact opposite from a worldly point of view: maximum degradation, disgrace, disrespect, and dishonor. Yet to the eyes of faith, do you not see it? There’s nothing but glory shining from that cross. Amen, brothers and sisters? Radiant glory shining from that cross.

The point of the incarnation and the point of the atonement is He wants to bring all of us sinners with Him up into heaven to see the fulfillment of the prayer He prayed that I’m focused on today. “Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” [John 17:5]A few verses later, He says, “Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory.” [John 17:22] Do you want to see it? I do. Do you not want to be lifted up out of this squalor of sin and suffering and pain and death to see the glory of Christ on the throne with His Father? I want to see that.

VI. Applications

Some Christmas applications, “Worship Him, worship Him. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together. Come and worship, come and worship. Worship Christ, the newborn king. Oh, come let us adore Him. Glory to the newborn king. Worship Him.”

In order to do that, you have to develop the eyes of faith. As I appealed early in the sermon so now I appeal to you again, everyone listening to me, see Him as He really is; not just a human being, but the Son of God, dead on the cross for the sins of the world, and trust in Him. See that with eyes of faith and your sins will be forgiven.

For us who are already believers, let’s realize our eyes deceive us. It’s not just Jesus who doesn’t appear as He really is; nothing appears as it really is. The world’s glories and honors and possessions, they’re deceptive, they’re misleading, they’re not as they really appear to be. This world is a vanity of vanities apart from faith in Christ. Our own bodies deceive us. These present bodies are wasting away. Though we put lots of effort into staying healthy and eating right and exercising, we are frail and mortal, and we will die. But there’s a promise in the scripture, “Made like Him, like Him we will rise in resurrection bodies.” Things do not appear what they actually are. People do not appear to be what they actually are. They, this time of year, appear happy, prosperous, successful. But apart from Christ, they’re lost. They’re on their way to destruction. We need to see them with eyes of faith. And time is deceptive. We always think we have more than we really do. The time is short. The time is now to believe in Jesus and to follow Him and serve Him.

Brothers and sisters, enjoy your Christmas. Enjoy it by faith. When you have your celebration in a couple of days, read some scripture. Read some of the passages that I’ve shared with you, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 40, Ezekiel 1, Isaiah 6. Do something before you open those gifts and celebrate together. And then have an opportunity maybe later when you’re sharing a Christmas meal to pray and give thanks to God for the indescribable gift of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for this sublime meditation we’ve had this morning, something that stretches us really to languages limits, to our conceptual limits of the majesty and glory of Christ before He entered the world. Help us to realize that, to recognize what you gave us when you gave us Jesus, and that we would honor Him in Jesus’ name. Amen.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

As I ponder the mystery and pageantry of Christmas, I am struck by how unaware the world was when the Son of God made his quiet entry. Like in the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” it says:

“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.”

The innkeeper did not know what was going to happen that night, nor the shepherds, nor King Herod or his soldiers, certainly not Caesar Augustus in his halls of marble in Rome or the Governor Quirinius ruling over Syria. They just went to bed like any other night. The shepherds outside the little town of Bethlehem were just doing their usual job at that time of year and that hour of the night… watching over their sheep in the fields.

No one knew… no one could guess what would enter human history so silently so silently that memorable night.

I enjoy reading about or seeing videos of great individuals disguising themselves and showing up incognito in places, then astonishing people with their hidden qualities, then suddenly revealing themselves.

Like the Portuguese soccer star Ronaldo dressing up as a elderly homeless man and doing increasingly amazing soccer moves in a crowded public square somewhere in Europe while hundreds of people walk by.

Or violin virtuoso Joshua Bell playing his classical violin pieces on his 300 year old, $14 million Stradivarius in a bustling subway station in Washington, DC. No one knew who he was and almost no one stopped long enough to listen.

Or athletes like Kyrie Irving, Kris Bryant, Eli Manning and Greg Maddux doing similar tricks… stunning unsuspecting onlookers with their unveiled skills.

This great person incognito theme is very old… Joan of Arc was proven to be divinely inspired because she picked out King Charles VII of France from among 300 courtiers, though he was disguised like all of them.

Often kings and emperors have done this throughout history, disguising themselves and moving through their realms to interact with peasants and find out their true feelings about their sovereign.

Jesus himself did this after his resurrection from the dead with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He walked with them and talked with them, but he looked like any other ordinary traveler on the road.

So it was also at the time of his birth. He entered the world with no advance notice and with no glory at all surrounding Mary and Joseph… actually far less than normal, for few babies are born in a stable and laid in a manger.

Therefore it is only by faith that we can see the glory in this man.

One of the most theologically rich Christmas hymns is Charles Wesley’s “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” Last year, I devoted my entire Christmas sermon to the theme of the angels celebration of Christ’s birth, their involvement in his life, their announcement of his resurrection… Christmas from the perspective of angels.

This year, I want to pick on another line from Wesley’s hymn… “Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die!”

Wesley undoubtedly was meditating musically on Paul’s statement about Christ’s incarnation in Philippians 2:

Philippians 2:5-8  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  ⁷ but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!

“Being in very nature [or the form of] God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped… [i.e. held onto, clung to fiercely] but made himself nothing [or emptied himself], taking the very nature [or form] of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

In what way was Jesus no longer equal to God in the days of his incarnate humility?

We totally affirm that Jesus of Nazareth was fully God as he walked the dusty roads of this earth. He was fully God in the manger, fully God as he grew to manhood, fully God when he was baptized by John in the Jordan River, fully God when tempted in the desert by the devil, fully God as he walked by the Sea of Galilee and called Peter and Andrew, James and John to follow him, fully God when he sat at table with his disciples to eat meals, fully God when he had no place to lay his head, fully God when he slept on a cushion in the boat, fully God when he was tired and sat down at the well of Samaria, fully God when he prayed in Gethsemane, fully God when he was despised and rejected by the Jewish leaders, fully God when the soldiers spat on him, mocked him, slapped him, put a crown of thorns on his head, fully God when he was nailed to the cross, fully God when he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, fully God when he said “Into your hands I commit my spirit!”, fully God when he died.

At no time did he cease to be the Son of God… for then the universe would have ceased to exist. For it is by him, through him, and for him that God the Father created all things and sustains all things. Jesus could not lay down his deity.

So in what way did Jesus give up equality with God when he chose to be born of the Virgin Mary and live that life I’ve just described?

His prayer in John 17:5 may give us a strong clue:

John 17:5  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

That glory is what he laid down. This morning we will probe the infinite dimensions of the glory of the preincarnate Christ. We will speak not only of the glory Christ had with the Father before they created all things, but also of the various glories Christ had in the heavenly realms before he entered the world in Bethlehem.

My purpose here is to draw us all into exalted meditations of Jesus Christ, to lift us from the lowliness of carnal conceptions of Christ and of Christmas into the heavenly realms of his greatness. All such meditations inevitably lead us to worship Christ, and to yearn to serve him more in this present age. They also feed our hope for heaven and empower us if need be to suffer well. And they call us to want to imitate his downward journey of humility in service to others.

I. The Glory Christ Shared with His Father

Look again at the prayer I just mentioned:

John 17:5  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

A. Context in John 17

1. The night before he was to be crucified

2. The Last Supper in the upper room in Jerusalem

3. Satan has entered Judas Iscariot and he is gone to betray him

4. Jesus has now instructed his disciples on many things… the need to serve and love one another, the promise of the coming Holy Spirit and the various ministries he will do, the expectation of suffering… all these vital lessons of John 13-16.

5. Now Jesus wants to finish their time in the upper room by praying in their presence; soon he will be praying alone, agonizing in Gethsemane with great drops of blood falling like sweat from his face

6. But here is his magnificent “High Priestly Prayer”

7. It has three basic parts… first, he prays for himself; second, he prays for his apostles; third, he prays for his future followers in the entire world

B. Praying for His Own Glory

1. Jesus has already asked God to glorify him in his death

John 17:1  “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.

2. We know he is thinking about his death, because he says “The time has come”… there is no doubt what this means, for throughout the Gospel he has been saying “My time has not yet come”

3. But now… the time HAS come

4. Before that time came, Jesus had been bringing glory to God day after day by the miracles and teachings he poured out on the people

John 17:4  I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

5. But the cross of Christ the next day will be a quantum leap forward… the death of Christ is a specific kind of glory… a radiant display of the attributes of God and of Christ specific to the salvation of a world drowning in sin

6. On the cross, God’s attributes were clearly put on display: his power, love, wisdom, justice, wrath, and many others

7. Jesus wants those attributes to shine from the darkness of the cross and win a dying world to heaven

8. His prayer for his own glory is not selfish; usually when human beings seek their own glory, it stops there… an end in itself; what the Bible calls “vainglory”

9. But Jesus’ motive in his own glory as displayed on the cross is that God’s glory may be seen through it

a. That God’s love may be seen in the death of his son, because there is no greater display of love than that sacrifice God did by giving up what he loves the most in the universe

b. That God’s justice may also be seen, because he must uphold his law while at the same time forgiving sinners

c. That God’s wisdom may also be seen, because the wisest thing God could do was to save sinners in such a way that sinners are totally humbled

C. A Different Prayer for Christ’s Glory

1. But verse 5 goes back to a different era… if we can even call it an era

John 17:5  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

2. Before the universe was created, God the Father shared a unique glory with God the Son

3. This is the glory that God made plain he would never share with any other

Isaiah 42:8  I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.

4. There is a unique glory that God shares with his Son—the glory of being God… when as yet nothing else existed

5. There was a shared oneness, perfect fellowship, shared purpose and plan and intention

6. God the Father shared with God the Son all his plans for making a universe for the display of the glory of God

7. It was his reason for making all things

8. That glory, the glory of God the Father and of God the Son was then put on display in all creation

D. Together God the Father and God the Son Created All Things

John 1:2-3  He was with God in the beginning.  ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Hebrews 1:3  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

1. This is the glory the Son had with his Father before the world was made

2. By God the Father through God the Son by the power also of God the Spirit, the heavenly realms were made

Colossians 1:16-17  For by [the Son] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

3. Those heavenly thrones, powers, dominions refer to angelic beings who were created by God the Father through God the Son

4. The Son shared a throne of power ruling over all these lesser thrones before the earth was created

II. The Glory of Christ’s Preincarnate Power

A. Christ Enthroned Before the Angels

1. The Bible reveals the infinite power of the preincarnate Christ on a throne of power and glory

2. God the Father and Son spoke into existence these angelic beings, then they watched and applauded as God made the earth

God said to Job,

Job 38:4-7  “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.  ⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?  ⁶ On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone–  ⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

a. The angels shouted for joy as God laid the foundations of the earth

b. But we’ve already seen that God laid the foundations of the earth by and through his Son

c. So much so that the author to Hebrews says God the Father gave full credit to his Son for the establishment of the earth’s foundations

Hebrews 1:10  [God] also says [to his Son], “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

d. He didn’t say this to any of the angels:

Hebrews 1:13  To which of the angels did God ever say, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

B. Christ Enthroned Before He Entered the World

Isaiah 6:1-3  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  ² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  ³ And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Scholars say the year that King Uzziah died was 731 BC. Over seven centuries before Christ was born in Bethlehem. Isaiah the prophet had a vision of the Lord on a throne of glory.

The seraphim are angels, radiantly burning with their own glory

They are in the presence the Lord… and John 12:41 tells us plainly Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke of him.

It is clear from this that Jesus is reigning in absolute power an overwhelming glory. His glory is so overpowering that the seraphim, who are themselves burning with their own holy glory, have to cover their eyes.

They cannot look on him fully, though they are themselves perfectly holy and free from sin.

They never stop celebrating the glory of the Lord Jesus, saying “The whole earth is full of his glory.”

But what really overwhelms them is his HOLINESS…

Isaiah 6:3  They were calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty”

Jesus’ holiness is his infinite OTHERNESS from them; that is the glory he shared with the Father before the world began… the glory of being God, the Existent One, the Non-created… and then, once God created the universe, being infinitely HIGH and EXALTED above the universe

That is the holiness of the pre-incarnated Christ

A.W. Tozer:  “We must not think of God as highest in an ascending order of beings, starting with the single cell and going on up from the fish to the bird to the animal to man to angel to cherub to God. This would be to grant God eminence, even pre-eminence, but that is not enough; we must grant Him transcendence in the fullest meaning of that word.

Forever God stands apart, in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The caterpillar and the archangel, though far removed from each other in the scale of created things, are nevertheless one in that they are alike created.”

So also it is with Christ. The Son of God is infinitely above all created things. That’s why these powerful angels, the seraphim, covered their faces in his presence.

C. Other Images of Christ Enthroned

1. Ezekiel 1… during the exile to Babylon; the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of the glory of God…

2. He was by the Chebar River in Babylon

Ezekiel 1:4-5  I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north– an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal,  ⁵ and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures.

3. He goes on to describe these living creatures in overwhelming detail, how they were brilliant, like flashes of lightning, and how they moved by means of wheels with eyes all around… they moved quickly and effortlessly

4. Incredible angelic beings that really to some degree defied description

5. But for our purposes we must note the real focus of the vision was not these cherubim at all; but rather what was above their heads

6. High above them was an expanse, like some sort of boundary or border; the expanse sparkled like ice and was awesome

7. High above that expanse was a throne which Ezekiel described in these words:

Ezekiel 1:26-28  Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man.  ²⁷ I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.  ²⁸ Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

8. Given that the one seated on the throne had the appearance of a man, a figure like that of a man… this must be the preincarnate Christ

9. When he spoke from his throne, the cherubim stood still with their wings lowered

10. Though they themselves are awesome in glory and power, they stand in awe of Christ enthroned.

D. This is the Power of Christ’s Throne

1. By his power all things were made

2. By his power all things were sustained

3. By his power all things were overruled and guided to God’s predestined purpose

4. This is the power of Christ’s throne… the glory he shared with God the Father before he entered the world

III. The Glory of Christ’s Preincarnate Honor

A. From these two visions we also see the HONOR paid to Christ in heaven

B. This is vital… the angels cannot stop worshiping him

1. In Isaiah, the seraphim cry out continually about his holiness and his glory, the glory that fills the whole earth

2. In Ezekiel, the cherubim quiet themselves with lowered wings and stand ready to hear his voice

C. Before Christ entered the world, all of heaven worshiped him

D. The Son of God was not some needy being, needing reassurance and esteem… he did not enter the world out of neediness; for the various orders of angels lavished their highest praises on him

IV. The Glory of Christ’s Preincarnate Wealth

2 Corinthians 8:9  For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

A. How Rich Was the Pre-incarnate Christ?

1. Let’s start with a vast understatement… a famous one, but understatement nonetheless:

Psalm 50:9-10  I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens,  ¹⁰ for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

2. In other words, no offering you could bring me would meet my needs…

3. In that same vein:

Isaiah 40:15-16  Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.  ¹⁶ Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.

And:

Isaiah 66:1-2  This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?  ² Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD.

B. Jesus Owned Everything in the Universe

C. Therefore, No Human Offering Could Impress Him or Move the Needle for Him… because he already owned it anyway

V. Christ’s Downward Journey of Humility

A. Jesus Stripped Himself of All these Trappings

1. No radiant glory

2. No power

3. No honors

4. No respect

B. He made himself nothing

Luke 2:4-7  Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,  ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

C. This Was Just the Beginning of His Humiliation

Matthew 8:20  Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Luke 8:2-3  …Some women [were there] who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;  ³ Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

D. The One Angels Covered their Faces Before was Flagrantly Disrespected

Isaiah 53:2-3  He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  ³ He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

The level of disrespect shown to Jesus is stunning:

John 8:48-49  The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”  ⁴⁹ “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.

Mark 14:65  Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took him and beat him.

E. The Maximum Humiliation Was His Crucifixion

1. It was ultimately for this reason that Jesus took on a body

2. God prepared a body for his Son in the body of the Virgin Mary… knitting him together, giving him fingers, toes, a nose, blood vessels, a heart to beat… all of that so he could give that body and blood on the cross for us

3. There is an inevitable connection between Christmas and Good Friday… between the manger and the cross

4. It was for this reason that Jesus was born, for this he came into the world… to give his body and blood as a ransom for the sins of the world

5. While Jesus came into the world with no glory at all, he died with the exact opposite from a worldly point of view… maximum degradation, disgrace, disrespect, dishonor.

F. Yet to the eyes of faith, there is only glory shining from the cross

G. And the point of the incarnation and the crucifixion was to qualify wretched sinners like us to see his heavenly glory with our own eyes:

John 17:24  Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

Think on that!

Jesus greatest desire is that sinners like you and I could spend eternity with him in heaven drinking in for all eternity the glory that he had before the creation of the world.

VI. Christmas Applications

A. Worship Him!

Come and Worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn king!

O come let us adore him!

Glory to the newborn king!

B. Develop the eyesight of faith

1. It’s not just Jesus who doesn’t appear as he really is

2. Nothing does!

a. This world’s glories and honors and powers are an illusion!

b. All that this world lives for is emptiness… “Vanity of vanities!”

3. Our own bodies deceive us!

a. These present bodies are wasting away

b. But God has prepared resurrection bodies that can never perish, spoil or fade

4. People are not what they appear

a. Many lost people in this world appear happy, healthy, and prosperous

b. But the truth is they are on that broad road that leads to destruction

c. Pray for opportunities to tell them the truth

5. Time is deceptive

a. We may think we have so much time left in this present world

b. But our life here on earth is a mist, a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes

c. Everything we do should be done in light of the eternal world of Christ’s glorious kingdom to which we are going

C. Enjoy Your Christmas by Faith

1. Certainly enjoy the good times, good foods, good gifts, good feelings of love with your families and friends

2. But see them all in light of Christ’s true glory… his true nature as revealed in the passages we have studied today.