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743). Also note that Augustine -- and many other early commentators -- find NO EVIDENCE for
literal preexistence in John 17:5.

A knowledge of the background to the New Testament reveals that Jews believed that even
Moses "preexisted" in the counsels of God -- but not actually as a conscious person:

"For this is what the Lord of the world has decreed: He created the world on behalf of his
people, but he did not make this purpose of creation known from the beginning of the world
so that the nations might be found guilty...But he did design and devise me [Moses], who
was prepared from the beginning of the world to be the mediator of the covenant" (Testa
ment of Moses, 1:13, 14).

If Moses was decreed in the Plan of God, it makes perfect sense that the Messiah himself
was the purpose for which God created everything. All things may then be said to have been cre-
ated on behalf of the Christ. Out of respect for God's revealed Plan and in honor of the human Sav-
ior, we should seek to understand his identity in the context of his own Hebrew setting.

A fine statement of the Jewish understanding of "preexistence" is given by the Norwegian
scholar, Mowinckel, in his famous He Who Cometh --

"That any expression or vehicle of God's will for the world, His saving counsel and pur-
pose, was present in His mind, or His 'Word,' from the beginning is a natural way of say-
ing that it is not fortuitous, but the due unfolding and expression of God's own being [cp.
John: "the Word was with God and was God"]. This attribution of pre-existence indicates
religious importance of the highest order. Rabbinic theology speaks of the Law, of God's
throne of glory, of Israel and of other important objects of faith, as things which had been
created by God, and were already present with Him, before the creation of the world. The
same is also true of the Messiah. It is said that his name was present with God in heaven
beforehand, that it was created before the world, and that it is eternal.

"But the reference here is not to genuine pre-existence in the strict and literal sense. This is
clear from the fact that Israel is included among these pre-existent entities. This does not
mean that either the nation Israel or its ancestor existed long ago in heaven, but that the
community Israel, the people of God, had been from all eternity in the mind of God, as a
factor in His purpose....This is true of references to the pre-existence of the Messiah. It is
his 'name,' -- not the Messiah himself -- that is said to have been present with God before
creation. In Pesikta Rabbati 152b is said that 'from the beginning of the creation of the
world the King Messiah was born, for he came up in the thought of God before the world
was created.' This means that from all eternity it was the will of God that the Messiah
should come into existence, and should do his work in the world to fulfill God's eternal
saving purpose" (p. 334).

The proposition introduced by Gentile, philosophically-minded "Church Fathers" that Jesus
was either a second "member" of the Godhead (later orthodoxy) or a created angel (Arians and, in
modern times, Jehovah's Witnesses) launched the whole vexed problem of the nature of Christ in
relation to the Godhead and put under a fog the true Messiahship of Jesus and his Messianic

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