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John 17:5

"And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

Problem:

If Christ had glory with God before the world was, then obviously it is argued he must have existed before his birth on earth.

Solution:

1. Stress is often placed on Jesus' statement that he had glory with the Father. The J.W.'s in their New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures translate this verse as follows: "So now you, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was."¹ But the Greek preposition "para" translated "with" in the A.V. and "alongside" in the N.W.T. also occurs in John 1:6: "There was a man sent from {Greek: para} God, whose name was John." If the preposition in John 17:5 requires the literal pre-existence of Christ, then likewise it requires the literal pre-existence of John the Baptist.² It is interesting that the N.W.T. inconsistently translates John 1:6 as follows: "There arose a man that was sent forth as a representative of God: his name was John." There is no hint of pre-existence here.

2. How could Jesus have glory with his Father "before the world was" if he did not literally pre-exist? An illustration is helpful: An architect sees and knows the beautiful details of his proposed construction before the site is prepared, or the foundation-stone laid. But God is the great Architect and in His divine plan, Christ was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8) - the chief cornerstone "foreordained before the foundation of the world". (1 Peter 1:20). The building will duly be fitly framed together (Eph. 2:21) to constitute its part in the "kingdom prepared . . . from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 25:34). Christ was "foreordained", but not formed until born of the virgin Mary in the days of Herod the king. Likewise, the glory he had with his Father was in the divine plan of the great Architect. It was the subject of prophetic testimony "when it {the Spirit of Christ} testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." (1 Peter 1:11 cf. John 12:41).

3. Scripture speaks as if others pre-existed, as well as Christ. Consider the following:
   1. Of believers, Paul wrote:
      1. "Whom he did foreknow." (Rom. 8:29).
      2. "He had afore prepared {note the past tense} unto glory." (Rom. 9:23 cf. 2 Tim. 1:9).
      3. "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." (Eph. 1:4).
   2. Of Jeremiah, the LORD said: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jer. 1:5).
      
   But who would contend for the pre-existence of Jeremiah and other believers because the language employed states that God knew them before they were born? Similarly, the language of John 17:5 must be understood in terms of this background. Unless the principle is recognized that God "calleth those things which be not as though they were" (Rom. 4:17), confusion will result in Biblical interpretation, as it does with the wrested pre-existence interpretation given to this passage in John's gospel.

4. The context is sufficiently clear that Christ is not "Very God". His power and authority are derived, not innate: "As thou hast given him {Christ} power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." (John 17:2).

1. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, (Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., 1961). Return

2. The Greek preposition "para" in John 17:5 takes the dative case and means "beside and at, with or near a person; with, i.e., in the estimation or power of." But in John 1:6 "para" takes the genitive case and means "from beside, beside and proceeding from." See Ethelbert W. Bullinger, A Critical Lexicon and Concordance, (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons Ltd., 1957), p. 888. Return