Short Answer
Before the incarnation, Christ did not exist in human form but as the eternal Son—fully God and spirit within the Trinity. He only took on human flesh at a specific point in history, beginning with His birth. Any earlier appearances were temporary manifestations, not His permanent human nature.
The Overview
Before becoming human, Christ existed eternally as the second person of the Trinity—fully divine and without a physical body. Like the Father and the Holy Spirit, He existed as spirit, outside of time, space, and material creation. The incarnation marked a unique moment when He permanently took on human nature, beginning with His conception and birth.
It is important not to imagine Jesus as having a human body before this event. His human nature—with physical features like a body, face, and form—began at the incarnation. Prior to that, He existed in His divine nature alone, sharing fully in the essence of God.
Some Old Testament passages describe appearances of God in visible or tangible ways, sometimes called theophanies or Christophanies. In these moments, God may have appeared in a form that people could perceive. However, these were temporary manifestations, not the permanent taking on of human nature as seen in the incarnation.
Understanding this helps preserve the uniqueness of the incarnation. It was not simply another appearance of God, but a decisive act where the eternal Son became fully human while remaining fully divine. This allowed Him to live, suffer, and ultimately redeem humanity through His life and sacrifice.
Key Takeaways
- Christ Is Eternal
He existed before creation as the second person of the Trinity. - He Was Not Human Before the Incarnation
His human nature began at His birth. - God Is Spirit
Before the incarnation, Christ shared the same spiritual nature as the Father and Spirit. - Old Testament Appearances Were Temporary
They were not the same as becoming human. - The Incarnation Is Unique
It marks the moment God permanently took on human flesh.
The Source — The Speaker Transcript
00:00:00
Timothy just wrote in, this is a new one here. Before Christ was incarnate, make sure everyone knows what we mean by that. Puts on flesh. Talk about carne. Even that word in coming through um various languages into English means flesh incarnate. Putting on human flesh when Christ was uh in in fleshed in humanity. Uh before Christ was incarnate, what form did he take? Knowing Christ is eternal. Uh what was he like before the creation of human beings? How does that fit into the trinity before the creation of man?
00:00:32
Okay, it is easy for us to kind of think backwards and to think, okay, Christ, we picture him as human in the sense that he’s also God incarnate. He’s all human, all divine. And so, we kind of think back before the incarnation. Well, he must have taken on a form like that. And we just need to get that out of our head. The incarnation was the beginning of Christ living in human flesh. Now we would say of course exalted ascended Christ is still living in human flesh and whatever it is in terms of God’s uh
00:01:07
throne room God’s creative uh uh expression of his own dominion in um in heaven place where God dwells that’s one use of the word heaven idea of Jesus being in that form has to start at point of of the of actually I would say not just earth in Bethlehem, but go back to when the enunciation took place. When the angel announces that Mary is now bearing the pre-born human divine son of God, that is the beginning of him taking on humanity. That just like 4 or clearly throughout the Bible regarding the third person,
00:01:48
the trinity um person does not have flesh and bone and flesh and bone right and seeing someone as a human being. We don’t have God in any form. And that was clear all throughout the Bible. God, and so the second person of the Godhead, like the first and third clearly was also spirit spirit. So taking on humanity in Genesis 1, we think about Jesus taking on humanity uh at the beginning ministry 2,000 years ago. That’s when the second person of the God took on humanity. And the Bible says he took it on so that he might
00:02:29
redeem humanity so that you and I might have a chance an opportunity now to put it in human terms to respond to the gospel and put our trust in Christ because he fulfilled human righteousness as a human with divine quality. The divinity uh unmarred and uncontaminated byity. Christ then lives in our place. He then takes on all the temptation in our place. He dies and absorbs the penalty of our sin in our place. Human sin and human penalty declared guilty on a cross. And all of that then for ourstead and in our case
00:03:06
as a substitute for our accomplishes as well as his divinity of course uh throughout the rest of eternity spirit. God is spirit. John chapter 4 uh and that triunity of God in all the person spirit and before the creation as we know it material time space uh we have um God existing outside that and and of course God did not take on humanity as the permanent u dwelling divine attributes years ago. Now, some people may bring up what what’s called theology a christophony. Sometimes it’s called a theophony
00:03:52
conflation of two words, Christ or or God and form, right? Um we talk about God being in a an appearance. It’s really technically what the Greek word means. Uh that there is an appearance of God in human form. And there are passages in the Old Testament that are hard for us to any other way than saying, “Well, this seems to be God appearing in a human form.” Whether we’re back with God appearing to uh Abraham back in in Genesis chapter 15, chapter 17, or whether it’s um Jesus,
00:04:27
I’m I’m sorry, uh God rather speaking uh as as uh first person God in the burning bush. It says it’s the messenger of God, the angel of the Lord, Melik, this Hebrew word that represents a a a message from God, but it’s there imperson. And that messenger speaks in the first person for God. And so some people would say, well, this seems to be a physical or some kind of material presence of God speaking to a human being. And you know, the the uh sound waves in the air to speak to Moses or speak to Abraham. Uh
00:05:01
and and maybe we’re dealing with here the pre-incarnate Christ. Well, we can get there, I suppose. Uh but is that is that person that’s speaking to Abraham or Moses is is that looking like the Jesus that’s born, you know, in in Moses’ case 1400 years later? And the answer, I would say, is probably not. And I do think like angels sometimes are allowed as spirit beings to appear in material form in certain places in the Bible like the enunciation Gabriel to Mary that we um God just allows that and
00:05:36
and God who knows perhaps the second person of the Trinity was dispatched to speak at at a couple of in very special circumstances in the Old Testament to some very important characters in the Old Testament and that could be but we don’t know we don’t have it definitively laid out that this is the second person of the God uh for where God materializes in some way to speak to Abraham at the at his tent as he’s sitting there uh having a sandwich so to speak with uh these three angels and one of them uh speaking first person
00:06:09
for God. So that does not constitute the incarnation even though that may be a manifestation of some material you know reality in front of them. Right? When you see an angel in the Old Testament eating something, that food has to go somewhere. So, there is some material uh materializing of of of God’s messenger, whether that’s an angel, whether that is God himself or whether that’s an angel just speaking in the first person and God utilizing that angel to speak to his uh in those cases. So, if that’s the
00:06:43
case, we will one day find out. But for now, when we’re speaking of the incarnation, your question, Timothy, uh, don’t picture Jesus prior to the incarnation as a human being, as you might imagine, with fingernails, as I often say, and eyelashes and eyebrows and earlobes. That we didn’t have that till the incarnation into what we would know as a breathing baby in a manger.
