“Then Jesus said to them, ‘You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?’ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25–27 NLT)

Did Jesus exist before the nativity in Bethlehem? Was there a Christ before Christmas?

The answer is yes.

Jesus’ arrival in Bethlehem is when the incarnation took place. The incarnation is when God became a man. But that’s not when Jesus came into being. Jesus, being God, has always been and He always will be. He is eternal because He is God. Understanding that opens up Scripture to us in a whole new way.

The Bible is divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament covers events that occurred before Jesus’ birth. The New Testament covers events surrounding His birth and after. It’s similar to the way we divide history. The Old Testament is BC (before Christ); the New Testament is AD (anno Domini), which is Latin for “in the year of the Lord.”

Casual readers of the Bible may assume that Jesus is a New Testament figure, an AD man. But that’s not the case. Remember, He’s eternal, so there’s no such period as BC because nothing existed before Christ.

John 1:1–2 says, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God” (NLT). And in Colossians 1:17, the apostle Paul writes of Christ, “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together” (NLT).

Not only has Christ existed forever, He is also the central figure of Scripture. Not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well. That’s the theme for our devotions this month: Jesus in the Old Testament. You can’t fully appreciate God’s amazing plan of salvation until you connect the dots between the Old Testament passages that anticipate Christ’s coming and the New Testament passages that detail His saving work.

Luke 24 tells the story of two followers of Christ who were walking to the village of Emmaus three days after Jesus’ crucifixion, just as news of His resurrection was starting to spread. They were sad and confused. Jesus appeared to them, but God kept them from recognizing Him at first.

Jesus’ words to them—“You foolish people!”—may seem harsh. But Jesus wanted them to understand that it wasn’t the time for mourning or confusion. The Messiah was alive! God’s plan of salvation had been accomplished! Death had been conquered! Centuries of prophecy and promises had been fulfilled!

Verse 27 says, “Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (NLT). These men likely were no strangers to Old Testament Scripture. But they had failed to make some very important connections. Not only were Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection all part of God’s prophetic plan, but so was just about everything else He did. The evidence was there, in the words of Scripture, for anyone who searched for it. Jesus helped His followers recognize the clues they had missed.

We are never alone in life. That’s the message we see from Genesis to Revelation. Jesus has always been there. He appeared to Abraham and Jacob, among others. He was never far from the minds of the Old Testament prophets. And to those who are His disciples, He says, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 NLT).

Reflection question: What does the Old Testament reveal about God and His plan of salvation?

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