The Form and Glory of God

Christmas cannot be marveled at unless pre-Christmas is understood.

What is pre-Christmas? According to Paul in Philippians 2:6-8, pre-Christmas is Jesus in the form of God. He was the eternal exact effulgence or brilliant expression of the fullness of God (Hebrews 1:3). He was God on display. John tells us in John 12:41 that it was the glory of the pre-Christmas Son of God that Isaiah saw in his famous vision in Isaiah 6:1-7.

Read and think about that. The Baby of Bethlehem was first the Lord of Glory high on the throne of heaven. Long before the angels heralded His birth (in Luke 2:13, 14) they were singing His worth (in Isaiah 6).

Consider the Person of Christ who is the form, the image, the stamp of God’s nature. In fact think about these words from one man (John Piper):

So the Son in whom the Father delights is the image of God and the radiance of the glory of God. He bears the very stamp of God’s nature and is the very form of God. He is equal with God and, as John says, is God.

For all eternity, before creation, the only reality that has always existed is God. This is a great mystery, because it is so hard for us to think of God having absolutely no beginning, and just being there forever and ever and ever, without anything or anyone making him be there--just absolute reality that everyone of us has to reckon with whether we like it or not. But this ever-living God has not been "alone." He has not been a solitary center of consciousness. There has always been another, who has been one with God in essence and glory, and yet distinct in personhood so that they have had a personal relationship for all eternity.

The Bible teaches that this eternal God has always had a perfect image of himself (Colossians 1:15), a perfect radiance of his essence (Hebrews 1:3), a perfect stamp or imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1:3), a perfect form or expression of his glory (Philippians 2:6).

We are on the brink of the ineffable here, but perhaps we may dare to say this much: as long as God has been God (eternally) he has been conscious of himself; and the image that he has of himself is so perfect and so complete and so full as to be the living, personal reproduction (or begetting) of himself. And this living, personal image or radiance or form of God is God, namely God the Son. And therefore God the Son is coeternal with God the Father and equal in essence and glory.

I know this is as some have said, the deep end of the pool, but take a dip anyway! Give some time to consider the One who came. He who was God and was with God (John 1:1) became flesh and dwelt among us. He humbled Himself by becoming human. The Eternal One was born. He is, as one has put it, "the only one in history who was alive long before He was born" (Bruce Ware).

Tim Shorey