John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me . . . He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose . . . This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. (John1:15, 27, 30)
Some critics of Latter-day Saint theology argue that these passages "prove" that Jesus alone personally pre-existed, and everyone else, contra LDS theology, did not personally but only "ideally" pre-exist (i.e., they pre-existed in the plan and foreknowledge of God merely).
Firstly, I have written about how one must hold to the personal pre-existence of all of mankind if one wishes to uphold the true and full humanity of Jesus. See:
Furthermore, these verses in John are not speaking of the personal pre-existence of Jesus, but Jesus' priority over John the Baptist in the salvific plan of God. As Andrew Perry noted:
There is some evidence to support the view that the people (and their leaders) were confused over John the Baptist and Jesus, as to exactly who was the Messiah. Today, we have no doubt, but it is worthwhile trying to think ourselves into the first century frame of mind, and ask ourselves, What is the relationship between these two prophets, who is the greater? Imagine we are talking with a disciple of John the Baptist. What would we think if he made the following points?
1) John was pre-announced by an angel, just like Jesus (Luke 1:13). He was declared to be a ‘great’ prophet (Luke 1:5).
2) John’s childhood is described in terms very similar to that of Jesus, and these terms are picked up from the type of Samuel (Luke 2:80; 3:52; cf. 1 Sam 3:19).
3) John came first, and he baptized Jesus (Matt 3:13), so was he greater?
4) His style was that of Elijah (Matt 11:14), who was the great prophet of the OT, while Jesus’ style fitted Elisha.
5) The Law and the prophets were until John, who therefore represented the beginning of a new phase in God’s purpose (Matt 11:13).
6) John’s ministry had a great impact (Luke 1:16; 3:3), he preached about things of which we have no record (Luke 3:18).
7) Many were baptized by John, and they were not re-baptized by Jesus’ disciples (Luke 7:29).
8) John’s message was made like the message of Jesus. He preached repentance and baptism for the remission of sins. He inveighed against any confidence in the Jews’ natural lineage from Abraham (Luke 3:8).
9) The people wondered whether he was the Christ (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:15).
10)Jesus said that no prophet born of woman was greater than John, and the people thought of him as that prophet (Matt 21:26; Mark 11:32; cf. Deut 18:15).
11)The people thought that Jesus might have been a resurrected John the Baptist (Matt 14:2; 16:14).
12)John had his own band of disciples, whom he taught as a mater (Luke 5:33; 11:1; Acts 19:1).
These points show that there was a clear need to state the relationship between John and Jesus, and establish Jesus as the Messiah. This was a burning requirement in the presentation of the Gospel, because all the people venerated John as a prophet.
The opening chapter of John’s Gospel therefore emphasizes the priority of Jesus over John the Baptist:[1]
. . . for he was before me . . . He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me . . . After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. John 1:15, 27, 30
It is possible to mistake this emphasis by inferring that Christ was ‘before’ John in time, as if to say that he was a pre-existent being in heaven. But to understand John’s message, we need to look at its OT background. Are there any OT types behind John’s testimony?
John’s testimony (John 1:30) was ‘after me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me’ (KJV). The Greek uses two different words for ‘before’ here (εμπροσθεν and πρωτος), which mean, roughly, ‘before in place’ and ‘first’ respectively. Furthermore, the Greek for ‘preferred’ is literally ‘became’ (γεγονεν), and the Greek for ‘man’ (ανηρ) is very often used when referring to a husband. A literal rendering of John’s testimony therefore could just as well be, ‘after me cometh a husband, who has become before me, for he was first of me’. In addition to this John states that he was not worthy to unloose the Messiah’s shoe latches (John 1:27).[2]
A main stress in John’s testimony is a ‘before . . . ‘after’ relationship—he says that one coming after him had become before him. The use of ‘after’ is often used in contexts denoting genealogical relationships.[3] It is reasonable to suggest that Jesus was ‘after’ John in the sense that he was after him in descent—a younger cousin. Bu John’s testimony is that Jesus ‘became before him’. How so?
Jacob was a man who came ‘after’ Esau (Gen 25:26), and later he ‘became before him’, when he sold his birthright to Jacob. Esau was a man of the earth, earthly—typical of the first Adam. Jacob however, was typical of the second Adam. The privileges of the firstborn were sought by him. These included among other things, wealth and the family inheritance; the duties of priesthood, and responsibility to act as a redeemer to the name of a dead brother. So this one example of someone being ‘after’ and then becoming ‘before’. Turning to the story of Ruth there is another example of the first giving way to the second:
· Naomi needed a redeemer (Ruth 4:14) to raise up the name of the dead (Ruth 4:5) according to the law. Jesus was a redeemer who was willing to raise up the name of the dead.
· Boaz was a kinsman but there was a ‘nearer’ kinsman before him; he was ‘after’ that kinsman (Ruth 4:4). John and Jesus were kinsmen. John was before Jesus who was ‘after’ him.
· The nearer kinsman was unwilling to be a husband, but after him there was a husband—Boaz. John was not the redeemer or the bridegroom, he was (part of) the lover of the bridegroom (John 3:29); Jesus was the husband.
· The nearer kinsman relinquished his right and transferred his rights to Boaz by taking off his show, he made Boaz first kinsman in this transaction. John the Baptist pronounced himself unworthy to untie Messiah’s show latches, and declared that he must decrease; and he pointed to Christ.
In both these cases, there is a common pattern of the second man [4] becoming the first man. This pattern is reflected in Paul’s words that Christ was a ‘second’ man. Both cases also illustrate how the second man was ‘first of me’, to use John the Baptist’s own words: Jacob was first of Esau, and Boaz was first of his near kinsman.
John is not saying Christ was before him in time, but rather alluding to that OT pattern of a first man giving way to a second man, where the ‘first’ man has a part in the handover to the second man.[5]
Notes for the Above
[1] This requirement is fulfilled in various ways, for example, although we read ‘there was a man . . . whose name was John’ (v. 6), this mention of John’s name contrasts with the role given to Christ’s name—to them gave he power . . . even to them that believe on his name’ (v. 12).
[2] The KJV has ‘preferred’ because it is trying to make sense of two Greek words in combination—the Greek word for ‘become’ and the Greek word meaning ‘before’ in a spatial sense. My construction is neural in using ‘after me cometh a husband, who has become before me, for he was first of me’, however, I am not averse to ‘preferred’ since the typology is one that involves position in a family structure.
[3] See Gen 17:6-10, Deut 1:8, Josh 22:27, Ruth 4:4, 1 Kgs 3:12, 2 Chron 1:12, Ecc 4:16, Isa 43:10, Acts 7:45
[4] There are a number of ‘second man’ types in the OT.
[5] The stress on ‘before me’ contrasts with Malachi ‘Behold I send my messenger before thy face’ (Mal 3:1). (Andrew Perry, Before He was Born [4th ed.; East Boldon, U.K.: Willow Publications, 2013], 149-52, footnotes have been renumbered, italics in original)