04/10/2026
Extract from an important article:
DID JESUS EXIST BEFORE HE WAS BORN? (1) - by MARTIN HUGHES
www.thechristadelphian.com
Compiled from notes by Brother Martin Hughes, of Watford, who fell asleep in Christ on 3 November 2022. Full version appears in The Christadelphian magazine February 2023, to be concluded March 2023.
Matthew 1:18-25 records the conception and birth of Jesus Christ, when Mary was found to be with child by the action of the Holy Spirit, in the miracle widely known as ‘the Virgin Birth’. The natural straightforward way of reading this account is that Jesus did not exist in some way before he was born, and that his origins go back only as far as the time when he was conceived in this way. We draw these conclusions because the Gospel writer, in describing the beginnings of Jesus Christ, uses well known words that relate to our own experience too – words such as ‘conceive’ and ‘birth’, which fit Jesus into the pattern that we have all experienced, in which there is no existence before conception and birth.
ORDINARY WORDS; EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES
Of course, these ordinary, commonplace words are set in an extraordinary context, for Matthew speaks of Mary being “with child of the Holy [Spirit]” (Matthew 1:18). [2] Jesus had no earthly father, and his birth was a unique event. But this does not mean that these ordinary words about his birth have to take on a deeper meaning and significance. Far from it; Matthew declares openly, with positive emphasis, that Jesus differed from us only in being born by the action of the Holy Spirit. Matthew is not trying to hide the facts of the birth of Christ.
[continued on p.77-78, and part 2 to come in March 2023 magazine]
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