Hello Theocrat … thanks for your interesting reply.

I would respectfully disagree with you over the existence of Jesus Christ prior to his human conception.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. John 17:5     You said you believe Jesus was an idea in the mind of God. But how can a mere idea share God’s glory?

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. John 3:13     I interpret this to mean that Christ’s descent (and therefore his prior existence) was unique and significantly different to all the other ideas that God had in his mind from eternity, such as God’s foreknowledge of Jeremiah.

Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? John 6:62     I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. John 16:28     Doesn’t this imply some sort of correspondence between Jesus’s existence and position in heaven before and after tabernacling on earth?

… though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:6-7     I do not see how a mere idea in the mind of God could make a personal decision to take the form of a servant.

[Christ] upholds the universe by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:3     Who was upholding the universe when Christ was only a figment in God’s imagination?

You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands. (Words applied to Jesus by the writer of Hebrews.) Hebrews 1:10     I do not see how a mere idea in the mind of God could have had an active role in creation. An architect’s blueprint perhaps, but this verse seems to be saying more than that.

Cordially … Phil