In the common understanding of existence, people are correct to say Jesus Christ did not exist before conception. However, when something, in this case someone, is so certain to one day exist, because God has absolutely determined this from the very beginning, then there is something very uncommon about this. It is a special kind of existence. It is actually tangible. God made it certain that there would one day in history be a Christ and it was so certain that it meant this Christ existed in a very tangible way before that day. It is so unusual that it may not happen with other things except something certain to happen in the future, by the absolute will of God, like the resurrection, the Millennium, the final judgement. These are so certain to one day happen that they affect our lives today. Christ was like that in earliest times, before the rise of civilisation. His future existence was so foregone that it meant he actually had existence back then and this inspired the prophets such as Isaiah. Daniel even felt him tangibly putting a hand on his shoulder. David could speak of him as “my lord”. The laws of Nature were even affected by his inevitable foregone existence such that trees put out leaves and buds by his authority. Angels learned his name. People are correct to refute pre-existence of Christ by common understanding of existence, but this is an uncommon unique kind of existence. Not the commonly understood existence. “Before Abraham was born, I am”, Jesus said. Peter, his disciple, later wrote how prophets of old, such as Isaiah, were guided to write about the Christ by this Spirit of Christ working in them, centuries before the Christ came in the flesh. This is how it is that Jesus could say with such effect, “I am”.
