The following is adapted from the Blue Letter Bible Institute class Christology. To take this class, or to view others, please visit us here.
The name Jesus comes the Hebrew name Yehoshua which simply means “Yahweh is salvation,” and it was given to Christ at His birth. Well, then what was the eternal Son’s name previous? In the Old Testament, Isaiah says that His name is Wonderful. But the Hebrew word Wonderful, means “difficult to understand” or “incomprehensible”. So what are we talking about when we discuss the preexistence of Jesus Christ? We are talking about someone who has not yet received His name—Yehoshua—and whose name is beyond our ability to understand.
Why is His name beyond our ability to understand? Now if you need to know the what is meant by the name Wonderful, you can check Psalm 139:1-6, where it speaks of God’s knowledge being so great that before there is a word on our tongue, He knows it altogether. Before we say anything, He knows exactly what we are going to say. He knows the end from the beginning. And the Bible says in Psalm 139:6, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it.” There is a clear and Biblical definition of the word “wonderful”. It is greater than your ability to understand it. When it says in Isaiah 28:29, “His counsel is wonderful,” and in Isaiah 9:6, “He is the wonderful counselor,” it means that He is “too difficult to understand.” He is the incomprehensible Christ!
I find it very difficult to talk about these things and not get really excited about praising the Lord. What about you? We are talking about the name that is above every name—a name that is so wonderful. His ways are past finding out. “Oh the depth of the wisdom and the knowledge of God”—the riches of that. It is incomprehensible. His greatness is too difficult to fathom. He calls all the stars by name. His sovereignty is so amazing that He rules over all—whatever is in the heaven and in the earth. He does whatever He pleases. He sustains all the physical laws of the universe that if I were to drop a book, it would drop to the table. And my Lord is sustaining these laws.
He is incomprehensible. What you learn about the preexistence of Jesus Christ will accelerate your appreciation for the incarnation of Christ. In fact, you will begin to wonder how in the world it could have occurred, which we will cover when we get there.
How is it possible that this great God who is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, could localize His infinite presence into one human body? In fact, the heaven of heavens cannot even contain Him. It is all within Him; He fills it all with His presence. Now how can He localize Himself in a human body enough to say that all the fullness of God dwelt in His physical body (Colossians 2:9)?
In our discussions and teachings about Jesus Christ, we are sometimes too light. We are very superficial and do not think it through. The preexistence of Jesus Christ is an amazing subject about our Savior. This One whose name is wonderful (too difficult to understand), who is called Yahweh Himself, never got the name Yehoshua, but He still was Yehoshua because He has always been salvation from the beginning to the end. “Look unto Me,” this Messiah says in Isaiah, “all the ends of the earth and be saved. For there is no other God besides Me. There is no other Savior.” He has always been Yahweh-is-salvation.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
(Acts 4:12)