Introduction
One may argue—as we have previously[i]—that Jesus was God’s incarnation, a particular manifestation of YHVH among others. Alternatively, one may contend that Jesus was born fully human but became wholly indwelt by God’s Spirit at the Jordan, thereby serving as YHVH’s authoritative representative throughout His life. This Spirit not only governed His thoughts, speech, and actions, but would also transform His lifeless, post‑crucifixion body into something entirely new—Paul’s “spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:42-45). The subsequent appearances of Jesus in this form testified that YHVH, acting through Him, had conquered death itself.
Jesus’s Role AND Mission
Messiah
When we examine which characteristics of Jesus appear in Israel’s prophetic tradition, we immediately encounter the question of whether He was Israel’s Davidic Messiah (Jer 23:5-6). This issue is complicated by the fact that believers in God hold sharply differing views on the matter.
Jewish interpreters, of course, strongly reject the idea and often read their Scriptures in ways that exclude any possibility of Jesus being the Messiah[ii]. Christians, by contrast, almost universally affirm that Jesus was indeed Israel’s Davidic Messiah, though many hold this conviction without a clear understanding of what the title entails.
When we examine the specific traits and actions the Davidic Messiah was expected to fulfill—taken in a literal sense—we find that Jesus accomplished none of them except the suffering and death described in Isaiah’s fourth Servant Song. Most Jews cite this very point to reject Him, since the Servant dies rather than reigning as their anticipated eternal King. Jesus did not become Israel’s monarch, did not reunite Judah and Israel, did not draw the nations to Jerusalem to worship Israel’s God, and—most critically—did not overthrow Israel’s imperial oppressors.
For these reasons, debate over the matter tends to be unproductive. Ultimately, only God knows the truth of it.
Prophet
Jesus unquestionably fulfilled the role of God’s prophet, a status widely recognized by those who encountered Him (Mt 21:11, 46, Lk 7:16, 24:19, Jn 4:19, 6:14, 7:40). When the crowds identified Him as the prophet—using the definite article—they were almost certainly invoking the expectation of the “prophet like Moses” foretold in Deuteronomy 18:18–19:
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
Israel maintained a longstanding expectation of this singular prophet, even though many prophets had already shaped their history and served as the nation’s moral conscience. This anticipation was alive when Jesus emerged, and most Jews continue to await this prophet today—though the ultimate purpose of that expectation remains uncertain.
Worker of Miracles
This anticipated “prophet like Moses” was expected to wield abilities reminiscent of those Moses displayed in liberating the Hebrews. Moses had been the unmistakable agent of God’s miraculous power—both to compel Pharaoh to release the people and to sustain Israel in the wilderness.
The Gospels present clear instances in which Jesus claimed such miraculous authority for Himself, most notably in the synagogue at Nazareth (Lk 4:16–21), where He invoked Isaiah 61:1–2.
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
This Jubilee‑themed declaration emphasized spiritual and pastoral miracles—acts of genuine care, liberation, and comfort for Israel’s oppressed.
In another episode, Jesus responded to John’s messengers when they asked whether He was “the one to come”—a clear reference to the expected Messiah. Jesus replied (Lk 7:20–22) by paraphrasing two prophetic passages from Isaiah (Isa 29:18–19).
18In that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
19 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD,
and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
and Isa 35:5-6
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
If we accept the Gospel narratives, Jesus clearly fulfilled the expectation of being a worker of miracles—an essential trait of the anticipated “prophet like Moses.”
Jesus’s Person
Jesus was a uniquely anointed man—fully human in His biological nature. Yet from at least the moment of His baptism onward, He was endowed and indwelt by God’s Spirit, the very expression of God Himself (who “is spirit,” Jn 4:24). Jesus affirmed this repeatedly, most clearly in John 14:10:
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”
The result of this indwelling was that Jesus perceived and pursued what is “right” and “good” in the same way God does. His moral vision aligned perfectly with God’s morality—as reflected in the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, and the full range of biblical ethical teaching.
As a consequence of this “imparted divinity,” God’s indwelling Spirit could manifest extraordinary abilities through Jesus—walking on water, raising the dead, restoring sight to the blind, calming storms, and more—whenever such acts served God’s purposes in affirming Jesus as His anointed Son and agent on earth.
Personhood
In discussing the relationship between God and Jesus, we often become overly preoccupied with the notion of “personhood” or individual personality. Seeing a human—or human‑like—figure walking, speaking, sleeping, and eating, we instinctively assume He operated from a personal “self” as we do, possessing thoughts or moral impulses distinct from God’s own.
Such an assumption imposes a narrow framework on both Jesus and God. It likely reflects our own sense of inadequacy when we imagine undertaking anything comparable to Jesus’s mission. We generally assume that, whatever else He was, Jesus was a human being—and even the creeds affirm His “fully human” nature. And of course, virtually all humans possess a distinct personality and sense of self.
But why must this be true of God’s chosen agent and Son? Is it really so difficult to imagine a man who was human in every biological respect yet whose inner nature was overtaken by God at the Jordan?
Most interpreters agree that Jesus acted entirely on behalf of YHVH. John emphasizes this repeatedly[iii], and Jesus Himself declared that His mission was directed exclusively toward calling Israel back to their God (Mt 15:24), thereby advancing YHVH’s longstanding eschatological promise to reunite Judah and Israel (Eze 37:21-23). In this essential sense, Jesus’s objective was identical to YHVH’s.
On the other hand, it is impossible to prove that Jesus experienced no genuinely human aspects of His nature—that He was, in every moment, entirely animated by God. His prayer in Gethsemane (Mt 26:39) offers a glimpse of what appears to be authentic human emotion. Yet it remains reasonable to conclude that, despite such moments, the God‑infused Jesus possessed no human weakness that could hinder Him from completing every aspect of God’s mission.
We must also keep in mind the biblical declaration of God’s nature in Numbers 23:19:
19 God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Of course, this passage refers to an ordinary human being, not to the God‑infused, God‑animated man we propose Jesus became during His ministry. YHVH had long used human agents to accomplish His purposes throughout Israel’s history, so His use of the human Jesus fits within that pattern.
Jesus came to announce God’s promised New Covenant—a covenant that would regather Israel and transform all who chose to follow Him and, thereby, to follow God. He proclaimed God’s longstanding call to humble obedience, promising new hearts of flesh, the indwelling and guidance of God’s Spirit, and an internalized knowledge of God written upon the heart.
It follows that God would make this appeal to Israel as compelling as possible by providing a spokesman who was as God‑like and God‑honoring as a human frame could allow. This, fundamentally, was the character and mission of Jesus.
From this perspective, it becomes difficult to imagine that any of Jesus’s thoughts or motivations were anything other than God’s own—apart, perhaps, from His momentary recoil at the prospect of impending torture (Mt 26:39), a moment that reveals human frailty even amid divine empowerment.
A Theophany?
Was Jesus merely a divine manifestation—a theophany—similar to the visitor who appeared to Abram in Genesis 18? While this is conceivable, it seems unlikely, for Jesus is described as having been “born of a woman,” growing up as a boy in Nazareth, living a human life, and ultimately dying a physical death. If His entire earthly existence, from Mary’s pregnancy to His crucifixion, were only a divine appearance, then God executed that appearance with extraordinary thoroughness, convincing everyone around Him that He was a real child with a mother and a father who matured into a real man.
Still, we must acknowledge that the Creator can manifest Himself in whatever form suits His purposes—Abram’s visitor, the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, and the various messengers (Malachim) throughout the Tanakh. A theophany is therefore not impossible. Yet in Jesus’s case, the narrative does not carry the “feel” of a temporary divine appearance.
What is the Quantitative Difference Between God Wrapped in Human Biology (the “Incarnation”) and God’s Spirit Perfectly Indwelling a Biologically Human Person?
The question is this: What distinguishes the Trinitarian concept of the “Incarnation”—a divine Jesus—from the idea of a fully human Jesus perfectly indwelt by God’s Spirit? How would either condition differ in terms of the effectiveness of His ministry? Functionally, there appears to be no difference. In both models, God’s Spirit is the sole animating force behind Jesus’s thoughts and actions. As we will see, this observation carries profound implications for us.
What is Divinity?
Divinity refers to the perfect nature of the Creator‑God. There is only one such God—a claim not empirically provable, yet affirmed in various forms by billions of people across countless cultures since at least the time of Sinai, and consistently proclaimed in Scripture. If the human Jesus is said to be “divine,” then in what sense? He was clearly not identical with God, for God is Spirit (Jn 4:24) and therefore not bound by the physical constraints that govern human existence.
Traditional Christian doctrine holds that Christ—distinct from the historical Jesus—is one “person” within the three‑person Godhead of Father, Son, and Spirit. Many such doctrines also assert that Christ existed “with” God “before the beginning,” attributing to Him a preexistent state (Jn 1:1). Some interpreters even read this divine “person” or “personality” into various Tanakh narratives in which God acts upon or interacts with humanity, beginning with the creation accounts.
This Trinitarian model assumes that if divinity is distributed among three “persons,” then each person must in some sense be divine. Yet the model complicates matters by claiming that these three are “members” of a single Godhead—an abstract unity said to possess all divine attributes. Notably, Scripture never depicts a “Godhead” acting as an entity, unless one chooses to interpret the plural ’elohim in that way, contrary to its original usage.
The defining feature of the Trinitarian view is this distribution of divinity across three distinct “persons” or identities. But why should divinity be apportioned in this particular way when the Deity interacts with His creation and humanity?
If there is one God who alone is divine, why assume that He cannot express or implement His divinity—whether fully or partially—in any manner or context He chooses? After all, what ability could the Creator of the universe possibly lack?
Certainly God can impart His divinity—whether wholly or partially—into any context or entity: into a single Spirit‑indwelt person or into millions; into a burning bush; into a hungry visitor who appears to Abraham; or into a “devouring fire” atop a mountain. Such a God could likewise impart His creative capacities (what some might call the “Logos”), or embed aspects of His nature into the environment of Eden, or infuse them into the very character and mission of Jesus of Nazareth.
Does this imply that Jesus should be worshiped? Many do worship Him. Yet it seems more fitting to direct worship toward the One who made Jesus what He was. In the Spirit‑indwelt model, worshiping Jesus is essentially honoring the divine character and capacities God imparted to Him. We should certainly be grateful to Jesus for His message and for the sacrifice that helped inaugurate God’s New Covenant.
If this indeed reflects the relationship between YHVH and Jesus, many New Testament passages that once seemed enigmatic become far more coherent. Consider, for example, John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.” If Jesus’s nature mirrored YHVH’s—though not His full capabilities—how else could such a relationship be described?
Jn 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
This may be an example of what scholars call the “intrusion of divine speech,” in which a speaker suddenly utters first‑person statements as though speaking directly as YHVH. Numerous instances appear in the later prophets (e.g., Dt 7:4; 11:13–14; 17:2–3; 28:20; Is 3:14–15; 29:1–4; Jer 4:17; Hos 9:15, and others). Such examples reinforce the idea that God can express aspects of His divinity—including His own speech—through any chosen context or agent, whether a prophet, a bush, or Jesus Himself.
Mk 14:61-62 records this exchange:
61But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” 62And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Here Jesus affirms that He is the Messiah—a human figure (“Son of Man”) destined to be glorified by YHVH. Yet He also makes a striking implicit claim by beginning His response with egō eimi (“I am”), echoing YHVH’s self‑designation in Exodus 3:14. He further suggests that He will one day occupy an exalted position alongside YHVH, a status incompatible with the idea that His humanity represents His final or ultimate condition.
Of course, it is possible that this reflects Mark’s characteristic dramatic style rather than a verbatim historical transcript. Luke, for instance, has Jesus respond to the “Son of God” question with, “You say that I am,” effectively sidestepping the claim. Matthew offers a similar reply: “You have said so.” Yet all three Synoptic Gospels agree on the essential point: Jesus, as the “Son of Man,” declares that He will be seated at the right hand of YHVH.
The Glorification Narrative and Judgement
And it is this glorification narrative that forces us come to grips with the New Testament’s narrative that following Jesus’s resurrection, He is in YHVH’s presence in a state of glory. Various texts say He (Christ) will return to judge mankind (e.g., Mt 25:31-32, Jn 5:22, Ro 2:16, 2 Cor 5:10, 2 Tim 4:1, Rev 22:12)[iv].
Virtually all Christians accept that the resurrected Christ now functions as a kind of co‑ruler with YHVH, regardless of their particular views about His preexistence. Jews, however, reject this idea entirely, seeing it as an unwarranted elevation of Jesus to messianic status and as a direct challenge to their commitment to absolute monotheism.
What About Christ’s Preexistence?
The Apostle John understood the Spirit of Jesus—the Christ—to have existed “with” God prior to Creation (Jn 1:1-2, 17:5, 24, 8:58)[v]. Paul and the author of Hebrews expressed similar ideas (Phil 2:6-7, Heb 10:5-7). All three writers portray Christ as the embodiment of God’s creative expression: insofar as God’s nature is creative, Christ is depicted as the means or implementation of that creative activity (Col 1:16-17, 1 Cor 8:6, Heb 1:2-3, Jn 1:3, Jn 1:10).
These passages present a similar tension to the broader preexistence question: Was Christ a distinct agent whom YHVH enlisted to carry out creation, or do these texts simply describe YHVH’s own creative identity in metaphorical terms? Paul and the author of Hebrews read as if they are convinced that Christ functioned as God’s creative instrument and, in some sense, as a distinguishable entity—at least as their language suggests.
However, we should note that this chronological interpretation is not universally accepted. Although the early church fathers and the major councils up through at least the eighth century generally affirmed Christ’s preexistence, the concept gradually shifted from a literal, chronological existence “before the foundation of the world” to a functional one—Christ understood as the embodiment or implementation of God’s Logos and Wisdom.
If we consider the view that God and Jesus were two preexistent beings, we must ask how the New Testament authors reconciled this with Genesis 1:1, which plainly states:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Set against this foundational declaration is a passage such as 1 Corinthians 8:6:
“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”
Paul appears to resolve this tension by distinguishing between all things being “from” the Father and all things being “through” Jesus Christ. In his view, the Father is the source of creation, while Christ functions as the means or agent through whom creation occurs. Unfortunately, Paul does not elaborate further on this arrangement in his letters.
Hebrews 1:2 offers a similar framework, stating that God has spoken “by His Son…through whom He also created the world.” Again, God is the source; Christ is the creative agent. John does not explicitly articulate this functional distinction in his Gospel, but he hints at it in Revelation 3:14: “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.” The term translated “beginning” (746. ἀρχή archē) can mean “source” or “cause,” not merely “first in sequence.” In this context, it portrays Christ as the originating cause of creation—an idea closely aligned with creative agency/Logos.
John also records Jesus’s explicit statement of preexistence in John 17:5:
“And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
Statements like this understandably encouraged the church fathers to embrace a literal doctrine of preexistence. Yet several considerations suggest that a literal reading may not have been intended. While we cannot explore each in detail here, the following points merit further study:
- The statement might be an instance of the “prophetic past tense” or “prophetic perfect” in which an assured future condition is expressed as already having happened.
- Some early manuscripts read “the glory that was with you” instead of “the glory I had with you”.
- The statement might be an instance of the Hebraic idiom of “Having something with God”
- The credibility of a literal interpretation suffers when comparing it with Jesus’s previous statement in John 17:3 “… that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
The bottom line is that such expressions—of which John’s Gospel is full—do not necessarily require us to conclude that Jesus existed as a divine being “with” God before creation when interpreted within their original linguistic and cultural context.
The Identity of Jesus Christ
To begin, it is understandable why the participants at Nicea (325 AD) and Chalcedon (451 AD) found it natural to identify three actors within a single “Godhead.” In Trinitarian thought, the “Father” corresponds to YHVH, Jesus is the Christ or “Son,” and the Holy Spirit is God’s own Spirit, tasked with calling, transforming, and guiding His people.
The New Testament indeed attests that Jesus was raised into God’s presence, where He is now glorified “with” the Father. One could therefore conclude that Christ presently has the status of deity. Yet anthropomorphic expressions such as “seated at the right hand of Power” complicate our understanding of the precise relationship between the glorified Christ and God.
This relationship becomes even more opaque when the Bible describes the transformed faithful as Christ’s “brothers.” What, then, is the present status of those who became His brothers? If Christ is now a deity, does their brotherhood imply a similar elevation? Or perhaps the glorification of the faithful—beginning with Jesus—is their ultimate destiny, as Paul suggests in Romans 8:18–19:
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”
Ultimately, we lack sufficient information to draw firm conclusions about the precise nature or current state of Jesus or His faithful “brothers” that He brought back to the Father. What seems most plausible is that they all now exist in some form of God’s glory.
Why the Spirit-Infused Human Jesus Makes Perfect Sense
Unfulfilled Promises and Their Convergence
Elsewhere I have argued that, in Jesus’s day, three major promises that YHWH had made to His people remained unfulfilled[vi].
- First, God’s promise to Abram that his descendants would become a blessing to all families and nations of the earth had not yet reached its intended scope.
- Second, the prophetic assurances that God would regather the dispersed northern tribes of Israel and reunite them with Judah as His single covenant people (e.g., Eze 37:21-23, Am 9:14-15, Is 11:11-12) had not been realized.
- Third, the widely attested promise of a “New Covenant” (Jer 31:31-34, Eze 36:24-28, Joel 2:28) remained unfulfilled: Israel did not yet possess hearts of flesh, God’s law written within them, or the indwelling Spirit animating them in love of God and neighbor. Only a portion of the people possessed genuine knowledge of God.
These three promises, however, are not independent. Their fulfillment is interwoven. The implementation of one necessarily advances the others.
God’s fulfillment of His New Covenant promises was—and remains—contingent upon His instilling His Spirit within those who seek Him and commit themselves to His will. Some of these were Jews; many others were distant descendants of the exiled northern tribes, now living as gentiles throughout the Levant, Asia, and Egypt. The divine call extended even further, drawing in individuals from the nations who had no ancestral connection to Israel. They were simply “the nations”—pagan gentiles, fulfilling God’s “blessing to all nations” promise to Abraham.
As these various groups responded to God’s summons to repent and return to Him, two of God’s promises were being fulfilled simultaneously: the Abrahamic promise of blessing to the nations, and the regathering of the dispersed descendants of Israel alongside faithful Judahites who likewise sought God and His will.
All of these individuals experienced the New Covenant transformation effected by God’s Spirit—just as seekers of God do today. This transformation produced in them an innate desire to please God, to love Him, and to love their neighbors. It is precisely this transformation that becomes significant for understanding Jesus’s nature.
Jesus as the Model
Jesus stands as the antitype of all who sincerely respond to God’s call and are transformed by the gift of His Spirit. In this sense, He is the exemplar.
Jesus, the man, was animated by the same Spirit of God that is offered to all under the New Covenant. This is the condition He publicly declared of Himself in the synagogue at Nazareth, citing Isaiah 61:1 (Luke 4:18):
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…”
Because Jesus lived as a Spirit‑indwelt human being, He is identified in Scripture as the model for all who would follow Him—the “firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29). The New Testament repeatedly affirms this pattern:
1Pe 2:21-23
21For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
1Jn 2:5-6
5but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Phl 2:1-2
1So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
Jesus demonstrated what human life looks like when filled to overflowing with God’s Spirit—His kindness, compassion, piety, humility, and freedom from worldly anxieties. While Jesus’s faithfulness to God through the Spirit surpasses even the most devout among His followers, the pattern remains clear: a life wholly devoted to carrying out the will of God.
Conclusions
From a functional standpoint, it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish between (1) Jesus as a divine being, a member of a Godhead, and (2) Jesus as a human being called into God’s service and empowered by God’s Spirit. In either case, the effective agent is God. Nothing accomplished by the one could not be accomplished by the other.
Yet for interpreters of Jesus’s story, one crucial difference emerges.
If Jesus is understood as divine—God Himself—then His actions become categorically inimitable. We instinctively excuse ourselves from attempting to live as He lived: He is God; we are not. The difference in kind creates an unbridgeable gap.
However, if Jesus is understood as fully human, infused with God’s nature and Spirit (beginning at the Jordan), and if Scripture teaches that God intends to infuse all who seek after Him with that same Spirit—granting them a heart like Jesus’s, imparting divine wisdom and knowledge as Jesus displayed, and distributing gifts of the Spirit enabling them to live as Jesus would live if He was them[vii]—then we are drawn directly into the narrative. God’s intention is to make His followers Christ‑like.
A further difficulty with the Jesus‑as‑divinity model is its conceptual artificiality. Jesus speaks of God as His “Father,” which yields a picture of two divine beings in a genealogical relationship. Jesus speaks separately of the Holy Spirit, producing a third divine actor. To preserve inherited monotheism, Christian tradition then posits a “Godhead”—not a distinct identity but a kind of composite organism consisting of three functionaries. Many Christians raised within Trinitarian contexts never encountered the alternative: Jesus as God’s Spirit‑empowered human agent and Son.
Once this alternative is considered, however, its clarity, coherence, and explanatory power become striking. Jesus is the first of “many brothers.” This is the family likeness to which believers are called to aspire.
[i] Thinking About The Trinity – A Pilgrim’s Search, The Singular God and the Divine Christ: A Case for Modalism – A Pilgrim’s Search
[ii] It is a common experience that any Jew who agrees with the ‘Jesus-as-Davidic-Messiah’ proposition is typically rejected by their friends and family, sadly.
[iii] Jesus’s action exclusively at God’s direction: Jn 5:19, Jn 5:30, Jn 8:28-30; Jesus’s teaching: Jn 7:16, Jn 12:49-50; Jesus’s mission: Jn 4:34, Jn 6:38, Jn 10:17-18; Jesus’s authority: Jn 5:27, Jn 10:18, Jn 17:2; Jesus’s works: Jn 10:25, 32, 37-38, Jn 14:10-11. Plus we see total commitment and abdication of self to God in Mt 11:27, Mt 26:39, 42 and Mk 10:40.
[iv] And, of course, these verses seem to conflict with various Hebrew Bible verses in which YHVH is said to judge, e.g., Is 66:15-16, Ps 50:3-6, Ecc 12:14).
[v] Admittedly, the normal way most would interpret these verses is quite literally, that before Creation there was, in some sense, God and Christ together in glory. However, it’s possible these are simply surmises by the author of John as to in what sense Christ existed “with” YHVH to result in Jesus’s statement: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” The issue is: “Did Jesus pre-exist ‘with God’, or was this simply YHVH’s voice emanating from Jesus?” Two quite distinct situations.
[vi] Unpacking the New Covenant Gospel, Forgiven vs Transformed to Righteousness, Paul’s Real Gospel
[vii] Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, NavPress, 2012, pp 241
