One day last week Al Mohler answered some listeners’ questions about Christmas. That inspired me to do the same in these last three weekdays leading up to Christmas, this coming Sunday. I’ll include some of Dr. Mohler’s answers, as well as offer some of my own thoughts.
Question Number One: Where was Jesus before He became a human?
There are a few answers I’d like to give for this questions:
First, Jesus is God which means He is eternal. There was never a time when He did not exist. He has always been the eternally begotten Son of the Father. When Jesus became a human, He laid aside some of His glory, but He did not cease being God even for an instant. He took on humanity in addition to His eternal deity. He is the only Person ever to be both God and man.
So where was Jesus before He took on humanity? In John 17:5 Jesus prayed to His Father “glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” This informs us that Jesus was with the Father (and with the Holy Spirit) in Heaven, in glory, before creation from eternity past.
As a wonderful footnote: Jesus is still, and ever will be, the one and only God-man who is now in Heaven where He ever lives to intercede for His people. And Jesus will continue to be the one and only God-man in Heaven for ever and ever.
Question Number Two: Did (and does) Jesus have Mary’s DNA?
While the Bible does not speak about the scientific details of Jesus’s DNA, It is safe to say that Jesus does have Mary’s DNA since she is His human mother. Remember, Jesus is not only truly God, He is also truly man. Therefore, He therefore has human DNA, and having only one human parent, His DNA must be like Mary’s DNA.
As a footnote to this answer, let us be reminded that having God as His Father, Jesus had no biologically human father. (Joseph was Jesus’ father by adoption.) This is an important detail of the doctrine of the virgin birth. Why? Because the sin nature is passed through fathers to their children (Romans 5:12-21), Jesus couldn’t have a human father. Why? Because if Jesus had a human father, He would be a sinner. Jesus not only was not and is not a sinner, He could not have been a sinner, or else He could not be our sinless Savior. Had Jesus been a sinner, His sinful blood could not atone for His people’s sins.