"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3).
Many cults that deny the Triune Nature of God, and hence the Deity of Jesus Christ claim that Jesus had a beginning, and was therefore created by God. Interestingly, in order to "prove" this, they only give scriptures that pertain to His human birth, or they'll point to Proverbs 8:22 where wisdom is personified, and claim that it refers to Jesus. Interestingly, they ignore the fact that Proverbs 9 personifies wisdom as a female! So, if they were going to be consistent, they would have to claim Jesus was female, instead of male, too! (Hmmmm....Maybe this is where some get the mistaken idea that Jesus was a wimp?)
The truth of the matter is that the Bible reveals Jesus to have eternally existed along with the Father (John 1:1; 17:5). In fact, it was through Jesus that all things were created (Col. 1:16-17), and since He was the one who created all things, it would be impossible for Him to be one of the things created! The Jehovah's Witness cult attempts to get around this fact by inserting the word "other" in brackets at Col. 1:16-17 in order to make these verses say that Jesus was created first, then He in turn, created all other things, thus altering the meaning of these two scriptures, and tampering with the Word of God.
If Jesus is a created being as the cults claim, one would think that we would find this mentioned somewhere in the Bible, but we do not. If Jesus was "the first of God's creation" as claimed, then we would expect to see the Greek word protoktisis which means "first-created" used in reference to Jesus, but we do not. Instead, we find that the Greek word prototokos "unique, single of a kind" used and refers to His preeeminence over creation as its Creator. Nor do we find the Greek word ktisis which means "created" ever used in reference to Jesus.
Next, they point to the term proceeded forth in an effort to prove Jesus was a created being. The expression, "proceeded forth" in John 8:42 means nothing more than "Jesus came from the presence of the Father, being sent". The text teaches that Jesus was a human messenger that pre-existed his physical birth and came to the world by the incarnation. The Greek word for "proceeded forth" is exerchomai and is never used in scripture in the sense of creation point or origin. The same Greek word for "proceeded forth" is used in both John 8:42 and Mk 5:8. Did the demons have their creation point in the man? Obviously not. So even if the actual meaning of John 8:42 was that Jesus came from inside the Father, it clearly doesn’t mean that it was Jesus creation point any more than the demons from the man. But the expression "proceeded forth" in John 8:42 does not mean Jesus came from the Father as a source, but merely that the Father sent him forth.
John 8:42 "If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth (exerchomai)and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me."
Mk 5:8 "For He had been saying to him, "Proceed forth (exerchomai) from the man, you unclean spirit!"
But more importantly, the following verses will prove beyond any question, that the meaning of John 8:42 means nothing more than "Jesus came from the presence of the Father, being sent".
John 17:8 "O righteous Father, although the world has not known Thee, yet I have known Thee; and these have known that Thou didst send Me."
John 7:28 "I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. 29 "I know Him; because I am from Him, and He sent Me."
Jn 12:49 "For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me."
John 17:8 "For the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me."
John 16:27-30 "because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth (exerchomai) from the Father. 28 "I came forth (exerchomai) from the Father, and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again, and going to the Father." 29 His disciples *said, "Lo, now You are speaking plainly, and are not using a figure of speech. 30 "Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from (exerchomai) God."
Analysis of John 16:27-30 proves that the expression "proceeded forth" means being sent by God, not a creation point. Three times the Greek word "exerchomai" is used in this text, twice by Jesus and once by the disciples. The disciples were having difficulty believing that Jesus was sent by the Father as a messenger of the Gospel. The Arian argument would have the disciples grappling to believe that Jesus was created by the Father. The text would therefore read according to the false Arian view, "I was created by the Father, and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again, and going to the Father. ... "Now we know that You know all things ... by this we believe that You were created by God." To imagine that the disciples were having a "faith problem" believing Jesus was a creature, is something even anti-Trinitarians could not maintain. If they failed to believe Jesus was a creature, they must have been under the false impression that Jesus was God. So here we have a passage where, according to Arian logic, the disciples already believed Jesus to be God and Jesus was trying to convince them he was not God, but a creature. Of course the truth is that the disciples were grappling with the fact that Jesus was a human messenger that pre-existed his physical birth. They were grappling with the incarnation.
It is clear from Scripture that Jesus has eternally existed as God the Son and had no beginning, and therefore was not created. One has to twist a lot of Scriptures and redefine words to make them appear to teach that Jesus is a created being.
Rev. Jack Howell "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)