Ask Mr. Religion
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I believe the Son of God existed from eternity, as well as the other two Persons of the Godhead. I do not believe "christ the man" existed prior to the virgin birth. Read on...
Careful, now. I am trying to give you some latitude because I do not think English is your first language and you are having trouble expressing yourself.
The relevant antichrist verse reads:
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.[FONT="]
[/FONT]Firstly, contrary to your assumption, I do confess that the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, came to earth and walked it as one Person, with a fully divine nature and a fully human nature indissolubly linked via a hypostatic union.
Secondly, this epistle’s context is about false teachers and our admonishment to avoid any fellowship with them. Specifically, the intent of 2 John 1:7 was to denounce the Docetism heresy, which denied the actual full humanity of Christ. The early Docetists claimed Jesus only appeared to be human, as if He were a phantom. Today, the term Docetist is applied to those whose Christology claims Jesus was different from what He seemed to be.
As we have seen in this thread and from the book of Hebrews, if Christ did not possess a fully human nature (with a fully divine nature), He would not be qualified to help us endure the trials of our human existence as our Intercessor (Hebrews 7:25) before the Father (see Hebrews 2:17-18; 4:15-16; 5:2, 7-9). In verses 10 and 11 of this Second Epistle of John, we are give very clear instructions to give not even the slightest encouragement to teachers who promote an erroneous view of Christ.
Thirdly, you cannot interpret the verse above to imply that "the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh" should read "Jesus Christ, who exists in the flesh, is coming", yet this is exactly what you are trying to do.
You can get a better understanding by examining other translations of the verse:
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. (NASB)
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. (NKJV)
Fourthy, the phrase “the coming of” (erchomenon) is a descriptive of Christ. In the New Testament “the one who is coming” is a Messianic designator (for example, see, Matthew 11:2; John1:15; John 1:27; John 12:13; Rev. 1:4).
The tense used is to emphasize the timeless character of the Incarnation. This is in line with the treatment given in John 3:31; 6:14; 11:27. The Incarnation was not just a mere historical event, instead it is a continuing truth that defines the union between deity and humanity present in Christ’s person. This union is not just limited to the point in history when Christ walked Palestine, but it is true of Him who now sits at the right hand of the Father.
Fifthly, and in conclusion, the particular phrase, “Jesus Christ in the flesh”, is about the incarnation. The fully divine nature and fully human nature is implied by John’s use of the full name of the Son of God, “Jesus Christ” (see also 1 John 4:2) as well as the previous discussion.
Jesus claims His divinity in this passage (John 8:58), using the Greek ego eimi (I AM) (Hebrew: ani hu). His audience was not mistaken about His claim, too, for the started to stone Him for apparent blasphemy.
Elsewhere in John, the striking parallelism between the OT and the NT is seen from the LXX (Septuagint) renderings of two passages that make it obvious that Christ was being very explicit about who He claimed to be:
Isaiah 43:10: hina pisteusete ... hoti ego eimi
John 13:19: hina pisteusete ... hoti ego eimi
John obviously knew the LXX and for John to render 13:19 as in Isaiah 43:10 was no accident; he wanted to make the connection between Christ and Yahweh clear. What is in view here is the divinity of Christ that He is claiming, not something related to His physical body.
John's connection between Jesus and Yahweh cannot be made outside of a Trinitarian understanding. Anyone reading John can see for themselves that The Son of God is not the same person as God the Father. Yet when we connect the ego eimi with the anu hu it is clear that two persons are sharing one nature—God's! Now add the discussion of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel, wherein it is clear that the Holy Spirit is not the same person as the Son of God or God the Father, and we have the underlying foundation for the Trinitarian doctrine!
But, this passage, nor any other, is teaching that Christ existed as a man prior to the Incarnation. There is no warrant for you to draw this conclusion, for if you do, you are basically implying, from the discussion above, that God has always existed as a man. Yours is an obviously erroneous interpretation.
I recommend two references to help you understand this:
1. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1934)
2. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1932)
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