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Hidden in Plain Sight
Seek and you will find...
Mr. PSP
July 17, 2025
When engaging in interfaith dialogues about the Trinity–typically with Muslims–one common assertion includes the classic: “Why was Jesus never mentioned in the Old Testament?”
Just as some insist Christ must explicitly proclaim, “I am God and thou shall worship me” in those exact words, they also expect Him to be introduced with the explicit title of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament to be convinced.
Unfortunately, that’s not the way things work around here.
It is not up to us to set the terms and conditions by which God is allowed to reveal Himself to us.
Contrary to popular belief amongst non-Christians, Jesus actually appears in the Old Testament many times.
Before jumping into Old Testament scripture, let’s start with the Book of John, where Jesus is telling the Jews that while they think they know God, they in fact do not; because if they did, they would be elated to see Jesus and not conspiring to kill Him.
Christ asserts, “You do not know Him, but I know Him. And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar. But I do know Him and I keep His word. Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”
the jews after hearing that
Immediately confused, they asked, “You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Christ responded, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
Now, non-Trinitarians will cope and will either say that the “I AM” doesn’t necessarily imply divinity or that the Gospel of John is not a verbatim record of Jesus’s words.
However, while Muslims don’t believe Jesus was making a divine claim, there’s a group of people that unambiguously knew that he was: the Jews in the crowd.
Right after Christ said these words, they immediately picked up stones to kill him, which was the natural response of Jews of those days towards anyone who committed blasphemy.
Firstly, Jesus proclaiming that he predates Abraham is a clear reference to Christ’s eternal nature and his existence with the Father from the beginning of time.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”
One can logically conclude that if Jesus is claiming to be eternal in nature and not merely a created being, then He is, by nature, God.
However, the selection of the words “I am” is more than just a reference to his eternal nature; it is also literally the name of God.
In the Old Testament, God calls out to Moses from the famous burning bush and affirms to him that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
After Moses asks what he should tell the people was His name is, God responds, “I am who I AM…say to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you…this is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout generations.”
the great I AM!
From that point on, the Israelites knew God’s name to be “I AM,” thus compelling the Jews in the crowd to stone Jesus.
“Jesus did not say, ‘Before Abraham was, I was,’ but ‘I am.’ See how He reserves to Himself the name of the Eternal One.”
One thing to note here is no one has seen the Father except for the Son, as Jesus Christ serves as the sole mediator between the world and the Father.
“Not that anyone has seen the Father except He who is from God; he has seen the Father.”
“And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me…His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen.”
With this in mind, not only does Christ reveal to us that He is indeed God incarnate, but it is He that appears as the burning bush and not God the Father, since the Father had not been revealed to humanity before the incarnation of Christ.
In fact, many early Church Fathers drew the comparison of the enflamed bush to Mary bearing baby Jesus in her womb:
“The flame was an image of the Divine nature, which appeared in the bus as in a fleshly garment, and did not consume it–just as the fire of the Godhead did not consume the Virgin’s womb.”
Once we recognize that God the Father doesn’t appear before any earthly eyes in the Old Testament, it becomes clear that the pre-incarnate Christ makes numerous appearances.
The next example is the event that Christ is referencing to the Jews when he told them Abraham, unlike them, rejoiced when he saw Christ.
“But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God; Abraham did not do this.”
In Genesis 15, “the word of the Lord” came to Abraham in a vision and ensured to him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.
While some may interpret this as merely the words of God, it is clear that the “word” being referenced here is an actual being; it states that the word “[He] took him outside” to give Abraham the message.
The “word of God” also appears in Jeremiah 1, affirming to the prophet that He knew him before he formed him in the womb.
Both of these appearances of the “word” are in direct connection with the Word of God referenced in John 1, as both are clearly describing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
"It is the Word of God who is sent to the prophets. The Word came to Jeremiah, as He came to the other prophets—not as sound, but as a living Person.”
Christ also appears in the Old Testament in other forms—even when not explicitly called “the Word.”
When speaking in both Genesis 1:26 and 11:7, God mysteriously uses the personal pronoun of “us,” saying “let us make man in our image” and “let us go down [to confuse their language].”
While Billy Carson types will argue that this proves the Bible preaches polytheism, the rest of us rational beings can conclude that it is a clear depiction of the triune God in the Old Testament.
a moment of silence for Carson’s career…
While the three persons in the Trinity are in perfect unison, they are still distinct persons, thus leading to the use of “us” and not “me.”
“That the Trinity is implied, who is one God... He did not say, ‘I will go down,’ but, ‘Let us go down,’ which must be understood of the three Persons.”
“‘Let us go down’—He speaks not as one deliberating with Himself, but reveals the plurality within unity.”
“The words ‘Let us go down’ are not said to angels... For no creature shares His creative power.”
Additionally, Christ makes yet another appearance in the famous story of Jacob wrestling with God, as after Jacob spends hours wrestling with a mystery man, he proclaims, “for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
Jacob entangling with someone who he at first identified as a man but later acknowledged was God is the perfect foreshadowing for the mystery of Christ taking on both man’s and God’s nature.
“The one who blesses is divine; the one who wrestles is man—thus in this mysterious combat, Christ foreshadows the Incarnation.”
“He who appeared to Jacob as a man and wrestled with him is called both God and man, showing that He was Christ before He became man by birth.”
“Jacob wrestled with God, receiving a blessing from Him… the same who appeared to Abraham and Moses, who is the Word of God, who converses with men.”
Lastly, in Psalm 110:1, David writes, “The Lord said unto my Lord, ‘Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.’”
While it may be obvious that this is God the Father telling God the Son that He shall sit at His right hand, it becomes even clearer when understanding that Christ Himself said that He shall sit at the right hand of the Father in all three of the non-synoptic Gospels (Matthew 26:64, Mark 14:62, and Luke 22:69).
“David, being a prophet and confessing the Lord’s coming in the flesh, said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord...’ showing two persons: the Father who speaks, and the Son who is addressed.”
“He whom David calls ‘Lord’ was not David’s son according to the flesh, but according to divine generation before all creation.”
“He is not ‘made’ Lord, but is already Lord, and sits with the Father from eternity—not by favor, but by nature.”
“‘The Lord said to my Lord’… God the Father to God the Son. One Lord to another Lord, equal in majesty, distinct in person.”
The list of examples continues on and on.
It is easy to breeze through the entire Old Testament and conclude that we don’t find Christ until turning to the Gospel of Matthew.
However, sometimes all it takes is a few pieces of information for things that were hidden in plain sight to suddenly become obvious.
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Thanks for reading and until next time.
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