Before I Was Jesus: Twenty-Five Secret Identities of Jesus by Gerald D. Robison

Editorial Review - Voices of Excellence

Author Gerald D. Robison

5 Star Review

3rd Place in Religious & Spiritual

Spring Edition 2026

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The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem occupies such a central place in Christian devotion that it can be mistaken for the beginning of his existence. Yet classical Christian theology makes a more expansive claim: the one revealed in the Gospels was already present as the eternal Word, active in creation and existing before the incarnation. In Before I Was Jesus: Twenty-Five Secret Identities of Jesus, Gerald D. Robison follows that claim into a provocative interpretive question. If Christ existed before Bethlehem, where might readers encounter him in the earlier pages of Scripture?

Robison’s answer takes the form of twenty-five proposed identities or appearances distributed across biblical history. He interprets these passages as moments in which the preincarnate Christ entered the story under forms readers may not immediately associate with Jesus. The book therefore invites its audience to read the Bible retrospectively, allowing New Testament Christology to reshape the way certain Old Testament encounters are understood.

This approach reflects a longstanding Christian belief in Christ’s preexistence and divinity. The Gospel of John identifies the Word as both present with God and divine, while also describing creation as occurring through him. Colossians similarly associates Christ with the creation and sustaining of all things, and Revelation uses titles that emphasize his eternal significance. Christian traditions differ, however, over how confidently particular Old Testament figures or divine appearances may be identified specifically as Jesus. Robison writes from within one interpretive tradition, and the book is most persuasive when its conclusions are understood within that framework.

The twenty-five “secret identities” give the book an inviting structure. Each proposed appearance contributes to a cumulative argument: Jesus is not an unexpected figure introduced near the end of the biblical narrative, but the divine Son whose presence can be traced throughout it.

The phrase “secret identities” is accessible and memorable, especially for readers who might feel intimidated by technical discussions of Christology. It creates curiosity and turns a complex theological investigation into a sequence of discoveries. At the same time, the phrase can imply a degree of certainty that the underlying passages do not always provide. Some connections between Christ and earlier Scripture are made explicitly in the New Testament. Others depend on typology, theological inference, literary resemblance, or later Christian interpretation.

That distinction is essential. A type may anticipate Christ without being a literal appearance of him. A theophany may reveal God without the text identifying which person of the Trinity is manifested. A prophetic figure or symbol may acquire fuller meaning through the New Testament while remaining rooted in its own historical and literary setting. Robison’s project benefits whenever it makes these interpretive categories visible instead of treating them as interchangeable.

The cumulative structure nevertheless has real devotional power. By placing multiple passages beside one another, the book encourages readers to consider the unity of Scripture and the continuity between creation, covenant, redemption, and incarnation. Even when a particular identification remains debatable, the larger pattern invites serious reflection on how the New Testament presents Christ in relation to the entire biblical story.

Robison is particularly interested in moving beyond the scholarly term “theophany,” meaning an appearance or manifestation of God. The term is precise but emotionally neutral. For the author, identifying an appearance with Jesus transforms a theological category into an encounter with a recognizable person.

This reframing gives the book much of its warmth. Readers are not simply being asked to catalog supernatural events; they are invited to recognize continuity in Christ’s relationship with humanity. The Jesus encountered in the Gospels becomes connected to earlier moments of divine guidance, judgment, protection, covenant, and revelation.

Theologically, however, the more personal term “Christophany” may be appropriate only when there are persuasive reasons to identify a manifestation specifically with the preincarnate Christ. Other passages may be better understood as theophanies, types, symbols, prophetic anticipations, or literary parallels. The distinction does not diminish their Christian significance. It protects the integrity of the biblical text by acknowledging different levels of interpretive confidence.

Robison’s contribution lies in making this discussion approachable for general readers. He converts formal doctrine into a question with narrative momentum: if Christ has always been present, what changes when readers begin looking for him?

The book’s boldest stylistic decision is to present the material as though Jesus were narrating his own story from Scripture. This choice creates immediacy that a conventional study might lack. Instead of observing Christ as a theological subject, readers are encouraged to experience the biblical narrative as a personal account unfolding across centuries.

For devotional reading, the method has clear strengths. It gives cohesion to passages drawn from different books and historical periods, reinforces the author’s belief in a single divine identity behind them, and makes abstract ideas about preexistence more emotionally accessible. The first-person perspective may be particularly effective for readers who respond more readily to narrative than to academic exposition.

It also introduces the book’s greatest interpretive risk. Writing in the voice of Jesus can blur the boundary between canonical words and imaginative reconstruction. Readers should always be able to distinguish what Scripture explicitly says from what the author supplies as interpretation, transition, or dramatic perspective. The stronger the narrative voice becomes, the more important such clarity is.

Used with appropriate humility, imaginative narration can illuminate doctrine without claiming scriptural authority for the author’s language. It can help readers enter a theological idea while still directing them back to the biblical passages on which that idea depends. Robison’s approach succeeds to the extent that it maintains this distinction.

Before I Was Jesus occupies an unusual position among Christian books. It is not a verse-by-verse commentary, although it depends on close connections among biblical passages. It is not academic theology, although it engages substantial Christological questions. Nor is it purely an imaginative retelling, because its narrative method serves a defined doctrinal argument.

This hybrid quality makes the book accessible to Christian readers interested in the identity of Jesus, Bible-study groups exploring Old and New Testament connections, and pastors or ministry leaders seeking an engaging introduction to theophanies and Christophanies. Readers already familiar with traditional teaching on the preexistence of Christ may appreciate its relational emphasis. Those encountering the subject for the first time will likely find the “secret identities” framework easier to approach than a technical theological survey.

More academically oriented readers may want fuller attention to historical context and competing interpretations. Jewish readings of the Old Testament do not interpret these passages through later Christian Christology, and even Christian scholars disagree about which appearances can properly be called Christophanies. Acknowledging those differences strengthens rather than weakens the book’s central inquiry.

Warm, accessible, and imaginatively organized, Before I Was Jesus transforms an abstract doctrinal question into a personal journey through Scripture. Its most compelling achievement is encouraging readers to see the incarnation not as the beginning of Christ’s story, but as the moment when the eternal Word entered human history in bodily form. Its conclusions require interpretive discernment, particularly where explicit biblical identification gives way to theological inference. For Christian readers prepared to engage that distinction, Gerald D. Robison offers a distinctive and thought-provoking exploration of Christ’s presence before Bethlehem.