The right response is “Yes, but also no.” One way to look at it is that the Son of God was always there (John 8:58; 17:5) since He was with God forever (John 1:1–2) and God made everything by Him (1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:2). Thus, it is true that the Son of God predated the birth of Jesus. However, to be precise, “Jesus” did not exist before His birth because the Son of God was not given the name “Jesus” until after He had become a person and been born into the world (Matthew 1:25). For this reason, the appropriate response to the question is, to put it exactly, “Yes… and no!”
As an analogy, think about marriage. In many countries in the world, when a woman marries, she will change her name. For example, in England, if Mary Smith married John Jones, her name would change to Mary Jones. If we ask the question, “Did Mary Jones exist before she got married,” we could answer “Yes,” because the same person still existed before she got married; but, if we wanted to be very literal, we would answer “No,” because before Mary Smith got married, she was not called Mary Jones. In a similar way, the Son of God existed both before and after He was born; but it was only AFTER He was born that this Divine Person could properly be called by the name of “Jesus”.
