...he was the burning bush, He was on the Mt. with Moses----but they did not know that!! Jesus and God were not separable before the conception. Jesus became human, God did not!
Jesus/Yahweh was not a burning bush, it says "God called unto him
out of the midst of the bush" for some reason He decided to stand within a bush or on top of but he was not the bush.
I believe They were separate even in the Old Testament. Look at Malachi 1
"...the Lord of hosts says "And now, I pray you, beseech God/El that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts."
Yahweh, the Lord of Host beseeches El or acts as mediator between mankind and the Father. You can see it in Isa 43 when after declaring there is no other god besides him he says
' I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified."
Well who is he pleading to if there is no other God. He was saying there is no other mediator, the idols are nothing they can not save.
I went to a class at BYU where they explained what started happening around 600 bc with the re-wright of the Torah and they began focusing on the jot and tittle of law. It's called the Deuteronomical revision of the Bible. This professor with a Doctorate in ancient studies, Bible study and spoke Hebrew and half a dozen other langues made the claim that the Deuteronmist began removing any reference to there being a Son and of his atoning sacrifice which of course implied that God would die. It happened slowly over time until the Jews who ruled the Sanhedrin no longer understood the Father Son concept at all. This was the main argument Jesus was having with them when he said you don't know the Father.
However there was another sect of Jews among the common people who were still worshiping the Father and Son. John was part of that sect along with the other Apostles which were found around John the Baptist.
"John bare witness of him, .....For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No man hath seen God/El at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
In the Old Testament lots of different prophets see God yet John declares no man has, that does not make sense. What he's saying is no one has seen God the Father but Yahweh who they did see acts as his agent, he declares him.
Nathanael know who Jesus is before Jesus even has time to teach him, he had been looking for him.
"Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write"
So when he meets Jesus he says "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God/El; thou art the King of Israel/Yahweh"
