The Nazarene Articles of Faith identify Jesus Christ as 'the second person of the Triune Godhead' — affirming his eternal existence as the divine Son before the incarnation. The incarnation is the enfleshment of the pre-existent eternal Son, not the creation of a new divine being or the elevation of a human to divinity. This eternal sonship is non-negotiable in Nazarene theology.

The preexistence of Christ is foundational to the Nazarene understanding of atonement and sanctification: it is the eternal Son of God who became sin for us, making the atonement of infinite worth. Only an eternally divine Savior could accomplish the redemption that makes entire sanctification possible.

The Nazarene tradition does not devote extensive independent theological attention to the metaphysics of the eternal Son, but consistently affirms his eternal preexistence as part of standard Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy inherited from the Nicene tradition and Wesley's own theology.