Pre-Mortal Existence, Part 3

Understanding Christian Faith

Live from Salt Lake City, Utah, this is heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. where we do all we can to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. I’m Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host.

Show 26 503 Pre-Mortal Existence – part III
June 28th 2016
Our prayer tonight will be given by:

If you attend our Meat Gatherings on Sunday this will be a bit of a redundancy to you – but one that is worth repeating. There is a great difference between how a person is saved and what it means to be a Christian. They are related in a sense, but if someone asks a Christian: What does it mean to be a Christian it would be improper to say, “I am a Christian because I have been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

In other words our salvation story or how we were saved (which is certainly by grace through faith) is an incomplete and inferior way to describe our Christianity or our Christian faith or our Christian walk. I would liken our status in the unsaved fallen world as a person who has never jumped in God’s Swimming Pool. Never taken the Kierkegaardian leap of faith as it were into the pool. They have been dry and void of this leap their whole life.

But when a person receives what God is offering them by faith (with the offer in this example to jump into God’s pool) that is how we all become Christians – to receive the invitation and believing and trusting in God’s promises we make the leap – trusting that even though we have never been in such deep waters He has saved us and is with us. The leaping is not an effort – in fact leaping or a leap of faith is probably a poor choice of words – because we all enter the pool by falling in, as though dead, and trusting He will bear us up safely.

So that is how we are all saved – by His grace through faith in His work, reassurances and promises. But once we believe, and once we are in His pool, the point is not to drown but to learn to swim. It’s an important and critical distinction – salvation is entering into the pool but being a Christian is both being in the pool AND swimming once we are in over our heads.

Faith and Love as Inseparable

Often many people size up being saved to being a Christian – as if they were one and the same. This is not so. In other words God did not save us for salvations sake. He saved us so that we would become Sons and Daughters and as such, would bear fruits of love in His name and cause.

Want to see something interesting? Turn to 1st John 3 with me. John says this:

1st John 3:23 “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”

Have you ever wondered why John’s words here (which by the way are delivered to what I would call Cream of the Crop Christians in his day) are in the singular? Listen again:

1st John 3:23 “And this (singular) is (singular) his commandment,(singular) That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment (singular).”

He gives us two commandments, it seems saying:

1st John 3:23 “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”

But speaks of them in the singular tense. Why? Because to be a Christian, or what it means to be a Christian, to live as a Christian, to actually walk the Christian walk faith is NOT enough – in fact, faith is never alone in Christianity. Where there is real faith, there is real love. And where there is real love, there is real faith.

Coin of Christian Salvation

In other words faith and love are not separate commandments, but are ”indissolubly united.” We cannot truly love one another without faith in Christ, nor can we truly believe in Him without agape loveSelfless love marked by patience, mercy, and humility—central to living in spiritual liberty..

Look at it this way: Falling in the pool we all receive a coin called the coin of Christian Salvation. On the one side we read faith and on the other side we read love. Same coin. One coin – where faith and love are always present and opposite each other. This is the commandment- faith and love –

The Challenges of Genuine Belief

and it is THE singular commandment of being a genuine, true Christian because there is no true Christian that is absent either.

And with that let’s go to our BOARD of DIRECTION

RUN INTRO HERE PLEASE

Had a discussion with a brother last week and we got to talking about the LDS church. He too was once Mormon and was just wondering out loud if the leaders of that church know that they are in error. It’s a topic of discussion that comes up frequently among former LDS folk.

I think part of the wonderment comes about from the astonishment that successful men in the world – doctors, lawyers, engineers, and good family men (by all public accounts) could and would knowingly perpetuate a fraud. I think that the explanation of the situation is so multifaceted that it becomes somewhat unbelievable for us common folk to believe that otherwise honest and apparently upright men could not just perpetuate a fraud but could publicly repeat testimony of its truth, and write books, and deliver inspiring messages of hope based on the fraud. So for those of us who have abandoned ship we wonder – Do they know what we know, if not why not, and if so what on earth motivates them to play the role they play and do what they do?

The Paradox of Perpetuating a Lie

Apparently honest, successful, upright family men publicly perpetuating a lie.

Now let’s add some of the spokes that lead to this disconnect:

• We must remember that most of those in highest leadership were in the faith from birth – so there is a high probability that at some point in time they did in fact believe the lie.
• Being LDS from birth they have all to some degree or another devoted a lot of time to the church – especially as adults from the full-time mission on into adulthood.
• They have received much of their identity as faithful believers, found a role that is widely respected and given them props over the course of their lives. In other words, they learned that towing the line benefits them personally more than resisting it. And they choose – probably at a very early age to never rock the boat but to instead steady it.
• By the time they have reached levels of responsibility where the cracks in the system become apparent they have a choice to make – carry on and live with it or resist it and rebel. With wives and children and possibly grandchildren the price is far too high to resist. So they begin to rationalize and justify – all in the name of self and self-interest.
• One of the rationalizations I believe that they employ quite effectively is the thought that the Mormon institution is materially and even spiritually superior to all other forms of how they perceive Christianity to even though it is wrong it’s the best thing out there.
• Another justification could be that they self-delude themselves into thinking that they are so special that the hidden truths of the church can be handled by them – but only by them. That is why they are apostles and keepers of the truth – because they can maintain while the stupid masses are incapable of managing such destructive information. So in a sense, they may see themselves as an honorable type of Prometheus who knowing the truth, refuses to share it with others because the rabble just can’t handle it.
• By the time they have gotten neck deep in the faith they are too neck deep to do anything but tread. All of their assignments and trials have vetted them for the final position. By the time they are at the highest echelons the change of apostasy is all but eliminated.
• Then add in the opportunities that come from high calling, the man-worship, the power, the financial rewards and the honor of having a body of people refer to them as an apostle of the Lord and whatever they know or have learned it is probably not enough to overcome these factors of pure flesh.

The Rationale Behind Belief

We might add a few more potential spokes here too.

• There is the chance that amidst all the facts that they do still ardently believe.
• And there is the chance that they don’t even believe in God. But once a man gets to a certain place of performance – like that of a Supreme Court Judge, a high level politician, or a corporate CEO – once a man

The Concept of Pre-mortal Existence

The possibility that those in high ranks are in the employ of darkness at the highest levels, kind of like puppeteers of government or those controlling world commodities, is a final consideration. It seems entirely plausible because what they repeatedly endorse as “the voice of God” is oppressive to the Good News and opposed to it. With their materialism, it's hard not to see the empire opposing biblical faith. Evil corruption is visible in business, entertainment, politics, and certainly, in organized religion’s towers.

This does not mean that members of Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Catholics, or Southern Baptists are evil. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual darkness in high places. We strive to reach those imprisoned, chained, or meek who have been taken captive by such leaders and institutions.

We deliver the Good News: Jesus came to set them free. Our call to all captives echoes the bold cry of Dorothea Barrabua during the Spanish Civil War: “Arise, you have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Evangelical and LDS Interpretations

Let's continue with Part III on the LDS and Christian views on Pre-mortal Existence. Part of the disagreement is the interpretation of biblical passages that hint at a pre-mortal existence. LDS missionaries often sit with people to teach about this, using debatable biblical passages to support the view that we lived as spirits – offspring of Heavenly Father and Mother – before coming to earth.

Missionaries might say, “You and your family lived as spirits before coming to earth. Isn’t that wonderful to know? Let’s open the Bible to see passages that support this.”

Typically, missionaries refer to these passages:

Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Job 38:4-7: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

John 9:1-3: And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace., this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Missionaries articulate that the fact the disciples asked Jesus this question indicates a belief in pre-mortal existence back then, a belief restored and taught by the LDS church. This use of scripture effectively influences people to believe in the Mormon church's truth. The romantic notion of families being together before this world offers a compelling appeal.

The Concept of Pre-existence in Religious Texts

The human psyche.

So let’s take those passages and examine them one by one, in context, and in light of the whole Bible content. First the big one – Jeremiah 1:5 – where God says:

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

What the LDS say is that since God says he knew Jeremiah and even ordained him a prophet unto the nations that Jeremiah must have existed.

To this we might step back and ask:

“Does God know all things and has He always known all things?” Christians reply, Of course, as this is strongly intimated in the Bible.

In this, we have a response to the Jeremiah 1:5 passage. Scholars speak of this passage as appealing to what is called an “Ideal Pre-existence” rather than what is called “Actual Pre-existence.”

In other words, Ideal Preexistence refers to God’s foreknowledge of all things and Actual Preexistence speaks to things that existed before coming to earth – which, based on a sound biblical view, only speaks of Jesus.

The interesting thing about the LDS use of these Bible verses to support their unique view is that even LDS scholar Lowell Bennion says that such passages:

“may be interpreted as meaning God’s foreknowledge rather than man’s pre-existence.”

Good answer, Lowell.

Examining Job 38

The next set of passages that the LDS look to are found in Job 38 where God is questioning Job after his trials and asks in verse 4

Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“That last line is the hook – when “all the sons of God shouted for joy.”

“Are all of us sons and daughters of God, the LDS missionary might ask the uninformed investigator?”

“I think so,” comes the reply.

“And we agree. Now look again at God’s words to Job. He is speaking of the time during the creation of the heavens and the earth and then what does He say? He says:”

7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“If we are all sons of God then we were all there – isn’t that special? (Twinkle)

The LDS view of these verse come straight from their founder Joseph Smith who used these passages to support his teaching of a pre-mortal existence asking:

“Why would God ask where Job was?” inferring that Job must have been there with Him.”

That’s an admittedly pretty comical interpretation in my opinion because obviously God was speaking rhetorically and His intention was to highlight the fact that when He was putting everything together at the Creation Job was nowhere in sight. I mean the whole tone of the talk God has with Job is to show that Job, in the scope of things, was insignificant and that human existence is at best fleeting and a vapor on glass.

Nevertheless, we cannot ignore that God DOES say that the “son’s of God” did in fact “shout for joy.”

Almost every scholarly commentary suggests that this speaks to the heavenly economy and angelic creations in God’s court and has nothing to do with human creations.

Old Testament scholar Brendan Byrne says that the term Sons of God

“does not imply actual progeny of God . . . but reflects the common Semetic use of son (Hebrew BEN) to denote membership of a class or group. “Sons of the gods” then refers to belonging to the heavenly or divine sphere (which formed) God’s heavenly court or council.”

Influence of Cultural Exchanges

Before going on to the last passage the LDS use out of the Bible to support their teaching on pre-mortal existence, let me note that while the Old Testament does not give any evidence of a pre-mortal existence at the end of the Jewish exile some of their apocraphal writings did.

The Slavonic Book of Enoch 23:5 says:

“All souls are prepared before the foundation of the world.” And then the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch 30:2-3 speaks about –

“the storehouses in which the foreordained number of souls are kept.”

Most Old Testament scholars believe that it was the Hebrews association with the Persians and Greeks after the exile that began to influence

Pre-Existent State of Souls

Their thoughts on a pre-existent state of souls. It is known that the Pythagorians and Platonists had been advocates of a pre-mortal existence of human souls since the 4th Century BC. Others point out that “the doctrine was well known to Jewish writers after this time and was taught in the Talmud and Kabbalah. Finally we come to the most supportive New Testament passage for pre-existence – Jesus and his disciples and the man born blind in John 9.

John 9:1-3

1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

There are a few responses to the LDS interpretation of these passages. New Testament Scholar Raymond Brown suggests that this was a direct reference to current rabbinic teaching that said a baby could sin in the womb. I tend to agree with what 19th Century Christian scholar Thomas Thayer notes as the reason for the question which was that from the Greeks a popular belief got legs called “the transmigration of souls,” which is a form of reincarnation that includes retribution for evil done in a previous life. This teaching of the Transmigration of Souls is found in some Jewish apocraphal writings and Josephus wrote that the Pharisees believed it too. There is even a potential reference to the Transmigration of Souls in the teachings of Jesus relative to John the Baptist and Elijah and Jeremiah.

Biblical Insights

What we also have to look at relative to this question the disciples asked Jesus is His answer: He didn’t refute or deny the doctrine directly but the ONLY explanation for the man’s blindness was so “the works of God should be made manifest in Him.” In my opinion He, in one fell swoop, wiped the slate clean with the brass tacks truth of the matter.

The only valid New Testament reference to a pre-mortal existence is, as stated, assigned to Jesus who clearly said to some Jews: “You are from beneath, I am from above.” John the Baptist, who was older than Jesus, also alludes to Jesus pre-mortal existence when he said: “He existed before I was born.” And of course Jesus said plainly to the Jews, “before Abraham was, I am,” words they wanted to kill Him for saying.

It is interesting that in the Apostolic writings there is nothing about pre-mortal existence and it did not exist while the apostles were alive. Again, it was around before Jesus through the Greeks, it was NOT around in Jesus or the apostles life (except to speak of Him) but then after Jesus ascended and the last apostle died, it popped back up in the beliefs of Justin Martyr, Theodoretus, Origen and others who are collectively called the “early Church fathers.” Origen of Alexandria, a man who contributed greatly to the Hellenized view of God through Trinitarian ideals also believed that spirits preexisted and had agency but unlike the LDS view Origen believed that being sent to earth was a punishment for the spirits being disobedient. The LDS claim, upon reading men like Justin Martyr and Origen’s views on the matter as evidence that the teaching was once viable but was lost due to worldwide apostasy of precious truths. In the latter part of the fourth century the teaching faded and by the 6th Century, at the Synod of Constantinople, it was formally condemned.

I would suggest that we cannot look to the Plato or Pythagorus, nor can we look to the “early Church” men for their insights on such matters. Nor can we look at the Councils that condemned or ratified beliefs. I suggest we look at biblical texts – plain and simple, read them in context and what they have to say – and they do NOT support the teaching anywhere of man having a pre-mortal existence.

Well wrap this up next week.

And with that let’s open up the phone lines –

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