Early Christians and Jews definitely did. (Job 38:1-7; Heb. 12:9,10; ACTS 17:28,29;) One example is 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." Here more is involved than merely God's foreknowledge of Jeremiah, for God says that Jeremiah was known, sanctified, and ordained before he was born. Such terms don't make sense if the person that was ordained and sanctified did not yet exist. Another example: John 9:1-3: "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him...who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither this man sinned, nor his parents...etc." This shows that the disciples understood that we had a premortal existence, and were asking whether poor behavior there might result in a curse at birth.Christ does not challenge the assumption of premortal existence.
2007-04-10 08:49:12 · 4 answers · asked by Arthurpod 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
yeah, kitty, but they also asked if the man sinned before he was born...
2007-04-10 09:02:13 · update #1
Christ shouldn't challenge the existance of a pre-mortal existance being he is the only one who did exist before his birth. Now when the Bible refers to Christ before his birth it refers to the Son which existed before the actual birth of Christ. Any other verses you are using shows God's foreknowledge of all things it does not mean man existed before they were born but that God is not subject to time and does know all things.
2007-04-10 08:56:39 · answer #1 · answered by djmantx 7 · 6⤊ 1⤋
I answered your other question too... about marriage being for time and all eternity or until death do us part. Again - I have the same answer to your question of doctrine - does it matter? Will it affect what choices you make NOW? In THIS life? A lot of the things Christians speculate about (and usually end up having horrific arguments about - which generally lead to both people drawing away from Jesus Christ - our real focus as a Christian family) are really unimportant in the bigger scheme of things... like helping people, being a good example, and making correct moral choices. Like to me, it seems pointless to worry about thigns we cannot prove. However I can proove that helping people helps not only the person being helped, but the helper as well. Although it gives me tremendous reassurance to know that I did choose this life, and I did choose the family I was born into (I believe in premortal existance, as you see) if I just focused, in my Christian walk, on things that need DOING (to be an example for Christ) well... that pretty much takes up 100% of my time. Just my thoughts on docturnal discussions.
2007-04-10 15:57:47 · answer #2 · answered by Angie 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The first part that you quoted many feel have to do wit the issue of abortion. It states that before you were born God knew you, saying God knew us when we were still in the womb. God knew us before we exsisted as He knows all things. THat does not mean that we exsisted in a spiritual plane before we were born.
The second part that you quoted deals with the belief system of that time. They believed that punishment of sin can be passed down, hence the question did the parent's sin.
2007-04-10 15:58:49 · answer #3 · answered by kitty21 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
bwecause they donts comes from Kazakstan
2007-04-10 15:53:08 · answer #4 · answered by borat 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋