Is Mormonism's "Pre-Mortal Life" Biblical?

Job 38

We are of the royal house of Elohim, the most high God. We walked with him in our premortal life. We heard him speak, witnessed his majesty, learned his ways. Isn't that amazing? Is that true? Every religion seeks to answer the question, where did we all come from? But Mormonism's answer is somewhat unique. Of all the major Christian churches, only the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the human race lived in a premortal existence with God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. This article is correct. Christians do not believe that this is true. And here's why. The Bible begins with these words.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This verse, the very first thing we learn in God's word, is telling us that God's interactions with mankind began at the creation of the world. Creation is not the midpoint of the story. There is no indication in Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible that man existed before the creation of the world. God formed man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Adam was not a living being until he was created by God and filled with the breath of life. The book of Job supports the exact same idea.

At the very end of the book, God appears to Job in a whirlwind and he issues Job a kind of sarcastic rebuke. He emphasizes that he is God and Job is not. That he works all things according to the council of his will and Job does not. I really want to draw your attention to the beginning of God's speech in Job 38. God says, "Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundation of the earth?" God asks Job sarcastically, "Where were you during creation?" He continues, "Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" So the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy at creation. But God is implying here Job was not among them. Job is not one of these morning stars and he's not one of these sons of God. God's entire point here is that Job wasn't even present at creation. If Job had pre-existed, if he really was a spirit child of heavenly father and one of the sons of God, then this section would make almost no sense. Compare God's statements about Job with what Joseph Smith boldly proclaimed about our nature.

Man existed in spirit. The mind of man, the intelligent part, is as immortal as and is co-equal with God himself. It is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it. The first principles of man are self-existent with God. This is a totally different teaching about the nature of man. If Joseph Smith is correct, then man existed first as a spiritual being and then second as a physical being. But the Apostle Paul actually teaches the exact opposite thing in speaking about our future resurrection bodies. He says, "It is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual.

The first man, Adam, was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man, Jesus, is from heaven. Our physical natural birth precedes any spiritual existence, not the other way around. Jesus was unique. The Bible makes it so clear that he alone pre-existed and that we did not. Christ claims that no one has ever seen the father but him. And the father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard. His form you have never seen. He also says not that anyone has seen the father except he who is from God. He has seen the father. Eldiest prophets disagree with Jesus about this point.

10th president of the church, Joseph Fielding Smith said this. We lived in the presence of God in the spirit before we came here. We desired to be like him. We saw him. We were in his presence. There is not a soul who has not seen both the father and the son. And in the spirit world, we were in their presence. Jesus, no one has seen the father except me. You've never heard his voice or seen his form. Joseph Fielding Smith. All of us have seen the father. But it doesn't stop there. Jesus tells his opponents that God is not even their father and that they've never known him. Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me.

For I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. He who sent me is true and him you do not know. I know him for I come from him and he sent me. He who comes from above is above all. Referring to Jesus. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. Notice in all of these verses the contrast drawn between Jesus who comes from the father and knows him and all of us who are of the earth and who do not know the father. I mean, think about the very first verse in John's gospel. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

This presents Jesus as uniquely existing with God in the beginning before any of us were even created. The rest of John's gospel then develops this theme of Jesus's uniqueness in being the only one who has come down from heaven. Jesus even explicitly says that he came from heaven and his audience did not. He said to them, "You are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world." The point of all these verses is to show that Christ in his divinity is utterly unique. He is not like us. He is from heaven. We are from earth. This is what makes the incarnation so incredible.

Jesus, who is not one of us, was sent to earth to become one of us, to die for our sins. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Fifth President Lorenzo Snow said, "We have learned that we existed with God in eternity before we came into this life and that we kept our estate. Had we not kept what is called our first estate and observed the laws that govern there, you and I would not be here today. We are here because we are worthy to be here." According to Snow, we got to come here because we lived worthy lives in the pre-existence. Some have even suggested that our status here on Earth is because of our nobility in our premortal life.

Not all Latter-day Saints believe that, but it is something that's been taught throughout LDS church history. This is not something that the Bible teaches. Our status on earth is not because of any good or evil that we've committed. Here are two proofs of that from the Bible. Do you remember the man who was born blind in John chapter 9? As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." Jesus here refutes the idea that this man's blindness might have been caused by his own works.

It was for the sake of the glory of God. Contrast that with what LDS prophet Harold be. Lee says, "The conditions in which we now live have been determined by the kind of lives we lived in the pre-existent world of spirits." The second reason we can reject this idea comes from Romans chapter 9. speaking about how Jacob was chosen to be the child of promise over Esau. Paul says, "Though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls." Rebecca was told, "The older will serve the younger.

Jeremiah 15

Neither the blind man nor Jacob or Esau were rewarded or punished because of works performed in premortality." So why does any of this matter? This doctrine is so important because it shapes the way we view both God and man. If all of us pre-existed as spirit children of Heavenly Father, then God has a kind of moral obligation towards us. If a parent does not rightly provide for his children, we call it neglect or even abuse. But the Bible never teaches that God is our literal spirit father. Its teachings are incompatible with the idea that we were born to him in a pre-existence. And the fact that we were not born spirit children of God means that God is not indebted to us as our parent.

He owes us nothing. We are rebellious creatures from the dust who have committed cosmic treason against an eternal holy God. And yet despite this, God has made a way for us to become children of him by adoption. So when the father offers us redemption, he does not offer it out of obligation, but rather out of mercy and grace and love. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. If you want to learn more about why Christians do not believe that we are literal children of God, which is quite shocking for some people, I'm going to link to another video that we made on that topic at the end of this video.

A lot of Latter-day Saints will point to Jeremiah 15 in support of their position. So, what do we do with that verse? Well, Jeremiah 15 says that God knew Jeremiah and appointed him to be a prophet to the nations before he was born. I think that that says a lot more about the nature of God than it does the nature of man. The text never says that Jeremiah knew God. I think it's a statement about God's sovereignty, about his ordaining all things according to the council of his will, bringing them to pass. We made a whole video on this that I'm going to link at the end of this video if you're curious to learn more.