Then and Now

In our mindset we are Western European. What does it mean that we are Western European in our mindset? It means that we arrange our logic linearly, orderly, from A-Z, formulaically, clearly expressing our points. Being Western European in our mindset we often explicitly state what our points are, and we provide our evidence. This system works wonderfully...for those of us who are of a Western European mindset.

But what about the old Patriarchs, the ancient prophets? They were not without moments of extraordinary clarity that immediately connect to our modern sense of "come out and say what you mean": 

"And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John 3:5)

However, there was another way ancient patriarchs taught: By narrative, arranging carefully selected details where principle was demonstrated rather than being explicitly stated. Both plainness and narrative were employed together. Want to see how? Let us see how both were used.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." (Genesis 2:1)

Throughout Genesis, chapters 1-2, God is described commanding that the earth and its atmosphere ("heavens") be formed, and God heeds each command and fashions the earth, placing flora and fauna on the orb, in stages, culminating in the emergence of Adam and Eve. The narrator then states that God had now finished the heavens and earth and all their hosts. This is an example of clarity, direct statement.

Move along the narrative:

"So [God] drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." (Genesis 3:24). 

Well, the garden we know of, the man, "Adam", here defined as husband and wife together as one, and the tree of life, all these we know of, for we were told how they came to be. Cherubims and the flaming sword? Nowhere in the creation account we were told anything about the formation of cherubims or of a flaming sword. We are also told nothing about the formation of the angels, be they Cherubims, Seraphims or any other rank or office, or of the creation of the heavens where God dwells. What are we to conclude? We are to conclude that the angels and such Divine implements as "the flaming sword" existed prior to the formation of the earth.

Want another example of the interweaving of explicit and implicit? I will provide one.

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)

What do we have here? Moses related to us how The Lord God created Adam and, in relative terms, when The Lord God created Adam--The Lord God created Adam after preparing the earth and its atmosphere to sustain life. This much is explicitly clear in the narrative. Then The Lord God placed into this body that He had just formed "the breath of life", and when this "breath of life" entered the body Adam became a living soul. When did The Lord God create Adam's "breath of life"? 

What is clear are two things: (1) The breath of life existed prior to entering the body that The Lord God created for Adam, and (2) we are not told when The Lord God created this breath of life, but whenever it was that He fashioned the breath of life He fashioned it prior to the creation of the earth and its atmosphere.

This observation on "the breath of life" being older or having come into being prior to the creation of the physical body that houses it, a "premortal life" so to say, is revealed to us at the very beginning of the sacred record. Did the Hebrews follow through with this belief in the premortal nature of the spirit of man? The Hebrews absolutely followed through with this doctrine. I will offer a more precise translation from the Hebrew:

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto The God who had given it." (Ecclesiastes 12:7)

Nowhere in the creation narrative or after it does Moses (or his successors) discuss when God created the spirits of mankind, but the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that the spirit shall eventually return to The God who had given it. Let us see another example, again, with a more precise translation from the Hebrew:

"At before I had formed thee in the womb I had known thee; and at before thou hadst come forth out of the womb I had sanctified thee, and I had ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:6)

The Hebrew makes very clear, explicitly clear, what is somewhat clouded in most English translations, that The Lord told Jeremiah that He, The Lord, had already known Jeremiah at a time prior to forming Jeremiah's body in the womb. In fact, The Lord even states that at the time before Jeremiah emerged from the womb, was born, The Lord had already sanctified Jeremiah and ordained him a prophet to the nations. Consider this:

"And thou shalt sanctify them [the altar, its vessels, the laver, table, its vessels, the candlestick, incense, tabernacle, etc.], that they may be most holy: whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy." (Exodus 30:29)

This latter point on sanctification is important. Did we notice what we were taught? When the ark of the covenant was made, all its articles were then sanctified. The principle is clear: Sanctification occurs only after the item has come into being, not before. When The Lord told Jeremiah that He, The Lord, had sanctified Jeremiah before the child emerged from the womb and had ordained him, that sanctification and ordination occurred at that previous time when The Lord knew Jeremiah, and that was before physical conception.

The belief in premortal life continued even into the days of Jesus and His Apostles. There was an occasion when Jesus and His disciples passed by a blind man.

"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, 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." (John 9:1-3)

What an interesting question. The belief that the parents had committed some sin for which an angry God took vengeance on their child rears its head of falsehood even today. The really curious part of the question was whether the blind man himself had sinned for which sin he was born blind. This is an instance where we can perceive the ancient Israelite belief in a premortal world, a world where we had agency, the ability to choose right from wrong. It was this perspective of the premortal existence of the spirit that, in the mind of the disciples, allowed for the understanding that a man could be punished for his own shortcomings through the condition of his birth. Jesus clarified, mercifully, that no one had sinned (physical shortcomings are not God's punishment), but that by turning to The Healer we would glorify God in our triumphs.

The belief continued through the Apostolic ministry.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." (Ephesians 1:3-4)

What do we see here? We see Paul addressing the Ephesians and touching upon what was a common belief for both Jew and Christian, not only the premortal life of the spirit, but the spirit being chosen and sanctified for a great mortal work in the service of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Sometimes readers are tempted to see in this selection process God's omniscience rather than our antemortal existence. The reader would be counseled to seek definitions in Scripture. Indeed we have such a definition or exemplary instance. We modern folk conceive of being chosen as God merely exercising His omniscience to pick out someone He knows will be true to Him, and then He purposes to make that soul a great servant at some obscure future date. But what do we actually see in Scripture?

"Also I heard the voice of The Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not." (Isaiah 6:8-9)

This powerful example of Isaiah's prophetic call shows us something: That God chooses His prophets in His very presence, in the presence of Father, Son and Holy Ghost ("..who will go for us?"), and that the selection process involves the prophet offering his service and The Lord then "choosing" to use that servant ("Here am I; send me...Go, and tell this people...").

But as the belief in the premortal nature of the spirit was lost in the first centuries after the Apostles had been rejected and therefore held back from the world, The Lord restored that knowledge through direct doctrine, that is, revelation:

"And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn;...Ye were also in the beginning with the Father...Man was also in the beginning with God." (Doctrine and Covenants 93:21,23,29)

This precious doctrine on the antemortal or premortal existence of man is affirmed in every book of Scripture: The Old Testament, The New Testament, The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, The Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price. This perspective is vital to our spiritual progression. When I believed I came to be in this life I never could reconcile the arbitrariness of my existence and the sacrifices God was calling on me to make. When I trusted The Lord enough to let His Spirit teach me that I had indeed lived before, this life came into greater focus. I now had purpose, a mission, I was and am on a continuum, one that will lead me back to The Father as greater than I was before, because this time I will be embodied, have enormous experience, and firsthand knowledge that it was through the merits of my Redeemer that I was enabled to make mortality a stage of advancement.

The reader is at liberty to make of these citations what he or she will. Always do bear in mind that the passages I cited, at least, are actually textual.