Returning to the Father

[Beloved Servant]

The sooner one leaves his past the sooner one remembers where he came from.

I had a dream about that last night, but can only remember bits and pieces.
I have come to the belief or idea that we were spirits before we were born, yet I am not certain.

SQ, we were with the Lord and only had the knowledge of good.
We came here to learn the knowledge of evil.
Overcome, in the Spirit, and re-take our place as Sons of God.

[jabcat]

Bserv, I also believe in (some sort) of pre-existence (at death, spirit returns to God Who gave it).

What are your thoughts on why this ["We came here to learn the knowledge of evil.
Overcome, in the Spirit, and re-take our place as Sons of God."] might be the process?  What do you think God's reasons might be for doing it this way, i.e., lowering us into this condition to learn, rather than say, just create it or originally make it that way?  There would be a good reason for it, and I've read something(s) on it, but just not quite sure myself.

Blessings, James.

[SQ]

 Hi jabcat..
Possibly if we only knew good then how could we become sons of God if we only knew good, since God knows both.
We have to know both to become like God.
God knows both good and evil it is a balance.
Thanks for opening this cause I have a important question (pertaining) I will look it up in a bit. I am sure it has a simple explaination that hasn't came to me yet.

[SQ]

In Genseis 2:9
And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,and good for food;the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

He planted a tree with the knowledge both good and evil.

Then In Matthew 7:17 every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bring forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

we can't bring forth good fruit until we have been cast into the fire since we have good and evil??

19 Every tree that bringeth forth not good fruit is hewn down and and cast into the fire.

I am asking and I believe we are having evil burned out of us now while we are living?
cast in the fire burned to stubble, then we can return back to the Father the day of death?

Ecclesiastes 12:7 The spirit shall return to God who gave it.
Ephesians 4:6 one God and Father of all who  is above all, and through all, and in you all.

[Dallas]

SQ, we were with the Lord and only had the knowledge of good.
We came here to learn the knowledge of evil.
Overcome, in the Spirit, and re-take our place as Sons of God.

Bserv, I also believe in (some sort) of pre-existence (at death, spirit returns to God Who gave it).

This is Mormon doctrine, and is not biblical. There is no biblical backing. What gives you reason to believe this, because it's not in the bible.

We have to know both to become like God.

That is the lie of the serpent, Genesis 5:1 "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God."

Man was in the likeness of God, the serpent approached Eve and cunning as he was suggested that she wasn't like him by saying...Genesis 3:5"For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." If God had already made them according to His likeness then man was His likeness, the serpent lied to Eve and through His lie decieved her and through her the whole world into believing we aren't like Him.

[Zeek]

 

There is no biblical backing. What gives you reason to believe this, because it's not in the bible.

There is biblical support for REnewing, REdeemed, REstored, REstoration, REvealing, etc.  

why the re: prefix, which means "again, recall etc".

[jabcat]

Dallas, none of us have all the absolute answers, and in my post I said "I believe" and "some sort of" pre-existence...I also noted scripture, that the spirit REturns to God who gave it.  Also, God created MAN, yet breathed the spirit into him.  So that may be two different/separate things/entities.
Maybe it's "just" the spirit that pre-existed, I don't know.  But if so, I also don't know what our spirits may have "known", experienced, etc.  Maybe much more or much less than we know.  

As far as Mormon doctrine - the Mormons believe a lot of things, I guess - some scriptural, some not.

I agree Zeek, RE - just not sure what all that means, so again, interesting discussion.  

[gregoryfl]

Joh 9:2 And His disciples ask Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he should be born blind?

This appears to support the idea of our preexistence, at least as something that was believed by the Jews in the time of Christ. Notice that they not only asked if his parents sinned so that the man was born blind, but they also asked if the man himself sinned so that he was born blind as a result, meaning that they believed it was possible for him to sin before he was born.

As to those who do not believe in preexistence, they might reply that all the "re" words have to do with Adam, applying to us who were in Adam's loins at the time of his sin, and that in that way we are redeemed, etc.

Just providing different points to the discussion either way.

As to the image of God, I would think that those who believe in pre existence would say that being in the image of God speaks of physicality, just as Christ, as a man, is the image of the invisible (because of being Spirit) God. Perhaps the idea then that man was made, or molded, by the dust of the ground, into the image of the invisible God, they being invisible before then as well.


Ron

[peacemaker]

The opposite of one thing is the absence of the other. In other words, to bring back to a state of health, soundness, or vitality of life; not death.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade; kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power, until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith, of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:3-7)

By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. (1 Corinthians  6:14)

This know also, that in the last day(s) perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Tim  3:1-7)

"One side of an equation, outweighs the other; life is greater than death."

peacemaker

[Beloved Servant]

      One can only be renewed in knowledge by refreshing or recalling something he has known before.  We often read over such statements so lightly and carelessly, missing the true implication and import of   the words!  The scriptures are very clear that each of us came into this world out of the bosom of the Father.  Before the Creator formed you, He knew you.  He didn't know you in your present physical form as Joe Smith or Sally Brown, but He knew you as spirit.  God spoke to you about His plan for your life before ever you were formed as an embryo in the womb of your mother.  Paul states it so clearly when he says, "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" (Eph. 1:3-4).  The Amplified Bible reads, "Even as He chose us, actually picked us out for Himself in Christ, before the foundation of the world."
 
            Never doubt this reality for a moment — the only way God could have loved you, chose you in Christ, and picked you out for His own before the foundation of the world is that you truly existed in and with Him before the appearing of the worlds.  Nothing can be plainer than that!  Yet we have supposed that we were just recently, in this life, apprehended of God to sonship.  I thought the work of God began in my life seventy years ago.  Now I find that the thing God is doing with humanity began in eternity!  It didn't begin in time.  It began before the ages were framed!  God loved me, knew me, counseled with me, and picked me out for His unique purpose before the foundation of the world.  My origin was in God!  God begat me by His Word — in Christ — as spirit before He exhaled me as spirit into a very unique body upon earth.
 
            Each of us were born into a mortal, physical body and into a world of darkness, sin, and death.  Our spiritual life was buried, covered, encased, concealed within the prison house of a natural, worldly, human consciousness just as the little child I mentioned earlier was imprisoned in a room with no ability to relate to the world he was in or to understand, express, expand, or function on that level.  But this was according to God's plan!  It wasn't Adam that created the cunning serpent or invented the desirable tree of the knowledge of good and evil or placed in man's path the way of death.  Oh, no!  It was God who planted the garden eastward in Eden and placed all these things strategically in it!  But God had both a purpose and a plan!  Paul speaks of an action of God involved in that plan when he says that we are "in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Titus 1:2).  This is indeed wonderful!  We were born into this world with a promise from God — the promise of eternal life!  This promise of salvation and life more abundant was given us before the world began!  When we came here we were born with a promise!  How could God make such a promise to us if we were not there with Him before the worlds appeared?  Furthermore, we were predestinated at that time to be the manifest sons of God!  "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:28-29).  Not only were salvation and sonship promised, the kingdom was promised also!  "Then shall the King (Jesus) say to them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mat. 25:34). 
 
            All these wonderful things happened to us, and many more too numerous to mention at this time, before we entered this world as a human being.  But do you remember any of it?  Can you remember when you were there with the Father?  Can you remember Him informing you of the plan, the purpose, in sending you to earth?  Can you remember what was said, what you knew, what you agreed to, and why, and what you had when you were there with the Father?  Do you remember being chosen in Christ, promised eternal life, promised a kingdom to reign in, and predestined unto placement as a son of God, before the foundation of the world?  Do you remember the beginning of your journey?
 
          Ah — YOU ARE REMEMBERING!  Do you know how you're remembering?  The answer is simple — all revelation is but a remembering! 


                                                                                                                                                       J Preston Eby
                                                                                                                                                       KingdomBibleStudies.org
                                                                                                                                                       FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE
                                                                                                                                                       part 74

[peacemaker]

"Formed and endued with life."

It is probably about time those of us who think that we are intelligent creatures, started using the priceless faculties of reason and independent thought with which we have been divinely endowed, or clothed.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance (1 Peter 1:14 ). And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good; acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).

The Titans of Mythologies collectively confuse many.

peacemaker

[Dallas]

God spoke to you about His plan for your life before ever you were formed

Really? You remember this do you? Cause there are no scriptures that support that, even trying to stretch what you have stretched.

the only way God could have loved you, chose you in Christ, and picked you out for His own before the foundation of the world is that you truly existed in and with Him before the appearing of the worlds

My daughter before she was concieved, before I knew my wife, before I was thinking about a name I already knew I was in love with her, I chose her above all other children, that I would love her and give myself for her. Without a meeting she already had all the love and even more love from me than I was able to live in.

As far as you meeting Him before because He chose you before the foundations of the earth, by that logic Jesus died twice eh? So apperantly the one that happened before the foundation of the world didn't take? Jesus also died the first death since He died before the foundation, not Adam...even though Hebrews says over and over again that Jesus died ONCE! The scripture says straight forward, Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, yet Hebrews says He only died ONCE!

Maybe, and just maybe.... That when all the talkk about before was refering to the foreknowledge? That God, the Master Builder saw the need for forgiveness because His creation was going to crumble due to sin. But since He, the builder, who was going to build us all , who knew every detail in which He was going to build us, He who knew us through His own planning of us, drew out a plan before hand....Just like a Master Builder does?


Maybe it could be refering to that.....wait no it must actually be refering to mystical former lives. Sound biblical context, not a need to distort scripture to serve the newest need of a whim.

[Dallas]

Genesis 2:7 "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

We didn't become alive until creation. Man wasn't a spirit before hand needing a husk for our spirit to find a vehicle in which to travel this physical plane. If you also look at the scripture God breathed the gift of life into the body.

The living condition was empowered, turned on, activated, otherwise had a start. It doesn't say God made the man from the ground and lead a spirit into it, or gave it to a spirit, or filled it with a spirit.

It says, the spirit of God gave man life. You recieved life through the spirit, you didn't have spirit or exsist as spirit until life was breathed from THE SPIRIT.

The rehma of God, went out from Him and thusly empowered the body.

Unless you think God's spirit is a conglomerate of mankinds spirits? Then that's a whole other issue, and I would beable to know you are really not interested in truth but in vain philosophy, emphasizing imagination over straight forward thinking.

I'm really not trying to be "all up on myself, or a know it all"  I will however talk and exlain the things that are plainly obvious and need to be said, maybe to help to keep things from floating away into all mysticism.

[Paul Hazelwood]

I do not think it is a question of whether we were in spirit form before, it is a matter of the nature of that spirit.

We came from God, through God and by God,  we were not created from nothing as is commonly taught.   I believe we was given a "type" of  life we did not have before, not that we were not life before, but now conscious and unique as opposed to being void.

[jabcat]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at as a possibility - that our spirits existed as either from and/or a part of God - and was then placed in the dust of man.  Scripture says we were lowered into this condition. What our spirits experienced prior to this I really have little idea.  God's too big for me to completely get a handle on, ya' know?   :bigGrin:

[WhiteWings]

Scripture says we were lowered into this condition.

Lowered means once we were higher....(?)
In Genesis God makes a dead man from dust. But when that dead body gets life; that life is not said to be created but just 'blown in'.
So both hint to a pre-existance.

[jabcat]

:thumbsup:   Yes, that's kind'a how I was seeing it too, Tony, as noted in this earlier post as well.

God created MAN, yet breathed...into him.  

Wasn't God's breath 'spirit'?  If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.  I'll study it some more, but may need more than one opinion on which to establish a firm belief.

[jabcat]

Some interesting info I found here - http://www.christian-oneness.org/authors/disclosure.html
Genesis 1:1-3, 1:26-27 & 2:7 (WEB).  It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.

In order to understand what it means that God is spirit, a linguistic observation should first be made. The Hebrew word commonly translated "spirit" has as its primary meaning "breath." Indeed, the King James translators render this word as "breath" in twenty six places.  Further, in three passages this Hebrew word, as applied to God, is stated in direct parallel to another word which is rendered "breath" or &wind."  Moreover, in John 4:21-24, quoted above, the Greek word pneuma , the primary meaning of which is "breath," "breeze" or "wind," is rendered "spirit" three times. Pneuma is, indeed, the only word used to refer to the spirit of God or of a man in the New Testament. The spirits of both God and men are directly compared to the wind in John 3:5-8 (WEB):
----------------------------------

I'll check out some other POVs.  Still, there's the primary scripture I think of that says when man dies, the spirit REturns to God.  Can something return somewhere it's never been?

[gregoryfl]

Hey Jab,

Yes, there is indeed a correlation between spirit and breath. Here is another witness to the understanding:

Job 32:8 But surely it is the spirit (ruach) in a mortal, and the breath (neshamath) of Him Who Suffices that gives them understanding.

Notice in this Hebrew parallelism, the spirit in man is synonymous with the breath of God. And that breath, or spirit, gives understanding. To us that makes no sense, thinking that the exchange of oxygen would give understanding, but to them it made perfect sense, for it is the breath that carries words, words which teach, and in teaching, understanding is given. The breath of men and God, in Hebrew thought, has the ability to carry thought and emotion. In this case, that teaching in inward, in man's spirit, the breath of God by which man lives.

Ron

[jabcat]

Thanks - yeah, there's something there - probably too much for us to grasp.  But I think we've got some hints/clues.  To me, it's encouraging, comforting, hopeful - like maybe we're even more connected to God than perhaps we realize.  Makes me think of "in His image"...that's gotta be more than just a phrase God tossed out there ... Thanks.

[WhiteWings]

I read a Jewish article about their views on spirit. Not 100% sure but I think the names used were to Ron mentioned.
ruach and neshamath
One they call 'the animal spirit' => everything alive hase the animal spirit = life force.
Humans have that animal spirit too. But they have a 'extra spirit'
So I wonder if the animal spirit just dies (life force gone) and that other spirit goes back to Father.
That made/makes sense to me until I read views that animals goto heaven too. Because animals only have an animal spirit it can't just die...?

Gonna search for the article.

[SQ]

Wasn't Adam and Eve in spirit before they became flesh?
I don't know, but someone mentioned it on this board, it made sense.

[WhiteWings]

http://www.jewishmag.com/131mag/mendel_soul/mendel_soul.htm
Lesson 8 - the 5 parts of the soul.


http://books.google.nl/books?id=ips9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=ruach+neshamath&source=bl&ots=OmAMLXwDB9&sig=MtcKGEEmQRs_GkOGibJM-NuxPy0&hl=nl&ei=JZJ5S6XUEIXu-AajlL3zDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ruach%20neshamath&f=false

[Dallas]

 :thumbdown:

Wow!

:doh:

Can't believe how far gone this site is. Next lets discuss how Oh Henry Bars were the foundation of the earth. :dontknow:

[sheila]

    'by that logic Jesus died twice,eh?"

   Numbers 20;7 Listen you rebels, must we bring you water

out of the rock?.THEN MOSES RAISED HIS ARM AND STRUCK

THE ROCK TWICE  

   fourty years earlier in the beginning of the wandering

 Moses had been instructed to strike the rock once...

  Exodus 17;6  strike the rock and water will come out for the people  

  what do you think Michael was disputing with satan over

Moses body about?  The Lord rebuke you, was Michael's reply

  what do you think the rock is symbolic of? what is Moses

symbolic of.  who are the two wittness lying dead in the

 figurative Sodom and Egypt.  Jacob served twice times 7 years

for his desired bride.

  why do you think that the striking of the rock twice happened

at the most important time of entering the promised land...

  forty years later. God said 'speak to the rock'

  why do you think some are twice dead?Jude 12

  Eccl 6;6  -even if he lives a thousand years twice over

 BUT FAILS TO ENJOY HIS PROSPERITY[why did He remain

three days in the grave...why perfected on the third day?]

  yes, it was appointed once for Christ to die...and shown forth

there at the beginning of the wilderness journey  when the

rock was struck and water come out...that water is what has led

us through all the wilderness wanderings .....

  but do YOU know what the two strikes on the Rock that

brought forth the water forty years later means?  that which

occurred NOT at the instruction of God.

   when death is conquered at the resurrection of the

dead...then why is death thrown into the lake of fire? the

secound death. why a resurrection of the unrightous...when

all have born the image of the corrupt and will bear the image

f the incorruptible.

     why is there a double portion,a double annointing...

  why are we clothed with double garments[Pr 21;31]


  Ezekiel 47;9...refers to the double-sized torrent

  if there is a DAY OF JUDGEMENT...WHY WAS JESUS CHRIST

DEAD FOR THREE DAYS?...rising on the third....was He not twice

dead for those two days..?Did not Father promise to cut that

time short for the elects sake?

   were not  the stars created on the fourth day...did  not all

the stars fall from the sky.... where not two great lights made

the greater to  govern the day and the lesser light to govern

the night..was not man created on the sixth day...and to

receive his rest on the seventh Sabbath day?

  were not Abraham's seed like the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea?

  there is MUCH to be revealed....and HE HAS PROMISED

 NOTHING CONCEALED WILL NOT BE REVEALED IN THAT DAY

  PRAISE HIM FOR ALL HIS GLORIOUS WORKS!!!