The Mormons hold to a doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul. That is, that the soul of each human being existed first in the spiritual realm. In their own words, "Before we were born on the earth, we lived in the presence of our Heavenly Father as His spirit children. In this premortal existence, we attended a council with Heavenly Father’s other spirit children." They claim that this doctrine is taught in Ecclesiastes 12:7: "[After death] the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." That is, Mormons claim, if it is returning to God, then it must have been with Him before it was incarnated in a body. Note that this isn't a form of reincarnation, since the Mormons do not claim that the soul existed in another body before its present incarnation.
However, as is their wont, the Mormons are being very selective in their use of Bible proofs. Another thing that God says on this matter can be found in Zechariah 12:1: "Thus declares the LORD, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him..." Here, the prophet clearly described the contemporaneous creation of, and incarnation of, a man's soul. So, when a Mormon asks where the soul was before its current incarnation, the answer is that it wasn't anywhere, any more than the body was somewhere before its conception.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon is describing a circumstance analogous to ordering a pizza. When you order the pizza, it doesn't yet exist. Rather, it is prepared and then given to you. If you then return the pizza, let's say for being burnt, you do indeed give it back, because it existed before you returned it, not because it existed before you ordered it. In the same way, God creates the soul within the new body, apparently at conception (see Psalm 51:5), and it then returns to its Maker upon death. There is no time of spiritual existence prior to incarnation.
4 comments:
Zechariah 12:1 in Mormonism is a reference to Jesus since he is the God of the Old Testament
yet Mormons don't teach Jesus is the father of OUR SPIRITS.
Selections from Answers to Gospel Questions
Taken from the writings of Joseph Fielding Smith
Tenth President of Mormonism
A course Study for the Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums
1972-73
Lesson 6 page 39
It was Jesus who gave commandments to Adam after he was driven out of the Garden of Eden and who directed Enoch and Noah before the flood. It was Christ who named Abraham and made him that through his posterity all nations would be blessed. He, it was who called Moses to lead Isreal out of Egypt and who wrote with his fingers on the tables of stone. He had no body until he was born in Bethlehem.
That doesn't address my use of that verse. The Prophet says that God "formed the spirit of man within him." The spirit is formed at the same time as the body. There is, therefore, no pre-existence for the souls of mere men.
Romans 9
7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 9 For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. 10 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; 11(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
Noticed not all humans are children of God and Esau and Jacob had nothing before while in Rebecca womb
Yes, you are correct.
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