Joel M Bradshaw

46But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.–1 Corinthians 15

Christianity brings the spiritual dimension to physical life. We talk about thing like Heaven and eternity. The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, speaks of everlasting life. So if we who belong to Jesus will spend eternity with Him, how far back does that go? Did we exist with God in some kind of spirit form before birth?

The point I am highlighting today was not Paul’s main point. He was teaching of the final resurrection and the bodies we will receive that will be able to last for eternity. Again, this is something that the naturalist scoffs at. We are born and then we die he believes.

…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7) 

Adam existed in two categories: physical and non-physical. He had a body that could be seen and a spirit that was given by God but could not be seen. And to Paul’s point, the physical came before the spiritual. Resurrection would transform the physical to spiritual as it is something supernatural or beyond the natural. This is the miracle that defines all the others. If you believe Jesus was raised from the dead, then any other miracle is now believable. Resurrection defines the possibilities of what God can do! Faith in Christ and the certainty of His resurrection believes that what God can do he will do.

It is popular to believe in some religions that we were all spirit creatures or beings wandering the halls of Heaven before birth. And at some point God called our number and sent us to be with parents of His choosing. But this is not the plain testimony of the Bible.

We believe that God the Son preexisted before He became flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus. The Triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) had no beginning. The Bible does not describe humans that way. We are made in God’s image, not in His very being (Genesis 1:26-27)!

Here is the closest Bible verse that I could find this morning to push back on this idea. There may be others, but they didn’t come to mind.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

This verse definitely describes God having a knowledge of Jeremiah before he was born. For God to make a sovereign choice of Jeremiah and to set him apart as a prophet before he was born simply speaks of God’s foreknowledge and God’s choice. It’s one thing to say that God knew Jeremiah pre-birth. It’s quite another to say that Jeremiah knew God in that way. And the verse simply doesn’t tell us that Jeremiah existed before he was born except in the plans of God.

We each had a beginning. And this beginning was natural, a birth. We each will have a natural ending, a death. Those who belong to Jesus will resurrect and have their bodies transformed in a fashion that will last for eternity. That was Paul’s point in this chapter.

Christians were chosen by God before the creation of the world and predestined to be adopted into His family (Ephesians 1:3-5). This doesn’t mean we existed before the creation of the world in some pre-mortal or preexistent form. It simply means that God planned for Adam before he made an atom. You were on His mind before God spoke creation into existence! You existed in the plans of God, but didn’t literally exist as some heavenly spirit creature. I hope this helps your biblical understanding.–JMB