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Updated: May 7, 2025
It is true that in the first chapter there are phrases which are most naturally explained by "pre-existent" doctrine, but though the writer appears to be explaining the essential superiority of the Son to angels, in chapter ii. this superiority is the result of the Passion and Resurrection, and in verse 10 the divine being, "through whom and for whom are all things," is distinguished from the leader of our salvation, who is, of course, Jesus.
It is certain that there is nothing in the idea of a pre-existent state that excites our longing like the prospect of a posthumous existence. We are satisfied to have begun life when we did; we have no ambition to have set out on our journey sooner; and feel that we have had quite enough to do to battle our way through since. We cannot say,
These three views, respectively, are as follows: That the soul is specially created by the Supreme Power at the time of conception, or birth, and that its position on earth, its circumstances, its degree of intelligence, etc., are fixed arbitrarily by that power, for some inscrutable reason of its own; That the soul was pre-existent, that is, that it existed before conception and birth, in some higher state not understood by us, from whence it was thrust into human form and birth, its position on earth, its circumstances, its degree of intelligence, etc., being determined by causes unknown to us; That the soul is one of countless others which emanated from the Source of Being at some period in the past, and which souls were equal in power, intelligence, opportunity, etc., and which worked its way up by spiritual evolution from lowly forms of expression and life to its present state, from whence it is destined to move on and on, to higher and still higher forms and states of existence, until in the end, after millions of æons of existence in the highest planes of expressed life it will again return to the Source of Being from which it emanated, and becomes "one with the Father," not in a state of annihilated consciousness, but in a condition of universal consciousness with All.
Know then: that divinity which other communions and peoples have conjured up, falleth within the scope of their imagination, and not beyond it, whereas the reality of the Godhead is beyond all conceiving. As to the Holy Manifestations of God, They are the focal points where the signs, tokens and perfections of that sacred, pre-existent Reality appear in all their splendour.
He has graciously assisted you to remain faithful to His weighty and irrefutable Testament, to cling tenaciously to the hem of the robe of the Centre of the Covenant of God, the All-Bountiful, and to fix your gaze entirely upon the luminous face of ‘Him Whom God hath purposed’, the One ‘Who hath branched from the pre-existent Root’. In truth, a myriad praises and thanksgiving should be offered in appreciation of this outpouring of divine favours and blessings.
The history of individuals thus circumstanced can be more clearly discerned than others. Prophecy in bold and clear characters foretells the events which will transpire in their earth life. In like manner Jesus, the celebrated child of Bethlehem, had lived a pre-existent life on earth. He had reigned over a people in his previous life, a wise and loving king.
Upham should have been familiar enough with the original sources of information on the subject, to have found this Advice in print, seventy-four years before Hutchinson's History appeared." Of course, neither I, nor any one else, can be imagined to suppose that Hutchinson invented the document. It was pre-existent, and at his hand. It was not to the purpose to say where he found it.
My answer is, it is not different from God in any sense, and there is no changing attribute in God. But there is a subtle mystery in this matter, which it is not proper to reveal, and this is not the place to explain it. God created the world out of nothing, and not out of a pre-existent matter.
The question "Are ye not of more value than many sparrows?" might be doubtful in the Buddhist estimate, for the teacher himself, in his pre-existent states, had often been incarnate in inferior creatures.
The Epistle to the Hebrews seems at first to be much more obviously "Pre-existent" in its Christology than the Epistle to the Romans, indeed it could well be explained on the theory that it was maintaining a Pre-existent Christology against a rival form of the same general type which identified the pre-existent Christ with an angel.
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