Eze 18:4
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Num 16:22
And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?
Num 27:16
Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,
Zec 12:1
The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
Heb 12:9
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
The question is: Were we alive in heaven before we were born?
And in my opinion the answer is yes and no.
The we, identified as an individual with self knowledge and a distinct identity, I don't believe that that "person" existed before birth.
The Life which God infused into the body of flesh that was created to house His Spirit, becomes the individual with self knowledge and a distinct identity as God sees fit to mold it.
We do not have eternal life in and of our own selves. Life is a gift from God alone. And Life comes from His Spirit.
So in the abstract, The very life force that makes us alive and who we are came from God.
So one could say that our very origen proceeded from God and returns to God alone.
It's not about the person, or the individual, or the identity of a seperate life force apart from God being sent into a badoy made of flesh.
But His Spirit which is life is how we have our being.
Jesus knew this. He knew thathis Spirit was not his own. And that the Father had given him a commandment that the very life force within him which came from The Father, he had permission to lay it down and take it up again.
And so Jesus says to all, take up you cross and follow me. Have faith and doubt not. Leave your own person, identity, individualism behind and let it die, and walk in my life, which is the same life the God gave to him.
The kingdom of God is within us.
The Kingdom of God is the very Spirit of God IN US.
The very same Spirit that was in Jesus.
I believe we have always had this very same Spirit, but we turned away and chose to walk in our own spirit, ego, identity, person, individual.
Jesus came to wake us up and to turn us around and seek the Kingdom of God which is God's Spirit in us.
We have always been with God. But not as who we know ourselves to be, but how God saw what we shall be.
And on the moment of conception God had a plan that the very Spirit he would unite with your body which came from him, would become whatever or whoever it would manifest into.
1Jo 3:2
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
And I understand the looking forward of what we shall be after we have done our time here.
But if you look behind, you will also see the same truth regarding conception.
You have the seed and you have the egg. Once the seed joins with the egg the seed itself dies to itself and becomes one with the egg.
Now there is neither seed nor egg as individual and separate of them selves, but the two become one.
And no one knows what that child will look like , act like, behave like, sound like, until it is born.
But God knows. Because he is the life which gives the seed and the egg the power and the mechanism in which to create that one individual.
We are not the seed, and we are not the egg. We are the combination of 3.
so cool...
1Jo 5:8
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
The earth is the flesh body that is formed by the combination of the water and the blood, but this body would not have life if it did not have Spirit. And this Spirit originated with God, lives it's life through us, and then returns to God when it's purpose for being here is done.
My dad keeps asking me, why am I still here? I tell him, because God still needs you here, but when it's time, he'll bring you home.
And no one knows what time that is but God himself.
Mat 24:36
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Back up:
Mat 24:34
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Heaven and earth... Mind and body.
When someone passes away, they no longer have capacity of the mind or the body, they are dead.
This life, this seed that we are that God planted on this earth, now gets buried in the earth, same as the seed in the egg.
And then comes the resurrection from the dead, or the conception into life.
And Paul says, it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when we see him we shall be like him.
The first time God came to earth as a man. The first time we have life is as child in human form.
The second time God comes to earth we shall see him as he is, even as we ourselves shall be changed from corruptible to incorruptible.
This incorruption is the very life force of God in which we had our origen. Not as an individual, but as it were a breath of God.
There is one caveat. Or that which turns the key to go from this life to the next life, from corruption to incorruption and that is our acknowledgment of God himself from which our life came from, and our belief and faith that we will return to the one that gave it.
If we don't acknowledge God in this life time, that is to say, if we deny the very existence from which we come from, our reply will be, I never knew you.
What is iniquity? It is sin? What is sin? It is the transgression of the law? What is the first commandment and greatest of them all?
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and all thy soul and all thy might.
This one commandment is the very key to the Kingdom of God himself.
This is the key to life.
The key to death is to deny God and to hate your neighbor in your heart without a cause.
Mat 16:19
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
The choice is yours. One key leads to God, the other leads to separation from God forever.
What is it to bind and to loose?
Either you believe God in your mind (heaven) and on the earth (body) and recieve the key to the Kingdom.
Or you reject God in your mind (heaven) and on the earth (in the body) and recieve the key to eternal damnation.
Deu 11:18
Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
What is between your eyes?
Your mind.
What does the hand represent?
Your body.
Heaven and earth.
Hugs
That is the best answer I have got so far. I can't comment on it yet, that's quite a bit to chew on lol. But you have made me think!
Interesting.