Pre-existance

In terms of the slippery slope of pre-existence, for many people that's problematic because to them, they believe it implies reincarnation in the traditional Eastern and even Greek senses, such as things you'd find in Hinduism and Aristotle.  For others, the passage from Jeremiah chapter 1 about having been foreknown, foreappreciated, foreadored, and foreappointed to be a prophet to the nations will speak volumes to them.  Jesus saying to continue in His Words as one's own in John's Gospel and then in the 17th chapter requesting to be reclothed with His former glory is deeply suggestive, and then the language of Ephesians 1 about being blessed before the beginning of time and the language of the book of Titus about having received the promises of age-abiding life before the beginning of time will add to the suggestiveness of Scripture for them about preexistence. To me, however, it's easily an itchy ears doctrine that St. Paul would warn about -- too easily 'cept when Holy Spirit indicates to "go there" in a given context where it may at the moment seem appropriate and for some, oddly enough, empowering.  A more significant, more important understanding from the Scriptures is from this whole area of the Judeo-Christian perspective that God created the heavens and the earth, including the space and time dimensions that we encounter and isn't a part of them in the Hindu sense although all being and all tangibility does eminate from Him. God preexisting humanity and not being a creation of man's superstitions and not being a misinterpretation of man's circumstances, but His additional qualities besides preexistence of being personal, loving, and determined to bring to pass all of His promises of both destruction and restoration -- no matter what -- through the man He's appointed to oversee these things, according to Acts 17, Christ Jesus -- to me, that's more interesting, more important, more suggestive, more helpful, and more enlightening than merely the 'eternal' debates about whether or not we're as old as He is, older than the universe, or whatever. The 23rd Psalm does indeed highlight and outline His 'eternal' plan, and a shepherd presupposes not only a resting place of safety, but many dangers that require the oversight of a shepherd, the obedience of the sheep, or the necessity of breaking their legs so that they'll leave their nonsense and cleave to the shepherd, lest they fall into a worser pit.  The 23rd Psalm is a very pregnant Psalm indeed.  It's the furthest from being anywhere near the most pregnant Psalm in terms of the knowledge of the Lord, but it's got quite a bit more richness to it than I've yet seen in any commentaries on it.  Most people with the few minutes they're willing to give the Word of God every week could easily spend a lifetime gaining insight from the 23rd Psalm. The 23rd Psalm applies to each life form in God's Creation, including to any pets that you have.  He's their Shepherd as well. Only -- goodness and kindness pursue me, All the days of my life, And my dwelling [is] in the house of Jehovah, For a length of days! (Psalm 23:6 Young's Literal Translation) Surely or only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place. (Psalm 23:6 Amplified Bible) Surely, goodness and loving-kindness shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of Jehovah for the length of the days. (Psalm 23:6 Darby Translation) I'm continually amazed when I still get the question, "If animal exploitation is cruel, then why did God look the other way for so many centuries?" It is a deep question that merits a lot of consideration even among Christian Animal Gospel teachers/practitioners. At the same time, when this question is coming from a critic, this is like a first century Jewish Christian objecting to the Holy Spirit being poured out upon the Gentiles on the basis of God's sanctioned cruelty towards the Gentiles at the time of the Exodus, the taking of the promised land, and throughout Jewish history. Such a "clever" argument never came up in Acts chapter 15 because it became increasingly clear to most who were present at that debate over whether or not a Gentile could become a Christian that God's previous judgments didn't preclude the possibility of future mercies to those who were once harshly judged and delivered over to corruption and death by the Lord. The Lord has always had to contend with the hardness of the human heart. And if there was indeed a preexistent state for each of us prior to the creation of the world as some Bible teachers are insisting upon, then perhaps the hardness of the human heart was present even back then. And perhaps this cruel world was created in order to give each of us hard yet practical lessons about hardness of heart and why the Lord is always right about everything! God will continue to contend with the hardness of the human heart until He's acheived His eternal objectives of humility, obedience, justice, mercy, and the love of the truth in every heart. I am not implying that animals have been more wicked in previous generations. I am saying that God is visiting every issue of hardness with every heart until He's achieved His intents with every heart. If God never did any more in the hearts and minds of animals than He's already done, and if there were no seeds of more to come in any animal anywhere, that wouldn't let you or me off of the hook with all that the Lord has ever intended for you and I to become! You and I are not [personally] accountable for the last several thousands of years. We don't even know the whole story of the last several thousand years. And if we feel any sense of shame about it, what does it profit us? It neither wipes the history books clean of the atrocities nor brings healing to the Creation around us at the present time. It doesn't atone for what's already happened long before we came along. History has usually been written by the winning side or even by the most prejudicial side of conflicts. There are basic assumptions that are made by archaeologists and anthropologists. Archaeologists, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists subscribe to certain levels of an academic creed or faith in order to proceed with their investigations. Until Christ returns, they may never know the full story about our past and about their assumptions of a certain continuity to history that they've relied heavily upon to reconstruct for us the best picture of our origins that they can personally come up with. None of us knows for certain how long animal cruelty has been universally practiced and whether there have been generational, century, or millenial gaps in various animal cruelty practices. The past could be hundreds of times worse than we've ever imagined with many animal extinctions being the legacy of early humanity. There's also the possibility that the last 3 to 5 thousand years could be the worse that it's ever gotten - with the last century being the absolute worst. In purely sociological terms, human civil liberties as we understand them today, have only really been growing since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215A.D. However, the Holy Bible is the Magna Carta of Christianity, sealed in the Blood of God. It's pages dictate that compassion must be our first priority and final course of action. I say "final" because it's the lesson that the Lord insists that we each learn, and because in practice it hasn't always been the starting point for each of us. Compassion is our final authority in all matters of faith, practice, civil duty, and self sacrifice to God. If there were no room for growth and if tradition and the continuity of our traditions inherently made things morally sound, then we'd each ignore the last 800 years of struggle of human history for human liberty and we'd submit ourselves once again to absolute monarchies that are subject to no restraint but their own whims of coveteousness, squeamishness, or blood thirst. When we ask ourselves how so many generations of human beings on planet earth could have been so wrong about animals, we tend to overlook the prejudices of human beings of former eras even towards other human beings! To put it bluntly, if other human beings didn't even have equal standing in the eyes of our ancestors, then is it any wonder that animals were thought to be nothing more than "leather," "milk," "wool," "cheese," "eggs," "silk," and every other demeaning form of "property" and idea? Revelation 6:8 talks from the human vantage point of humans being afflicted by the animals during the judgments of the future and of perhaps what some would call the "tribulation." Whether this affliction is through the exploitation for consumption of cloned animals or simply the oppressor's views of a slave revolt on the part of the last remaining oppressed animals, at that time, through God's prophesied decrees of their freedom from exploitation, let the reader decide. As a clear example: haven't God's kindnesses to one race of people always been perceived as tremendous judgment on others? I take the Revelation 6:8 passage to involve God's continued work of grace where the beasts of the earth are concerned. The book of Revelation is a collage of God's wrath. The wrath of God is essentially God's projectile love. It's God's insistence upon His own rights and ways, when His gentlemanly qualities haven't made enough of an impression regarding His will. One of the Greek words repeatedly used by both St. John and by St. Paul in their writings that gets translated as "wrath" is the same Greek word that we get the English words "orgy" and "orgasm" from. It's the intensity of Who God is, upon those He's everlastingly committed to that are falling short of intimacy with Him and obedience to His will. It's the intensity of God's ultimate designs for all of Creation everywhere. It's His rejection of our rejection of His will. His Biblical and New Testament "wrath" is when He denies our denial of His will. It's His declaration that His position on the matter is nonnegotiable! [Check me out on that - the definition of "wrath" - in a Strong's Concordance and compare it with a few other lexicons. "Orge" (pronounced or'-gay) means and is used as "intensity of the Being." The only question that you're left with is the particular nature of the Being under consideration who is exploding Himself on everything and everyone in sight. What would be coming out of Him? How did Jesus move in "orge"? How did He treat sickness; disease; demonization; traditions of men that violated His will for their lives; women on the verge of being stoned; death; and unbelief? What was the motive? Isn't He Anointed Saviour - the same - yesterday, today, and to the age, according to Hebrews 13:8? If Isaiah 10:27 calls the anointing that flows from Him, "burden removing, yoke destroying power" then again, what was coming out of Him in the past? Do we have Scriptural reason to believe that He's the same Jesus with the same motivations to please the Father that's coming back soon? Read Isaiah 40 sometime. You'll be glad that you did.]