Speaking to Job, one of the most ancient writers of the Bible, He says: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? * * * When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job xxxviii, 2-7.)
Job certainly must have been somewhere when the "foundations of the earth were laid," or why the question?
There was doubtless more meaning to the words, "When ALL the sons of God shouted for joy," than one at first supposes. The reader asks, "Who were these sons of God?" Luke, in giving the genealogy of the human family, gives the necessary information on this subject: "Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the SON OF GOD" (Luke iii, 38). But let us turn to another text. One of the ancient writers says: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." (Ecc. xii, 7).
Let us ask ourselves how it would be possible to return to a place, point or locality, which we had never visited. How could we return to God unless we had once been in His presence? The logical conclusion is unavoidable, that to enable us to return to Him we must have once enjoyed His associations, which must have been in a pre-existent state, before we became clothed upon with this body of flesh and bone.
Again, we find that the apostles must have had some conception of pre-existence, judging from their question to Jesus: "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John ix, 2.) It will, doubtless, require no argument to convince the reader that the justice of God would scarcely permit the punishment of the individual before the crime was committed. If so, then the sin must have been committed before he came upon the earth, for he was born blind. It was evident that the question was not a doubtful one in the minds of the apostles as to whether a man could sin previous to his existence in the flesh, but as to whether this particular man had sinned or not.
Paul, in his writings to the Hebrews, says: "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?" (Heb. xii. 9.) We here gain the information as to who the sons of God were who shouted for joy in the beginning. We also learn the reason why we address Him as, "Our Father which art in heaven," is to distinguish Him from the father of our earthly tabernacles. In other words, He is the Father of the spirits that inhabit our bodies, in precisely the same sense that our earthly fathers are the fathers of our bodies of flesh and bone.
When death ensues, we bury the earthly body, which decomposes and mingles with the elements surrounding its place of deposit; but what of the spirit which "returns unto God who gave it?"
When Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, "They were affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit." But He corrected them, saying, "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke xxiv. 37-39). From these, words we may gather the information that man, while existing as a spirit, was not clothed upon with flesh and bone, but nevertheless, existed in the exact shape and form that he now possesses. He had eyes to see, ears to hear and many other faculties with which man is here endowed. He was also doubtless in possession of intelligence, and much that goes to ennoble man. He had the ability to pass from place to place, increase in knowledge, and perform certain duties that devolved upon him in that sphere of action.
An unembodied spirit is one that has not yet taken upon itself a body. An embodied spirit is one dwelling in the flesh. A disembodied spirit is one that has passed through this stage of existence and laid its body down in the grave, to be finally taken up and again united, spirit and body, those of the righteous never more to be separated.
The word of the Lord to Jeremiah was: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. i. 5). Here we have the sure word of the Lord relating to one of the children of men who was but a type of the rest, only that in this particular case we have the fact made known that, for good and sufficient reasons, our common Father in the heavens saw proper to ordain one of His children to a certain office prior to sending him down upon the earth. Having so gained the confidence of his Father while in his first or pre-existent state, he was ordained to a high and holy calling, previous to his advent upon the earth, and we learn from holy writ, that this confidence was not misplaced, but that he in honor filled his mission and proved himself true to the trust reposed in him, not veering or turning a hair's breath from the line of his duty, though met by obstacles that would have appalled the stoutest heart.