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Jeremiah 1:5 and the Mormon Doctrine of Preexistence

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Jeremiah 1:5 and the Mormon Doctrine of Preexistence

Robert M. Bowman Jr.

"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."

God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee” (Jeremiah 1:5). Since God knows everything and everyone from an eternal perspective, though, this verse does not prove that Jeremiah existed before his mother’s womb. That is because this verse does not say that Jeremiah knew God or had done anything before his earthly conception and birth. Rather, it tells us something about what God knew and did before our birth, not something about anything we knew or did. Other verses sometimes cited to prove our preexistence fall into this same category: they tell us about what God did for us before creation (for example, Ephesians 1:4).