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We see Jesus predicting his death in Mtt 26:24 (NRSVCE ):

The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

Let us look at the prospects of Judas not having been born. That would not deter the human incarnation and redemptive mission of Son of God from happening. On the other side, Judas not born would be Judas not in existence. But then, how is not being in existence beneficial to the person? Is it that a person's soul pre-exists his/ her conception and foetal life, the latter being the stage of preparation for ' birth into the world? In other words, did Judas have a soul that existed even before his conception?

My question therefore, is: Does Matt 26:24 hint at the possibility of pre-natal existence of a person's soul?

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Matthew 26:24 may hint at the pre-natal existence of a man's soul or spirit, but another verse that is more definitive is Jeremiah 1:5.

Jeremiah 1:5

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 nation's.

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  • That is not about pre-natal existence and far less about pre-natal prophetic ordination of Jeremiah, for otherwise Jeremiah would have answered: "Dear Lord, why do you tell me things I know very well, for I know you have ordained me as a prophet before I was born, I remember that solemn moment; but how strange it that you, o Lord, ordain now me again as a prophet, why? Was not my first ordination in pre-natal life enough, or did I lapse from the prophetship and now I need to be reordained?" But Jeremiah does not ask such weird questions, does he?
    – Levan Gigineishvili
    Commented Jan 27 at 7:57
  • I was about to agree with you, about the possibility of it not being about pre-natal existence. But if not about that, would it not have to be prophetic?
    – RHPclass79
    Commented Jan 27 at 8:39
  • Simply it is that God’s nature and knowledge is 100% devoid of time; therefore He knows those events that are future to us in His eternal “now”. Thus, it is not that He ordained unborn soul of Jeremiah, say, 1000 years after his soul’s creation out of nothing and, say, 2087 years before his historical birth, - NO! It is as it were He tells Jeremiah: “Before you were born historically, I already knew the entirety of your life, for my being and knowledge are eternal and thus even all temporal, historical events I, the omniscient God, know eternally, in My eternal “now””.
    – Levan Gigineishvili
    Commented Jan 27 at 8:50
  • That's what I was meaning of being prophetic.
    – RHPclass79
    Commented Jan 27 at 8:59
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If my lamb is left unattended on a field and it is devoured by a hungry wolf, and I say: "Poor lamb, would be better for it if it was not born", does it mean that I assume that this lamb was there before its birth? But then this sentence looses its sense, because if there was a pre-existent lamb, then there would also be pre-existent wolf there in a pre-existent field and this pre-existent wolf would have devoured the poor pre-existent lamb for satisfying his pre-existent hunger.

Similarly, if Judas existed before with all the apostles and Jesus, then he could also betray his pre-existent Teacher just like he betrayed Him while in existence and deliver Him to pre-existent Sanhedrin and pre-existent Pontius Pilate - a pre-existent pre-administrator of pre-Roman pre-Empire.

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  • Levan, it looks like you have gone a mile too far from the question, which is not about a previous life of Judas . If we believe that his soul outlived his body, we may also doubt if the soul had been there before he took birth.
    – Kadalikatt Joseph Sibichan
    Commented Jan 27 at 8:10
  • @KadalikattJosephSibichan Souls of the deceased people live, have memory, will, and they pray to God, even those souls that are in hell pray for their beloved on earth, as the parable about the rich man says, for this rich man is in hell and still cares for his yet living brethren. But pre-birth souls cannot exist for they would lack memory, will, consiousness, and as such, would not exist. Imagine an absurdity: a deceased man’s soul meets an unborn man’s soul, what kind of dialogue can be between them? None, for unborn soul would be 100% nob-communicable.
    – Levan Gigineishvili
    Commented Jan 27 at 8:42
  • Helen Keller who was both blind and deaf, famously said : " In the next life, I can see and hear ! " The qualities of soul do not commensurate with the qualities of the body it dwells in.
    – Kadalikatt Joseph Sibichan
    Commented Jan 27 at 9:29
  • @KadalikattJosephSibichan H Keller had consciousness, anything without consciousness is either mineral, or plant
    – Levan Gigineishvili
    Commented Jan 27 at 9:35
  • @ Levan Gigineishvili If we agree that spirits are eternal, either in Heaven or he'll, whose to say they don't go backwards as well as foreward according to terrestrial time. Aren't you assuming a spirit begins a t conception. Since God can divide spirit from soul, maybe there was a " brain wipe" in the process. I realize spirit and soul are not physical and have a brain. I am just using a figure of speech. Truth is God did not give us much to go on here.
    – RHPclass79
    Commented Jan 27 at 9:44

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