And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. ~ Revelation 13:8

There is a video online of a deceased minister whom I will not name, but in my opinion he was a false teacher. In the video he makes the following statement:

“Jesus Christ did not die 2000 years ago. If that was true, Jesus was not finished before he started. Let me give you something to never forget. Before God created you, the Bible says he counseled himself. He sat in a meeting with himself. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. He chose you by his counsel. He says, it’s not your plans that are important. God purposed you by his counsel. That means God had a meeting about you before you manifested, and in the meeting he decided to have you. And only he, his Son, and Spirit were in the meeting. And he knew what he wanted. He wanted to have you because he had a destination, an assignment, before you even existed. And in the meeting, the Word said to the Father if we create them and give them a will they may decide against us and disobey us. And the Father said, that’s a possibility. And the Spirit says, so what are we going to do? And the Word says, I tell you what, if they were to disobey us, we would have to redeem them. So what I’ll do is, I’ll pay the price now. I’ll die now before we make them. “ End quote

There is a lot of sugar coated false teaching in this excerpt. Notice that the sugarcoating is telling the people how special they are, and making them the center piece in the story rather than Christ. This sugarcoated false teaching is bookended with the lie that undermines the death of Christ at Calvary.

What is really unfortunate is that people hear this kind of teaching and they think it is “revelation.” As one person said to me after I refuted it, “You need revelation, and this is very scriptural. He’s not speaking his own message but all Biblical references.”

Actually, it’s not scriptural and I am going to show you why momentarily, but notice that this person thought these words were “revelation.”

The problem with false teachers is they seduce their hearers who think they have revelation from God on par with the sound teachings of scripture. Yet anyone who simply takes the time to consider the whole counsel of scripture, on any topic, can very quickly see the errors in teachings such as this.

Now, after I answered the fellow who told me I needed revelation, another chimed in and said, “Read your Bible well. It don’t say he was ordained. It says HE WAS SLAIN, BEFORE the foundations of the EARTH were laid. Those two aren’t the same thing. This man of God is not in error, He is within scripture.”

Notice how this person is defending the “man of God” but the “man of God” is wrong because he is not teaching what is biblical, but a form of mysticism. His teaching does not align with the prophets who prophesied the death and resurrection of Jesus which was yet to happen at the time in which they prophesied.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care,  trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.  It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. ~ 1Peter 1:10-12

Notice that the prophets were speaking of things that were yet to have happened. 

Now, what does it mean that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Does it mean that Jesus died and paid the price for sins before creation?

No!

How can I say no? I can say no because no scripture teaches it. All scripture has to be understood within context, both immediate context and the context of the whole counsel of scripture, and the whole counsel of scripture does not support the idea that Jesus died for sins before creation.

So what does it mean that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world?

Peter tells us, He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last times for your sake. ~ 1 Peter 1:20

Jesus did not die before the foundation of the world, he was ordained to be the one who would give his life for the world and that did not happen until the first century.

The language of Revelation 13:8 which mentions the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. is prophetic, not literal. If Jesus had died before the foundation of the world that would mean the lamb of God had been slain twice, but scripture says that he was once offered to bear the sins of many ~ Hebrews 9:28. 

Peter tells us that Christ suffered once for sins ~ 1 Peter 3:18. Paul says, For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God ~ Romans 6:10,

The writer of Hebrews uses the language “once” multiple times in reference to Jesus’ sacrifice. In Hebrews 7 he tells us that Jesus offered himself up once for our sins. 

Jesus could not have died before the foundation of the world because humanity had not yet been created, and Jesus gave his life as the seed of Abraham and as the  descendant of David.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel… ~ 2 Timothy 2:8

Jesus had to suffer in the flesh, as a man, and as a descendant of David. Before the foundation of the world there was no sinful humanity, and no death. Jesus co-existed with God in his divine essence, and by him God created all things.

Furthermore, there is no text that speaks of Jesus as rising from the dead before the foundation of the world, and without the resurrection, we would still be in our sins.  Jesus was raised from the death he died in the flesh during the first century. 

The false teaching that is being advanced in this this video I cited is one that denies the death of Jesus on the cross. The false teacher plainly says, “Jesus Christ did not die 2000 years ago.” He says this to build the case for his false revelation that is built on an isolated text that is not understood within the context of all that scripture tells us regarding the death of Christ.

To say that Jesus did not die 2000 years ago is not revelation, it is denial of the gospel, and rejecting the power of the cross. Not only so, but it is a denial of the true revelation of God in scripture that Jesus was God manifested in the flesh, and that Jesus was raised from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of God in the same body that in which died and rose again.

The false revelation that Jesus died before creation rather than at Calvary, has Jesus dying in his spirit form, rather than in the flesh as a man who was born of a virgin. Thus it is a false gospel. 

Christ was ordained and foreknown by God as the lamb of God, in the same way that you and I were known in God’s foreknowledge. That does not mean we existed before creation, it simply means that in God’s foreknowledge he knew us.

In like manner, Christ as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world does not mean that he died at that time, but rather, in God’s foreknowledge Jesus was the one who would come into the world and give his life for all at the appointed time. Thus he was ordained as our Savior, the lamb of God, in the foreknowledge of God.