JOHN 6:62 — DOES “ASCENDING TO WHERE HE WAS BEFORE” REALLY PROVE JESUS LIVED IN HEAVEN BEFORE HIS BIRTH?
What Did Jesus Really Mean by “Going Up to Where He Was Before”?
John 6:62 is frequently presented as one of the clearest statements that Jesus personally existed in heaven before He was born.
Jesus said:
“Then what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”
— John 6:62
The traditional interpretation seems simple:
Jesus previously lived in heaven with God. He came down from heaven to earth. Therefore, when Jesus spoke about “ascending to where he was before,” He must have meant returning to the heavenly place where He personally lived before His birth.
But is that actually what Jesus said?
Does John 6:62 say:
“What if you see me returning to heaven where I lived before I was born?”
No.
Those words are not in the verse.
And when we examine the Greek, the immediate context, the repeated resurrection language throughout John 6, and Jesus' statement immediately afterward that “the Spirit gives life,” there is another interpretation that deserves serious consideration.
Could Jesus have been speaking about His coming death and resurrection?
Let us examine the evidence.
FIRST, WHAT DOES JOHN 6:62 ACTUALLY SAY?
The Greek text reads:
ἐὰν οὖν θεωρῆτε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀναβαίνοντα ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον;
Transliterated:
ean oun theōrēte ton huion tou anthrōpou anabainonta hopou ēn to proteron?
The crucial words are:
ἀναβαίνοντα ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον
anabainonta hopou ēn to proteron
Approximately:
“GOING UP / ASCENDING WHERE HE WAS BEFORE.”
Notice what the Greek does not say.
It does not say:
“ascending back to heaven.”
It does not say:
“returning to heaven.”
It does not say:
“where I lived before I was born.”
Most importantly:
THE WORD “HEAVEN” DOES NOT APPEAR IN JOHN 6:62.
That does not by itself prove that heaven cannot be what Jesus meant.
But neither can “heaven” simply be inserted into the verse and then the inserted idea be used as proof that Jesus personally lived there before His birth.
The destination represented by “where he was before” has to be determined from the context.
WHAT DOES ANABAINŌ MEAN?
The Greek word behind “ascending” is:
ἀναβαίνω — ANABAINŌ
The word can mean:
to go up, come up, rise, ascend.
But anabainō does not inherently mean:
“TO ASCEND BACK TO HEAVEN.”
The New Testament uses this same verb for many kinds of upward movement.
Jesus went up onto a mountain.
Jesus came up out of the water following His baptism.
Plants grew up from the ground.
Zacchaeus climbed up a tree.
Therefore, the English translation “ascending” is legitimate, but we must not allow the English word to make the Greek say more than it actually says.
Anabainō tells us about upward movement.
The context must tell us where and in what sense.
JOHN 6:62 MUST NOT BE REMOVED FROM JOHN 6:60–63
This is where the interpretation becomes especially interesting.
Jesus did not suddenly make an isolated statement about pre-existence in verse 62.
There is a conversation taking place.
We therefore need to read the verses together.
JOHN 6:60 — “THIS IS A HARD SAYING”
After hearing Jesus' teaching, many of His disciples said:
“This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?”
Why were they struggling?
Because Jesus had been speaking in extraordinary language.
He had described Himself as:
THE BREAD THAT CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN.
He had spoken about:
EATING HIS FLESH
and:
DRINKING HIS BLOOD.
Clearly, we are dealing with language that requires interpretation.
Jesus was not instructing His disciples literally to eat pieces of His physical body and drink His physical blood.
The disciples were struggling to understand what He meant.
JOHN 6:61 — “DOES THIS CAUSE YOU TO STUMBLE?”
Jesus knew that His disciples were grumbling.
He therefore asked:
“Does this cause you to stumble?”
And immediately He continued:
“Then what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”
— John 6:62
But Jesus did not stop there.
The very next words are extremely important.
JOHN 6:63 — “THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE”
Jesus continued:
“It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.”
Notice the language:
“THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE.”
And:
“THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK TO YOU ARE SPIRIT, AND ARE LIFE.”
Why should this matter when interpreting the previous sentence?
Because resurrection and restoration to life have already been repeatedly discussed in this same chapter.
RESURRECTION APPEARS THROUGHOUT JOHN 6
Jesus repeatedly speaks about resurrection in John 6.
John 6:39
“…I should lose nothing of all those he has given me, but should raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:40
“…I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:44
“…I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:54
“…I will raise him up at the last day.”
Four times in this discourse Jesus explicitly speaks about people being raised up.
Therefore, resurrection is not an idea imported from somewhere else in Scripture merely to create an alternative explanation for John 6:62.
RESURRECTION IS ALREADY PART OF THE CONTEXT OF JOHN 6.
And then, immediately after verse 62, Jesus says:
“THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE.”
That deserves serious consideration.
READ JOHN 6:60–63 AS ONE CONTINUOUS THOUGHT
Consider the progression.
VERSE 60
The disciples say:
“This is a hard saying.”
VERSE 61
Jesus asks:
“Does this cause you to stumble?”
VERSE 62
Jesus asks what they would think if they saw the Son of Man:
“going up/ascending where he was before.”
VERSE 63
Jesus immediately explains:
“THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE.”
and:
“THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK TO YOU ARE SPIRIT, AND ARE LIFE.”
Why should verse 62 be removed from this sequence and automatically interpreted as a statement about Jesus' life in heaven before His birth?
There is another possibility.
WAS JESUS SPEAKING ABOUT HIS RESURRECTION?
Consider what was about to happen to Jesus.
Jesus was alive upon the earth when He spoke these words.
He would later be killed.
He would be buried.
He would then be raised from the dead.
After His resurrection, Jesus would once again be:
ALIVE UPON THE EARTH
and would appear to His disciples.
Could this explain:
“the Son of Man going up to where he was before”?
Under this interpretation:
WHERE WAS JESUS BEFORE HIS DEATH?
Alive upon the earth.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?
He would die and be buried.
WHAT WOULD GOD THEN DO?
Raise Him from the dead.
WHERE WOULD JESUS THEN BE?
Once again alive upon the earth, appearing to His disciples.
In other words:
DEATH → RESURRECTION → RESTORATION TO LIFE
This makes Jesus' very next statement particularly interesting:
“THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE.”
DOES JOHN 6:63 EXPLICITLY SAY THE SPIRIT WOULD RESURRECT JESUS?
We must be precise.
No.
John 6:63 does not literally say:
“God's Spirit will raise me from the dead.”
Jesus says:
“The Spirit gives life.”
Connecting those words specifically with Jesus' resurrection is therefore an interpretation drawn from the surrounding context.
But exactly the same standard must be applied to the traditional interpretation.
John 6:62 does not literally say:
“I am returning to heaven where I consciously lived before my birth.”
That is also an interpretation.
So the question is not:
Which interpretation contains no interpretation at all?
The question is:
WHICH INTERPRETATION BEST EXPLAINS JESUS' WORDS IN THEIR CONTEXT?
SCRIPTURE CONNECTS GOD'S SPIRIT WITH RESURRECTION LIFE
There is another interesting biblical connection.
Paul later writes:
“But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
— Romans 8:11
Notice the concepts:
Jesus raised from the dead.
The Spirit.
Giving life to mortal bodies.
Romans 8:11 does not prove by itself what John 6:62 means, because Paul is writing in another context.
But it demonstrates that connecting Spirit + giving life + resurrection is thoroughly biblical.
Likewise, John 5:21 says:
“For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.”
Again we find:
RAISING THE DEAD → GIVING LIFE.
Therefore, when John 6 repeatedly discusses resurrection and Jesus immediately says “the Spirit gives life,” the possibility that resurrection is relevant to verse 62 cannot simply be dismissed.
JESUS HAD BEEN SPEAKING FIGURATIVELY
We must also remember what produced the controversy in the first place.
Jesus had said:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves.”
— John 6:53
Nobody should interpret this woodenly literally.
Jesus' words require spiritual understanding.
Indeed, Jesus Himself subsequently says:
“The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.”
This is extremely relevant to another expression used throughout John 6:
“I CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN.”
Does that expression necessarily describe a conscious person physically travelling from heaven to Mary's womb?
Or can “from heaven” describe Jesus' divine origin—His being from God, sent by God, authorized by God and uniquely begotten through God's miraculous action?
We have already examined that question in detail in our companion study:
John 6:38 — How Did Jesus Come Down From Heaven?
READ THE JOHN 6:38 COMPANION STUDY
“FROM HEAVEN” DOES NOT ALWAYS REQUIRE LITERAL TRAVEL FROM HEAVEN
John himself provides an important example.
John the Baptist said:
“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.”
— John 3:27
Something being “from heaven” can therefore identify its divine source.
Jesus certainly came from God.
The question is what that expression means.
Jesus had no human father.
Luke records the angel telling Mary:
“The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.”
— Luke 1:35
Jesus' origin was uniquely from God.
He was God's Son.
He was sent by God.
His authority came from God.
His words came from God.
His works were given by God.
His mission originated with God.
Therefore, saying Jesus came from God does not settle by itself the separate question of whether Jesus consciously lived beside God in heaven before His conception.
That question must be established from Scripture.
BUT WHAT ABOUT “WHERE HE WAS BEFORE”?
This is understandably the most difficult part of John 6:62.
Jesus says:
“…where he was before.”
The traditional interpretation understands this to mean:
HEAVEN — WHERE JESUS PERSONALLY LIVED BEFORE HIS BIRTH.
But notice again:
Jesus does not actually identify “where” as heaven in this verse.
The resurrection interpretation understands the expression differently.
Before Jesus' death He was:
ALIVE UPON THE EARTH.
He would then die.
He would be buried.
He would subsequently come up/rise from death and once again be:
ALIVE UPON THE EARTH.
The disciples would actually see Him again.
Thomas would see Him.
Peter would see Him.
Mary Magdalene would see Him.
The other disciples would see Him.
Only later would Jesus ascend to His Father.
Therefore, the expression “where he was before” does not by itself prove that the location was Jesus' pre-human residence in heaven.
That is precisely the point that needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed.
BUT JESUS REALLY DID ASCEND TO HEAVEN
Absolutely.
Nothing in this study denies Jesus' eventual ascension.
After His resurrection, Jesus ascended to His Father.
Acts 1 records this clearly.
The question is much narrower:
IS JOHN 6:62 TALKING ABOUT THAT ASCENSION IN A WAY THAT PROVES JESUS PREVIOUSLY LIVED IN HEAVEN BEFORE HIS BIRTH?
Those are two different questions.
Interestingly, Acts 1:9, in describing Jesus being taken up, does not use anabainō itself.
That fact does not prove John 6:62 means resurrection.
But it does demonstrate why anabainō should not be treated as a technical Greek term meaning “Christ's ascension back into heaven.”
THERE IS ANOTHER IMPORTANT PROBLEM WITH “GOING BACK”
If Jesus personally lived alongside God in heaven before His birth, then came to earth, we might expect Jesus—when later speaking explicitly about His departure to God—to describe Himself as:
“GOING BACK TO GOD”
or:
“RETURNING TO THE FATHER.”
This makes John 13:3 and John 16:28 particularly important.
JOHN 13:3 — “GOING TO GOD”
John 13:3 says that Jesus knew:
“…that he came from God, and was going to God.”
The important Greek expression is:
ὑπάγει πρὸς τὸν θεόν
hypagei pros ton theon
Jesus is described as:
GOING TO GOD.
Some English translations make the idea more explicit by translating this as “returning to God” or “going back to God.”
But there is no separate Greek word corresponding to “back” in that phrase.
That distinction matters.
JOHN 16:28 — “I GO TO THE FATHER”
This passage is even more striking because these are Jesus' own words:
“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
— John 16:28 KJV
The Greek says:
πορεύομαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα
poreuomai pros ton patera
That is:
“I GO TO THE FATHER.”
Again, there is no separate word meaning:
“BACK.”
Yet some translations render the expression:
“I am going back to the Father.”
That may represent how the translators understand the overall sentence, but “back” is interpretive rather than an independently stated word in the Greek phrase.
And that raises an important question.
IF JESUS MEANT “I AM RETURNING TO WHERE I LIVED BEFORE,” WHY NOT SAY SO?
Consider the argument carefully.
If Jesus were explicitly teaching:
“Before I was born I personally lived with God in heaven. I left that heavenly existence, came to earth, and now I am returning to the place where I previously lived,”
then John 13:3 and John 16:28 would have been very natural places to state it clearly.
But what do we actually find?
John 13:3:
GOING TO GOD.
John 16:28:
GOING TO THE FATHER.
Not explicitly:
“going BACK to God.”
Not explicitly:
“RETURNING to the Father.”
Not explicitly:
“returning to where I lived before my birth.”
This does not by itself disprove personal pre-existence.
Someone who believes in pre-existence can reasonably argue that coming from the Father and subsequently going to the Father implies a return.
But that is precisely why we must distinguish:
WHAT THE TEXT ACTUALLY SAYS
from:
WHAT A THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION INFERS FROM THE TEXT.
WE HAVE ALREADY INVESTIGATED JOHN 13:3 AND JOHN 16:28
This translation question deserves more attention than we can give it here.
For that reason, we have already produced a separate detailed investigation:
John 13:3 & John 16:28 – Did Jesus Really Say He Was “Returning” or “Going Back” to God?
In that study we compare the Greek wording with different English translations and examine whether “returning” and “back” are actually expressed in the Greek.
READ THE FULL JOHN 13:3 & JOHN 16:28 STUDY
This evidence fits naturally alongside John 6:62.
NOW PUT ALL FOUR PASSAGES TOGETHER
This gives us an interesting sequence in John's Gospel.
JOHN 6:38
Jesus says:
“I CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN.”
JOHN 6:62
Jesus speaks about:
“GOING UP/ASCENDING WHERE HE WAS BEFORE.”
JOHN 13:3
Jesus is:
“GOING TO GOD.”
JOHN 16:28
Jesus says:
“I GO TO THE FATHER.”
Now compare those actual expressions with the theological reconstruction sometimes placed upon them:
“I consciously lived in heaven alongside God before my birth. I literally travelled down from heaven into the world, and now I am returning back to the heavenly location where I personally lived before I was born.”
Those are not the actual words of any of these four verses.
That does not automatically make the theological interpretation wrong.
But it means that the interpretation must be demonstrated from the evidence, rather than being inserted into the verses and then treated as though Jesus explicitly said it.
JOHN 20:17 GIVES US JESUS' ACTUAL ASCENSION LANGUAGE
After Jesus had genuinely died and genuinely been raised from the dead, He told Mary Magdalene:
“Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
— John 20:17
Here the destination is explicit.
Jesus is ascending:
TO HIS FATHER.
And Jesus identifies that Father as:
“MY GOD AND YOUR GOD.”
Notice that even when Jesus explicitly speaks about His coming ascension to the Father, He does not say:
“I am returning to the place where I lived before I was born.”
He says:
“I AM ASCENDING TO MY FATHER.”
That is what the text actually gives us.
MATTHEW AND LUKE MUST ALSO BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK
Our interpretation of John should not be developed in isolation from the other Gospels.
Matthew and Luke explicitly describe Jesus' miraculous conception and birth.
Luke tells us why the child would be called the Son of God:
“The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.”
— Luke 1:35
Matthew likewise records Jesus' conception through God's miraculous action upon Mary.
Mark begins with Jesus as an adult and does not contain a conception narrative.
Importantly, Mark also does not explicitly tell us that Jesus personally lived in heaven before His birth.
John contains the passages most frequently used to establish that conclusion.
Therefore, those Johannine passages deserve careful examination rather than being interpreted through an assumption made beforehand.
WHAT ABOUT THE TRADITIONAL PRE-EXISTENCE INTERPRETATION?
We should represent it fairly.
Many Christian interpreters understand John 6:62 as referring to Jesus' eventual ascension to heaven.
Under that interpretation:
“where he was before” means heaven.
Jesus therefore existed there before His earthly ministry.
His “coming down from heaven” describes His descent into the world.
His “ascending” describes His return to heavenly glory.
This interpretation also connects John 6 with passages such as John 1:1–14, John 8:58 and John 17:5.
That is a coherent theological interpretation and should not be misrepresented.
But there is still an important distinction:
JOHN 6:62 ITSELF DOES NOT SAY “HEAVEN.”
Nor does it say:
“WHERE I LIVED BEFORE MY BIRTH.”
Those ideas come from interpreting the verse within a wider pre-existence framework.
The purpose of this investigation is to ask whether that framework is required by John 6 itself.
I do not believe it is.
JOHN 6:62 CANNOT SETTLE THE PRE-EXISTENCE QUESTION BY ITSELF
Even if someone ultimately concludes from other passages that Jesus personally pre-existed His birth, John 6:62 should not be quoted as though Jesus plainly declared:
“I lived in heaven before I was born.”
He did not say that.
The actual statement is:
“THE SON OF MAN GOING UP/ASCENDING WHERE HE WAS BEFORE.”
The meaning of “where he was before” must therefore be interpreted.
And John 6 gives us substantial reasons for considering resurrection:
Jesus repeatedly speaks of raising the dead.
His disciples are struggling with difficult and figurative language.
Jesus asks whether His words cause them to stumble.
He speaks of the Son of Man going up to where He was before.
And immediately afterward declares:
“THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE.”
That sequence should not be ignored.
JOHN 6:38 AND JOHN 6:62 BELONG TOGETHER
This is why our two studies should be read together.
John 6:38 concerns:
COMING DOWN.
John 6:62 concerns:
GOING UP.
If “coming down from heaven” can describe Jesus' heavenly origin—His coming from God, being sent by God and receiving His mission and authority from God—then we should not automatically make the opposite expression mean that Jesus is returning to a literal pre-human residence.
Both expressions must be interpreted from John's language and the wider biblical testimony.
CONCLUSION — WHAT DID JESUS ACTUALLY SAY?
John 6:62 is often presented as though Jesus said:
“I LIVED IN HEAVEN BEFORE I WAS BORN AND NOW I AM GOING BACK THERE.”
But those are not Jesus' words.
Jesus spoke about the Son of Man:
“GOING UP/ASCENDING WHERE HE WAS BEFORE.”
The Greek word anabainō does not itself mean:
“return to heaven.”
The word “heaven” is not even present in John 6:62.
Furthermore, resurrection and life are repeatedly discussed throughout John 6.
Jesus speaks four times about raising people at the last day.
His disciples then stumble over His difficult language.
Jesus asks what they would think if they saw the Son of Man going up to where He was before.
And His very next statement is:
“THE SPIRIT GIVES LIFE.”
For these reasons, I believe there is a serious contextual case that Jesus was speaking about His coming death and resurrection—His being restored from death to life and appearing again where He had previously been—rather than making a straightforward declaration about returning to a heavenly life He supposedly experienced before His birth.
John 13:3 and John 16:28 add another important consideration.
When Jesus actually speaks about going to God and going to the Father, the Greek does not require the additional English ideas “going back” or “returning.”
None of this means that one verse alone settles every question about the origin and pre-existence of Jesus.
John 1:1–14, John 8:58, John 17:5 and other passages deserve their own detailed examination.
But neither should John 6:62 be made to say more than it says.
DOES JOHN 6:62 ACTUALLY SAY JESUS LIVED IN HEAVEN BEFORE HIS BIRTH?
NO.
That conclusion must be inferred.
And when John 6:62 is read in its immediate context—with resurrection, Spirit, life and figurative language all surrounding it—the traditional pre-existence interpretation is not the only interpretation that deserves examination.
READ WHAT JESUS ACTUALLY SAID.
EXAMINE THE CONTEXT.
AND LET SCRIPTURE INTERPRET SCRIPTURE.
RELATED RESEARCH
John 6:38 — How Did Jesus Come Down From Heaven?
John 13:3 & John 16:28 – Did Jesus Really Say He Was “Returning” or “Going Back” to God?
Research by Simon Brown
wwwrealdiscoveriesorg-simon.blogspot.com
.jpg "Research Comparing the Great Stone with the Garden Tomb")
