Mormonism in the Early Jewish Christian Milieu (ecumenical)

Roman Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid recently posed a challenging question for Latter-day Saints. That is, if Mormonism is essentially a "restoration" of primitive Christianity, where can we find historical evidence for some ancient Christian group that "was identical to the Mormon Church of today"?

He goes on, "We have records of many controversies that raged in the early days of the Church…, and there just is no evidence-none at all-that Mormonism existed prior to the 1830s."1 Whether Mr. Madrid is adequately informed about LDS claims and the state of the evidence concerning them, is beside the point.

If Latter-day Saints want to make a rigorous historical case for our faith, we need to demonstrate at least some probability that a group of "Former-day Saints" really existed. What evidence for such a group should we expect to find, and what evidence is there?

In this paper I attempt to answer these questions, at least in part, and show a high probability for the proposition that a group of "Former-day Saints" existed within the early Jewish Christian milieu.

What was the "early Jewish Christian milieu" and what was its relationship to other forms of Christianity?

It is an irrefutable fact that the first Christians were Jewish Christians, and consequently their theology made use of Jewish thought-forms and Jewish categories.

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it has become increasingly apparent that the Christianity of the New Testament had clear ties to the kind of Apocalyptic Judaism2 represented by the Essenes of Qumran.

3 In his landmark study of Jewish Christian theology, Jean Daniélou writes, "The thesis is that there was a first form of Christian theology expressed in Jewish-Semitic terms."

4 And with reference to the first Christians, J.N.D. Kelly writes that their theology "was taking shape in predominantly Judaistic moulds."5

The Jews of the diaspora "provided the initial basis for church growth during the first and early second centuries."6 However, by the mid-second century we can speak of three major movements within Christianity-Jewish Christianity, Hellenistic or "Gentile" Christianity, and Gnosticism.

It must be remembered that these are artificial categories, and in reality there was a spectrum of belief. That is, there were Jewish Gnostic Christians, Gentile Christians with Gnostic tendencies, Gentile Christians who retained many Jewish Christian traditions, etc.

In Latter-day Saint belief, all of these groups participated in or fell victim to the general apostasy. How did this happen?

The New Testament gives evidence that certain factions within Jewish Christianity rebelled against the authority of the Apostles, and refused to accept the fact that Christ had fulfilled the Law of Moses. As the missionary efforts of the Church moved beyond Palestine, the question came up as to whether Gentile converts should be circumcised and be subject to the Law of Moses.

Acts 15 describes a council in Jerusalem where the "Apostles and elders" considered the matter and decided that the converts did not have to keep the ritual requirements of the Law.

However, many of those who had originally insisted on the continuity of the Law would not accept this decision, and insisted on preaching their views to the churches.

For instance, Paul complained that the Galatians had turned to "another Gospel" (Galatians 1:6), and specifically censured those who desired "to be under the law." (Galatians 4:21)

Paul also dealt with this issue in other letters, such as his Epistle to the Romans, and he further warned Titus against "giving heed to Jewish fables." (Titus 1:14) It is clear that New Testament Christianity grew from the soil of Apocalyptic Judaism, but there were a great number of competing and contradictory apocalyptic traditions which some Jewish Christians may have inherited and been unwilling to give up.

Daniélou7 describes a host of Jewish Christian heretical sects, including the Ebionites, Elkesaites, Cerinthians, and others. These ranged from strictly Jewish groups who merely believed in Jesus as the greatest of the prophets-the son of Joseph and Mary8, to quasi-Gnostic speculations that drew heavily on miscellaneous Jewish apocalyptic traditions.

Apart from these were more moderate strains of Jewish Christianity known to us from the New Testament, miscellaneous apocryphal texts, as well as such writings as Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas,9 and miscellaneous traditions scattered throughout the writings of more Hellenized Christians. Gradually, these groups lost their vitality and were melded into the Hellenized congregations.10

For a few centuries there existed alongside the Catholic Christian tradition various heretical groups categorized as "Gnostic."11 This name comes from gnosis, the Greek word for "knowledge." Hans Jonas explains that Gnostics believed they were saved by knowledge, specifically the knowledge of God, or that knowledge was the form of salvation itself.12

While it may be tempting to equate this sentiment to Jesus 'statement: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32) or to Joseph Smith's that "a man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge,"13 upon further reflection it becomes obvious that the Gnostic belief was very different from the original Christian teaching.

Knowledge itself cannot save without the atonement of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, in Gnostic circles Christ's incarnation and atonement were thought to have been illusory, since Gnosticism radicalized the common Hellenistic notion that matter is a lesser reality into the doctrine that matter is evil.

(If matter is evil, how could a divine being associate himself with it?) And while true Christians viewed the physical body as necessary, the Gnostics thought of it as a prison into which the pre-existent spirit had fallen and from which it must escape.14

In order to promote their reputations as masters of hidden knowledge, the Gnostic teachers put together a bewildering array of eclectic theologies utilizing a hodgepodge of "oriental mythologies, astrological doctrines, Iranian theology, elements of Jewish tradition,…Christian salvation-eschatology, [and] Platonic terms and concepts."15

The birth of the Gnostic Christian movement took place during the Apostolic period, but Gnostics probably never became terribly prevalent at that time because the Apostles actively combated this heresy, calling it the "knowledge falsely so called." (1 Timothy 6:20) John condemned these "docetists" (from the Greek dokein = "to seem") who claimed Jesus only "seemed" to come in the flesh as antichrists. "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist…." (1 John 4:3) But according to Eusebius (a fourth century Catholic historian), Gnostic teachers came out of the woodwork in great profusion after the Apostles were all gone.16

Hellenized Christianity grew out of the original Jewish Christianity as the faith moved more and more into a Gentile world saturated by Greek, or "Hellenistic" culture and thought. As Adolf von Harnack observed, this move catalyzed "the greatest transformation which the new religion ever experienced."17

Certainly the entire Mediterranean world was touched to one degree or another by Hellenistic culture and thought, and Israel was no exception, but the Palestinian Jews proved to be a particularly resistant group, and in large part retained their own distinctive thought-forms and traditions.18

Therefore, when Gentiles and Hellenized Jews outside of Palestine came to form the majority of the Christians, it was natural that some would attempt to make the Christian message more palatable to the Greek mind by building bridges with the popular philosophy of the day, which was an amalgamation of the thought of various Greek philosophical schools, especially the Middle Platonists and the Stoics.

At first, Christian thought was quite foreign to Greek philosophy, although there were certainly important points of contact upon which the Christian missionaries capitalized.19 As Harnack notes, "Yet we cannot say that the earliest Christian writings, let alone the gospel, show, to any considerable extent, the presence of a Greek element."20

For instance, Paul warned, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." (Colossians 2:8) Referring to this passage, James Shiel of the University of Sussex writes, "Saint Paul's letters [contain] a severe warning against Greek philosophy as a dangerous deception"21 Cardinal Daniélou writes that "If we now examine the forms of thought and philosophical systems current at the time when Christianity first made its appearance in the world, it is clear that they were by no means ready to assimilate this Christian conception: on the contrary, they were wholly antagonistic thereto."22

However, Shiel notes that a few generations after the Apostles, one "comes upon a reversed situation. The religious message is now framed in philosopher's language, reminiscent at every turn of Heraclitus or Plato or Aristotle or Cleanthes or Epictetus. Indeed, the Christian religion is now occasionally called a philosophy and its founder described as a philosopher."23

Beginning in the mid-second century, this shift in attitude was accomplished thanks to the efforts of a class of Christian writers later historians have dubbed the "Apologists."

These included Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, and others. Intellectuals themselves, they sought to express their faith in intellectually respectable terms, but the net result of their labors was not just to translate Christian ideas into a Hellenistic idiom. Rather, they imported philosophical ideas into their thought that had been anathema to the original Christians.24

One can certainly understand the temptation to make such accommodations, since the Greeks normally saw the Christians as intellectually feeble barbarians, but in the end Rebecca Lyman notes that "the efforts of the apologists succeeded in enabling Christianity to be labeled a third-rate philosophy rather than a first-rate superstition."25

The philosophical assumptions and definitions these early Apologists adopted have profoundly affected Christian theology to this day. Edwin Hatch summarizes:

A large part of what are sometimes called Christian doctrines, and many usages which have prevailed and continue to prevail in the Christian Church, are in reality Greek theories and Greek usages changed in form and colour by the influence of primitive Christianity, but in their essence Greek still.26

It should be clear from the foregoing discussion that the various branches of early Christianity based their thinking upon fundamentally different sets of axioms, and each branch was not entirely homogenous. However, if Joseph Smith was correct in his claim to restore the original Christian theology, we must look for historical confirmation among the specifically Jewish Christian documents and traditions. As Daniélou stated, Jewish Christian teaching was the "first form of Christian theology".

There are certianly limitations to our inquiry. Few Jewish Christian documents have survived, and those that have are from a range of different groups within that milieu.

In any case Joseph Smith said that things would be revealed in this dispensation which have been "kept hid from before the foundation of the world," (D&C 124:41) so some LDS doctrines may not have been taught by the ancient Saints. We should also expect some cultural differences to affect some matters of interpretation and practice.

The prophet Alma wrote, "For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true." (Alma 29:8) Nevertheless, it is clear that in most of the basics, at least, our hypothetical "Former-day Saints" would have to have been very much like the Latter-day Saints, so we can expect to find a good deal of Latter-day Saint doctrine and practice within the ancient documents. The balance of this paper will demonstrate that this is, indeed, the case.

Jewish Christian and LDS Theology/Anthropology W.D. Davies of Duke University observed that "Mormonism is the Jewish-Christian tradition in an American key…. What it did was to re-Judaize a Christianity that had been too much Hellenized."27

This is true with respect to any number of issues, but in order to keep this study to an acceptable length, we will restrict ourselves to matters of theology and anthropology. It is our doctrines regarding the nature of God, the nature of man, and the relationship between the two, that differentiate LDS thought most strikingly from mainstream Christianity.

While there are many important commonalities, close analysis reveals a chasm between the two worldviews that profoundly affects many other areas of doctrine. And yet, nearly every major tenet of LDS theology and anthropology can be found within the early Jewish Christian milieu.

How can He be described? Joseph Smith preached that "if you were to see [God] today, you would see him like a man in form,"28 and that "the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also." (D&C 130:22)

On the other hand, mainstream Christians generally accept definitions such as that promulgated by the Vatican Council, where God was said to be "eternal, immense, incomprehensible, …who, being a unique spiritual substance by nature, absolutely simple and unchangeable, must be declared distinct from the world in fact and by essence."29 This sort of definition was readily accepted among second-century Gentile Christians because it exactly coincided with those being taught by the contemporary Greek philosophers. For instance, the Middle Platonist philosopher Plutarch wrote the following:

Socrates and Plato held that (God is) the One, the single self-existent nature, the monadic, the real Being, the good: and all this variety of names points immediately to mind. God therefore is mind, a separate species, that is to say what is purely immaterial and unconnected with anything passible.30

Gentile Christian thinkers frankly admitted this correspondence, and in fact promoted the doctrine as a ready defense against the attacks of pagan critics. Tertullian wrote, "Whatever attributes therefore you require as worthy of God, must be found in the Father, who is invisible and unapproachable, and placid, and (so to speak) the God of the philosophers."31

This was not, however, the case for the Jews or the Jewish Christians, except insofar as they had been influenced by Hellenistic thought. Thus, even in the third century Origen could say, "The Jews indeed, but also some of our people, supposed that God should be understood as a man, that is, adorned with human members and human appearance. But the philosophers despise these stories as fabulous and formed in the likeness of poetic fictions."32

Notice that Origen did not appeal to unanimous Christian tradition to establish his doctrine of the incorporeality of God, but to the philosophers. Indeed, in another passage Origen admitted this was the subject of some confusion among Christians.

"For it is also to be a subject of investigation how God himself is to be understood-whether as corporeal, and formed according to some shape, or of a different nature from bodies-a point which is not clearly indicated in our teaching."33

A second-century Jewish Christian document, the Clementine Homilies, explicitly taught anthropomorphism. The following is part of a conversation that is said to have occurred between Simon Magus and Peter. "And Simon said: 'I should like to know, Peter, if you really believe that the shape of man has been moulded after the shape of God.' And Peter said: 'I am really quite certain, Simon, that this is the case…. It is the shape of the just God.'"34

The anthropomorphic teaching of the Jews and Jewish Christians was based upon a literal interpretation of the Bible. Many examples of anthropomorphic Bible passages could be cited, but for now a few explicit statements will suffice.

Ezekiel's vision of the heavenly throne is described thus: "Above the vault over their heads there appeared, as it were, a sapphire in the shape of a throne, and high above all, upon the throne, a form in human likeness." (Ezekiel 1:26 NEB)

Just prior to his martyrdom, Stephen said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." (Acts 7:56) John reported a similar vision of God. "And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne." (Revelation 4:2) Edmond LaB. Cherbonnier of Trinity College summarizes this phenomenon as follows:

"In short, to use the forbidden word, the biblical God is clearly anthropomorphic-not apologetically so, but proudly, even militantly."35

Christopher Stead of the Cambridge Divinity School agrees that, "The Hebrews…pictured the God whom they worshipped as having a body and mind like our own, though transcending humanity in the splendour of his appearance, in his power, his wisdom, and the constancy of his care for his creatures."36

Mainstream Christians usually interpret the Biblical statements allegorically, and offer two major points of scriptural evidence. First, they cite John 4:24, "God is Spirit" or "God is a Spirit." If God is a Spirit, they say, He cannot have a body. However, John's statement "God is Spirit" is parallel to two passages in his first epistle, "God is light" (1 John 1:5) and "God is love" (1 John 4:8) In context, all of these passages seem to be referring to God's activity toward men rather than to the nature of His "Being".

Furthermore, Christopher Stead explains how such statements would have been interpreted within ancient Judaism. "By saying that God is spiritual, we do not mean that he has no body…but rather that he is the source of a mysterious life-giving power and energy that animates the human body, and himself possesses this energy in the fullest measure."37

Second, mainstream Christians appeal to passages like John 1:18. "No man hath seen God at any time." Latter-day Saints can harmonize these passages with those that describe visions of the Father by referring to Moses' vision of God, as described in the Pearl of Great Price. "And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence…. [Moses said]

For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him." (Moses 1:2, 14) An identical solution is offered by Peter in the Jewish Christian Clementine Homilies.

For I maintain that the eyes of mortals cannot see the incorporeal form of the Father or Son, because it is illumined by exceeding great light.…For he who sees God cannot live.

For the excess of light dissolves the flesh of him who sees; unless by the secret power of God the flesh be changed into the nature of light, so that it can see light.38

The point of these passages is not that no one has or will have a vision of God's person, but rather that men cannot see God as He is.

We must be changed and protected by the grace of God to withstand His presence. However, this will not always be the case.

As John further wrote, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2, emphasis added)

One feature of the New Testament all Christians must come to terms with is the fact that in some passages the Father is represented as "the only true God" (John 17:3), while in others the Son and Holy Spirit are also called "God" (John 1:1; John 14:26; Acts 13:2). How can this apparent contradiction be resolved?

It can readily be seen that the two disparate definitions of God discussed above must lead to different conclusions regarding this question.

In harmony with their definition of God as an indivisible, eternal, unchanging spiritual "essence", mainstream Christians say that the members of the Trinity are separate "persons" who share a single "Divine Being".

All three persons have always existed in the same relationship to one another, and there is no hierarchy within the Trinity.

On the other hand, Latter-day Saints believe the members of the Godhead are separate beings, and so in a sense we believe in more than one God.

Second, the Father is the absolute monarch of the known Universe, and all others are subject to Him.

In order to find a historical basis for the Latter-day Saint doctrine of the Divine Unity, we need not look exclusively among the Jewish Christians, because it was almost universally accepted among Christians before the Nicene Council of 325 A.D. that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were united in will, but separate in rank and glory.

J.N.D. Kelly of Oxford University notes that even at the Council of Nicea the majority party believed "that there are three divine hypostases [or "persons"], separate in rank and glory but united in harmony of will."39

This doctrine is called "subordinationism", and R.P.C. Hansen writes, "Indeed, until Athanasius began writing, every single theologian, East and West, had postulated some form of Subordinationism.

It could, about the year 300, have been described as a fixed part of catholic theology."40 Henry Bettenson writes that "'subordinationism'…was pre-Nicene orthodoxy."41 Paul wrote that the Father is "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 15:6, NEB), and revealed that after the resurrection Jesus will "be subject unto him [the Father] that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) Indeed, Jesus Himself said, "My Father is greater than I." (John 14:28)

This doctrine took various forms, depending on the particular concept of God involved. Within Jewish Christianity, where God was often conceived of as having a body in human form, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were described both as gods, worthy of worship, and the chief among the archangels.42

While Latter-day Saints generally do not refer to the Son and Spirit as "angels", such a designation is consistent with our belief that Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and all angels and men are "sons of God" (Job 38:7), differing in degree and power, but not in essential nature.

This belief is graphically illustrated in the Jewish Christian apocryphal text, The Ascension of Isaiah:

Then the angel who conducted me said to me, "Worship this one"; so I worshiped and praised. And the angel said to me,

"This is the Lord of all glory whom you have seen".…And while the angel was still speaking, I saw another glorious one, like to him, and the righteous drew near to him, worshiped, and sang praise.…And I saw the Lord and the second angel, and they were standing; but the second one whom I saw was on the left of my Lord.

And I asked, "Who is this?" and he said to me, "Worship him, for this is the angel of the Holy Spirit".…So my Lord drew near to me, and the angel of the Spirit and said, "Behold, now it is granted to you to behold God, and on your account is power given to the angel with you." And I saw how my Lord worshiped, and the angel of the Holy Spirit, and how both together praised God.43

An early second century Jewish Christian document, the Shepherd of Hermas spoke of "the angel of the prophetic Spirit"44 and Jesus as the "'glorious…angel' or 'most venerable…angel'…."45

Justin Martyr, a converted philosopher who lived in Rome in the mid-second century, was no Jewish Christian, but Robert M. Grant suggests that in passages like the following, he was influenced by the Jewish Christian writings of Hermas, who lived in the same congregation.46

Justin Martyr wrote that the "first-begotten," the Logos, is the "first force after the Father:" he is "a second God, second numerically but not in will," doing only the Father's pleasure.47

He designated the Son as "this power which the prophetic word calls God…and Angel"48, and in the same vein stated the following.

"We reverence and worship Him and the Son who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of other good angels who are about Him and are made quite like Him, and the Prophetic Spirit."49 He also maintained that the Son is "in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third."50 Finally, the Jewish Christian Clementine Recognitions had this to say regarding Jesus' status:

For the Most High God, who alone holds the power of all things, has divided all the nations of the earth into seventy-two parts, and over these He hath appointed angels as princes.

But to the one among the archangels who is greatest, was committed the government of those who, before all others, received the worship and knowledge of the Most High God…. Thus the princes of the several nations are called gods. But Christ is God of princes, who is Judge of all.51

The above-mentioned text from the Clementine Recognitions brings up the issue of how Latter-day Saints use the names of God in the Bible. Four names or titles are commonly used to connote God in the Old Testament-El ("God"), Elohim ("God" or "gods"), Elyon ("Most High"), and Yahweh (equivalent to "Jehovah").52

Most mainline Christians see all these designations as referring to one divine being. However, the Latter-day Saint usage is much more complicated.

On one hand, the Divine names can refer to specific Persons, i.e. El or Elohim usually refers to the Father, and "Yahweh" usually refers to the Son. On the other hand, they have also been used as titles in reference to more than one Divine Person.

Both the Father and the Son have been called "Jehovah" or Yahweh (D&C 109:34, 42, 68; D&C 110:3)53, and it is believed that the Bible passages which link Yahweh with Elohim or Elyon (e.g. Isaiah 43:12-13; Isaiah 45:21-22 NEB) refer to a "divine investiture of authority", where the Son is allowed to speak in the first person as the Father.54

When one examines the context of passages such as the foregoing reference to the Clementine Recognitions, it becomes clear that the usage of the Divine Names/Titles was similarly complicated in the Jewish Apocalyptic and Jewish Christian traditions.

The Recognitions was referring to a particular passage which occurs in both the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts of Deuteronomy.

"When the Most High parcelled out the nations, when he dispersed all mankind, he laid down the boundaries of every people according to the number of the sons of God; but the LORD's [Yahweh's] share was his own people, Jacob was his allotted portion." (Deuteronomy 32:8-9 NEB) Based on this and other passages, some Biblical scholars now conclude that the Israelites originally believed El to be the high God, and Yahweh to be the chief among the "sons of El"-the second God and chief archangel who had special responsibility for Israel.55

Certainly this is a debated point, and beyond the scope of this paper, but it is beyond debate that this was a standard early Christian interpretation of the passage.

As late as the fourth century, the great historian and bishop, Eusebius of Caesarea, could write:

In these words [Deut. 32:8] surely he names first the Most High God, the Supreme God of the Universe, and then as Lord His Word, Whom we call Lord in the second degree after the God of the Universe.

And their import is that all the nations and the sons of men, here called sons of Adam, were distributed among the invisible guardians of the nations, that is the angels, by the decision of the Most High God, and His secret counsel unknown to us.

Whereas to One beyond comparison with them, the Head and King of the Universe, I mean to Christ Himself, as being the Only-begotten Son, was handed over that part of humanity denominated Jacob and Israel, that is to say, the whole division which has vision and piety.56

According to Alan Segal, in a number of Jewish Apocalyptic texts there were actually two Yahwehs.

Both the High God and principal angel were so designated.57 Similarly, in the Jewish Christian Apocalypse of Abraham, preserved only in the Slavonic language, God is designated both as El and "Jaoil", and in some manuscripts the angel accompanying Abraham is also named "Jaoil".58

Indeed, Segal notes that during the first Christian centuries, the rabbis engaged in debates with various sects, including the Christians, who all seem to have claimed there was a second God, in many cases identifying him with Yahweh or "the bearer of the divine name."59 Significantly, Jean Daniélou writes that "the Name of God" was one of the principal designations of the Son within Jewish Christianity.60

The idea that there are multiple Divine Beings who have material bodies with human form is sharply at odds with the axiom of the theologians that God's "Essence" is "wholly other" than the rest of the universe.

This assumption on the part of mainstream Christians is based on the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo - creation from nothing. In his 1990 Presidential address to the British Association for Jewish Studies, Peter Hayman asserted the following:

Nearly all recent studies on the origin of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo have come to the conclusion that this doctrine is not native to Judaism, is nowhere attested in the Hebrew Bible, and probably arose in Christianity in the second century C.E. in the course of its fierce battle with Gnosticism.

The one scholar who continues to maintain that the doctrine is native to Judaism, namely Jonathan Goldstein, thinks that it first appears at the end of the first century C.E., but has recently conceded the weakness of his position in the course of debate with David Winston.61

The Apostle Peter was quite explicit about his belief in creation from a watery chaos, rather than from nothingness. He wrote,

"There were heavens and earth long ago, created by God's word out of water and with water." (2 Peter 3:5 NEB) The background for this passage is the first two verses of Genesis:

"In the beginning of creation…the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the surface of the waters." (Genesis 1:1-2 NEB)

For instance, he notes that Mekilta, Shirta 8 states that "to make a roof man requires wood, stones, dirt, and water, whereas God has made a roof for his world out of water.

God's first act of creation thus presupposes the existence of water."62 Similarly, the Sefer Yesira states,

"He formed substance from chaos and made it with fire and it exists, and he hewed out great columns from intangible air."63

In the Bereshit Rabba we find, "R. Huna said,…'If it were not written explicitly in Scripture, it would not be possible to say it: God created the heaven and the earth. From the earth was chaos, etc.'"64

However, the interpretation of some of the early texts can be confusing, and indeed, a few seemingly contradict creation from chaos.

In the Apocrypha, 2 Maccabees asserts that "God made [the sky and the earth] out of nothing, and…man comes into being in the same way." (2 Maccabees 7:28 NEB) On the other hand, the Wisdom of Solomon says, "For thy almighty hand, which created the world out of formless matter, was not without further resource." (Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 NEB) Paul seemed to imply creation out of nothing: "God…summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were" (Romans 4:17 NEB), and yet we saw that Peter's language recalled the Genesis account of creation from a watery chaos. Indeed, in the very same verse Paul wrote that God "fashioned" (Greek katertisthai = "adjusted, put in order again, restored, repaired") the universe, but in such a way that "the visible came forth from the invisible." (Hebrews 11:3 NEB)

The second-century Pastor of Hermas asserted that God "made out of nothing the things that exist,"65 but in another passage clearly presupposed creation from a watery chaos: "By His strong word [He] has fixed the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth upon the waters."66

Gerhard May has convincingly shown that where these early texts say God created out of "nothing" or "non-being", etc., they were using a common ancient idiom to say that "something new, something that was not there before, comes into being; whether this something new comes through a change in something that was already there, or whether it is something absolutely new, is beside the question."67

For instance, the Greek writer Xenophon wrote that parents "bring forth their children out of non-being'.68 Philo of Alexandria wrote that Moses and Plato were in agreement in accepting a pre-existent material, but also that God brings things "out of nothing into being" or "out of non-being".69 Therefore, in view of this common usage, and the many explicit statements by ancient authors regarding the pre-existent matter, we must rule out a belief in creatio ex nihilo unless it is explicitly stated otherwise.

We do not find such explicit statements anywhere until the mid-second century with the Gnostic teacher Basilides and later the Christian apologists Tatian and Theophilus of Antioch.70

Even as late as the turn of the third century, Tertullian had to take the more ancient usage into account when arguing for the new doctrine. "And even if they were made out of some (previous) matter, as some will have it, they are even thus out of nothing, because they were not what they are."71

Given the state of the evidence, we can be fairly certain that when Joseph Smith said matter is eternal, and that God fashioned the earth from pre-existent matter72, he was restoring the earliest Jewish Christian belief.

Latter-day Saints not only reject the notion that the material world was created from nothing, but that the spiritual world was so created.

Joseph Smith taught that the "intelligence" of man is eternal, and at some point God organized this "intelligence" into the spirits of men. (Abraham 3:22-23) Thus, the spirits of men pre-existed their bodies.

R.G. Hammerton-Kelly, professor of New Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary, reports that "the idea that certain things pre-exist in the mind of God or in heaven has a long history in the Biblical and early Jewish traditions."73

For instance, "in Job 15:8 the primal man is pictured in the council of the gods before the world was made…."74 David Winston reports that the Bereshith Rabba and Ruth Rabba tell of God consulting the souls of the righteous before deciding to create the world.75 The Wisdom of Solomon, in the Apocrypha, states:

"As a child I was born to excellence, and a noble soul fell to my lot; or rather, I myself was noble; and I entered into an unblemished body." (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20 NEB) The Midrash Kee Tov says that all the souls of the righteous, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. "were with God before the creation of the world."76 And an important Jewish theologian at about the time of Christ, Philo, taught that "the heavenly man is God's offspring…while the earthly man is merely the work of an artificer."77

Origen quoted a Jewish apocryphal document called the Prayer of Joseph, which asserted that Jacob was one of the archangels in his premortal existence:

Thus Jacob says: "I, Jacob, who speak to you, arid Israel, I am an angel of God, a ruling spirit, and Abraham and Isaac were created before every work of God; and I am Jacob, called Jacob by men, but my name is Israel, called Israel by God, a man seeing God, because I am the first-born of every creature which God caused to live."78

The Enoch texts also contain the common element of the pre-existence. (This is significant, since the early Christians apparently took at least one of these documents very seriously.

Indeed, Jude referred to one of them in his general epistle. (See Jude 1:14) 2 Enoch states that, "all souls are prepared to eternity, before the formation of the world,"79 and cites Adam as the prime example:

And I placed on the earth, a second angel, honorable, great and glorious, and I appointed him as ruler to rule on earth and to have my wisdom, and there was none like him of earth of all my existing creatures…. I called his name Adam.80

1 Enoch relates that before God created the world he held a consultation with the souls of the righteous.81

Clearly the pre-existence of souls, and even their identification with the angels of God, was a commonplace in the soil of Apocalyptic Judaism from which Christianity sprang.

Certainly the pre-existence of Christ is explicitly taught in the New Testament (John 1:1; 1 Peter 1:19-20; Colossians 1:12-15), but what about the rest of us? Hammerton-Kelly writes that the pre-existence of the Church, at least, is everywhere presupposed in the New Testament.82

For instance, Paul wrote to Titus, "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." (Titus 1:2)

Similarly, two of the earliest Jewish Christian writings, the Shepherd of Hermas and 2 Clement say the following about the Church. "She was created first of all…and for her sake was the world made."83 "Moreover, the books and the Apostles declare that the Church belongs not to the present, but existed from the beginning."84

However, it must be remembered that some of the ancients believed the creation pre-existed in the mind of God, rather than as a number of distinct entities.

Commenting on Paul's doctrine of foreordination as expounded in Romans 8:28-30, Hammerton-Kelly explains that the Greek verb for "foreknow" used in the passage means "'to take note of', 'to fix regard upon' something, preliminary to selecting it for some special purpose."

"Most commentators believe that it took place in the eternal counsels of God, before the creation of the world."85 Thus, it is clear that, according to Paul, in the eternal counsels of God we existed as specific entities.

For instance, in the Jewish Christian Clementine Recognitions Peter states, "after all these things He made man, on whose account He had prepared all things, whose internal species is older, and for whose sake all things that are were made."86

Regarding the "internal species" of man mentioned here, the Presbyterian translators of this passage declare in the footnote: "That is, his soul, according to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls."

Even more striking, from a Latter-day Saint point of view, is Abraham's vision of the pre-existent host as reported in the Jewish Christian Apocalypse of Abraham, also called the Book of Abraham in some manuscripts.

Compare the following to Abraham's vision of the pre-existent host in the Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3.

And everything I had planned to be came into being: it was already pre-figured in this, for all the things and all the people you have seen stood before me before they were created.

And I said, Mighty and Eternal Ruler, who then are the people in this picture on this side and on that?

And he said to me, Those on the left side are the many peoples which have existed in the past, and after you are appointed, some for judgement and restoration, some for vengeance and perdition, until the end of the age.

And those on the right side of the picture, they are the people set apart for me from the people with Azazil [Satan]. These are the people who are going to spring from you and will be called my people.87

At this point it should be clear that within both Jewish Christianity and Mormonism, men are thought to be more than some "rational animal", brought into existence out of nothing by God.

Joseph Smith went on to teach that those who fully keep God's law will "be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them." (D&C 132:20)

For the Prophet, this went hand in hand with the doctrine of pre-existence. Humans are the same species as God, and hence have the potential to become like Him.

When we search for similar deification doctrines within early Christianity, we are deluged with examples.

Within Gentile Christianity, we find numerous texts like the following from Justin Martyr (ca. 150 A.D.), who wrote that "all men are deemed worthy of becoming 'gods,' and of having power to become sons of the Highest."88

Hans Jonas writes that the ultimate object of the Gnostics was to obtain the knowledge of God, and become a partaker in the divine essence.89

One text states, "This is the good end of those who have attained gnosis: to become God."90

There is also considerable support for this doctrine in the New Testament. For example, John wrote, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2.)

And Jesus Christ told John that, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." (Revelation 3:21)

Also, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." (Revelation 21:7) Paul wrote to the Romans, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." (Romans 8:16-17)

Such statements would not have been out of place in Apocalyptic Judaism, for in the Dead Sea Scrolls we find the appelations "el" and "elohim" applied to Melchizedek. "A godlike being has taken his place in the council of God; in the midst of the divine beings [elohim] he holds judgment."91 Similarly, the War Scroll says that God will "exalt the authority of Michael among the gods and the dominion of Israel among all flesh."92

The question, therefore, is not whether the primitive Church believed men could become gods, but what that meant to them.

The fourth century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus gave us an interpretive key: "I too might be made God so far as He is made Man."93

Within early Christianity there were any number of views about who Christ was in relation to the Father, and with respect to men.

However, given the Hellenistic assumptions of the Gentile Christians, it was usually thought that men could become "gods" in a different sense than the Father, though not necessarily in a different sense than the Son.

The idea was that there are two classes of beings - God, who is an eternal, unchangeable, simple, spiritual "essence", and everything else, which is created out of nothing.

And those who are created out of nothing can only approach the status of the Eternal God, but never reach it.

We have already seen, however, that within the Jewish Christian milieu, the following precepts were taught:

2) there is more than one Divine Being, though they are united in will under the monarchy of the "only true God", the Father;

4) the pre-existence of the human soul, and the identification of human souls, the Son, and the Spirit with the angels of God.

But are humans really "the offspring of God" (Acts 17:28), as Paul put it, in the sense that we are the same "species"?

Christopher Stead writes, "In a Palestinian milieu it was still possible to picture the heavenly Father in human form and to see the contrast between heaven and earth as one of light and glory against relative darkness and indignity."94

Thus, among the Jews God was thought to be above every other being, but still fundamentally akin to mankind.

This concept is brought out clearly in a fascinating passage in the Jewish Christian Clementine Homilies.

Learn this also: The bodies of men have immortal souls, which have been clothed with the breath of God; and having come forth from God, they are of the same substance, but they are not gods.

But if they are gods, then in this way the souls of all men, both those who have died, and those who are alive, and those who shall come into being, are gods.

But if in a spirit of controversy you maintain that these also are gods, what great matter is it, then, for Christ to be called God? for He has only what all have.95

All others, including Jesus, can be called gods in a subsidiary sense. Second, the "immortal souls" of men are said to "come forth from God" and are "of the same substance" as God.

Prior to the fourth century, phrases such as "of one substance" or "of the same substance" implied a generic unity of species, meaning something like "made of the same kind of stuff". 96

Finally, Jesus is said to have exactly the same kind of soul as the rest of humanity.

On the other hand, why is Jesus called God's "only begotten Son" in the New Testament (John 1:18; 3:16; 3:18; Hebrews 11:17; 1 John 4:9) if we are all the children of God?

Within modern mainstream Christianity, it has been held that the Son was eternally generated, or "begotten", from the Father since before the beginning of time, hence there was never a time when the Father was not a Father, and the Son was not a Son.

However, Jean Daniélou points out that Origen (early third century) was the first Catholic Christian to explicitly state a doctrine of eternal generation, although some Gnostics had expressed a similar view in the second century.97

Commenting on a passage from the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 110 A.D.), J.N.D. Kelly notes the following:

His divine Sonship dates from the incarnation.... In tracing His divine Sonship to His conception in Mary's womb, he was simply reproducing a commonplace of pre-Origenist theology; the idea did not convey, and was not intended to convey, any denial of His pre-existence.

So far as Ignatius is concerned, he definitely states that He "existed with the Father before the ages", and that He "came forth from the unique Father, was with Him and has returned to Him".98

This is completely in harmony with the LDS teaching that all are the spiritual children of God, but Jesus is the only one begotten by God in the flesh.

Given all this, it is also clear that in the early Jewish Christian milieu, deified men would have been considered subordinate to the Father, but not fundamentally different than Him in nature.

In Latter-day Saint thought, deification is intimately related to marriage. That is, in order to obtain the highest degree of heaven and be deified, "a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]." (D&C 131:2) Men and women are deified together, and their marriage, performed in an LDS Temple, is an eternal covenant. (

D&C 132:15-17) This principle is not clearly taught in the New Testament, but as we shall see, it is not incompatible with it.

Consider the following account of a conversation Jesus had with some of his detractors:

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him...

Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.

for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. (Matthew 22:23-30)

At first glance, this passage seems to contradict the LDS doctrine, but several points can be made to show that this is not necessarily so.

First, Latter-day Saints believe Jesus' answer was strictly true, since the apostate Sadducees said the seven brothers "were with us".

If a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word,…when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory. (D&C 132:15-16)

But why didn't Jesus, or at least the writers of the New Testament, explain the doctrine in its entirety?

In fact, it was common practice within early Christianity and Judaism to preserve the highest and holiest doctrines for the ears of mature disciples.99

Jesus commanded, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." (Matthew 7:6)

Paul told the Corinthians, who had been Christians for years, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able." (1 Corinthians 3:2)

Peter explained the same principle to the apostate Simon Magus in the Clementine Homilies:

And Peter said: "We remember that our Lord and Teacher, commanding us, said, 'Keep the mysteries for me and the sons of my house.' Wherefore also He explained to His disciples privately the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

But to you who do battle with us, and examine into nothing else but our statements, whether they be true or false, it would be impious to state the hidden truths."100

Robert M. Grant notes that, "In Ephesians 5:22-33 the prophecy of Genesis 2:24 {'the two shall become one flesh.'} is described as "a great mystery" and is referred not only to Christ and the church but also to Christian marriage in general."101

And Paul may have hinted at this mystery when he said, "Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:11)

Thus, it seems doubtful that Jesus would have explained His doctrine of marriage in full to the Sadducees.

Second, we must ask what Jesus was referring to when he said, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures." Which scriptures? John Tvedtnes argues that Jesus was referring to a passage in the book of Tobit, in the Apocrypha.

In the Apocrypha... we read of a young woman, Sarah, who had been married to seven husbands (all brothers), each of whom was killed on the wedding night by a demon.

But in the story (Tobit 6:10-8:9), Sara ultimately marries an eighth husband, Tobias, son of Tobit, who, following instructions from the archangel Raphael, manages to chase the demon away and is therefore not slain.

Of special interest is the fact that the archangel (who, according to Tobit 3:17, had been sent to arrange the marriage) tells the young man that his wife had been appointed to him "from the beginning" (Tobit 6:17).

This implies that she had not been sealed to any of her earlier husbands, which would explain why none of them would claim her in the resurrection, as Jesus explained.

But if she were sealed to Tobias, the situation changes. Assuming that the Sadducees (whose real issue was one of resurrection, not of eternal marriage) were alluding to this story but left off part of it, this would explain why Jesus told them, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God" 102

Finally, many Jewish Christians did practice a form of celestial marriage, and this can be traced back to the first century. The Christian philosopher Origen complained in the third century about the Jewish Christians and others who believed in a literal millennial reign of Christ, and he added this:

Certain persons…are of the opinion that the fulfillment of the promises of the future are to be looked for in bodily pleasure and luxury…. And consequently they say, that after the resurrection there will be marriages, and the begetting of children…. Such are the views of those who, while believing in Christ, understand the divine Scriptures in a sort of Jewish sense, drawing from them nothing worthy of the divine promises. 103

Cardinal Daniélou infers a similar interpretation from an enigmatic passage in the Didache, a first-century Jewish Christian document, where prophets are mentioned as performing something called "the cosmic mystery of the Church".104 Daniélou links this mystery to the type of "spiritual marriages" some Gnostic groups practiced:

The expression "cosmic mystery of the Church" seems to stand in opposition to a "heavenly mystery of the church". This heavenly mystery is the celestial marriage of Christ to the Church, which also finds its expression in this world.

The allusion in this passage would therefore seem to be to those spiritual unions which existed in Jewish Christianity between prophet-apostles and a sister. . . The relation of these unions to their heavenly ideal is explicitly stated by the Gnostics: "Some of them prepare a nuptial couch and perform a sort of mystic rite (mystagogia)…affirming that what is performed by them is a spiritual marriage after the likeness of the unions…above" (Adv. haer. I, 21:3). 105

The Gnostic rite is described in the Gospel of Philip as being performed in "the mirrored bridal chamber",106 and "those who have united in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated."107 Stuart George Hall writes that Melito, Bishop of Sardis in the late second century, may have preserved a fragment of the ancient bridal chamber ceremony in his writings, as well.108

If men and women are deified together as husband and wife, the question naturally arises, "Does God the Father have a wife?" Latter-day Saints believe this to be the case, and it was also the case among the ancient Israelites and Jewish Christians.

It is well known that the Israelites worshipped a goddess, from time to time, who was believed to be the consort of "Yahweh" or Jehovah. Theodore Robinson explains:

From our Old Testament alone we should never have guessed that Israel associated a goddess with Yahweh, even popularly, but the conclusion is irresistible, and we are justified in assuming that she played her part in the mythology and ritual of Israel.109

Widengren also reports that in Jeremiah's day a goddess called the "Queen of Heaven" received officially sanctioned worship in Jerusalem. He sees this as connected to the year-rites, in which a sacred marriage was performed for the god and goddess, who then gave birth to a Savior-King:

In much later times there was a goddess called the Queen of Heaven(s), to whom official sacrifices were offered by kings and princes, both in Jerusalem and in other cities of Judah, [Jer. 44:17]…. That the sacred marriage should bring as its fruit the birth of the Savior-King is in accordance with the general myth and ritual pattern….110

The worship of the Queen of Heaven was forbidden by Jeremiah, but this also is consistent with LDS practice, since Mother-worship is not permitted for Mormons, either.111

All of this is consistent with the creation account in Genesis. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…. So God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:26-27)

Given the fact that the Israelites and the earliest Christians believed in an anthropomorphic God, it is significant that God said "Let us make man in our image," and that the image of God is defined as "male and female".

Origen quoted a lost Jewish Christian Gospel According to the Hebrews, where the Savior Himself says,

"My mother, the Holy Spirit took me just now by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great mount Tabor,"112 Melito of Sardis (late second century), who was not a Jewish Christian, but believed the Jewish Christian doctrine of an anthropomorphic deity, preserves this fragment, which may have come from the liturgy of the bridal chamber ritual.

"Hymn the Father, you holy ones; sing to your Mother, virgins." 113 In many Gnostic documents, as well, there is a Trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. For instance, the Secret Book of John speaks of "the three: the Father, the Mother, and the Son, the perfect power."114

Certainly there are differences in detail here with the LDS belief, but it is perfectly clear that a Heavenly Mother played a role in ancient Israelite and Jewish Christian thought.

At the end of his prophetic career, Joseph Smith revealed one final point that sheds brilliant light on all the other doctrines we have examined here.

Namely, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!"115 Unfortunately, the above quotation summarizes essentially all we know about this truth.

We do not necessarily expect this doctrine to have been known among the ancient Christians, since Joseph Smith taught that "things that have not been before revealed" would be known in this dispensation. (D&C 124:41)

This marvelous key lies at the pinnacle of the Prophet's teaching, and at the very outskirts of our knowledge about God. Two questions must be answered in this context, however.

That is, does the doctrine contradict previously revealed scripture, and did anyone hold such a view among the ancient Jewish Christians?

Our detractors constantly point out Bible verses concerning God's unchanging and eternal nature to show that the scriptures do contradict the Prophets teachings. E

ven the Book of Mormon states, "I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity." (Moroni 8:18)

However, it can easily be shown that the LDS interpretation of the scriptures is in harmony with the mindset of the ancient Hebrews, while mainstream Christians apply Hellenistic assumptions to the text.

The ancient Greeks were absolutely enamored with metaphysics-with "being," "essence," "eternity," etc.

The Greek philosophers pondered incessantly about how the material world relates to the true reality, whereas for the Hebrews the material world was reality.

When they wrote about God, they didn't obsess about his "being" or "essence," but rather focused on His relationship to men and the world.

Likewise, when they spoke of God's nature and eternity, they used relative terms -- relative, that is, to them.

For example, many of the Biblical passages which speak of God's immutability do so in terms of His honesty, justice, mercy, and constancy. (See Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Hebrews 6:18; Genesis 18:25; Ezekiel 18:14-32; Isaiah 46:10-11; Mark 13:31; Matt. 24:35; Luke 1:20; James 1:17; Daniel 6:26: Hebrews 6:18-19)

Christopher Stead explains, "The Old Testament writers sometimes speak of God as unchanging….

In Christian writers influenced by Greek philosophy this doctrine is developed in an absolute metaphysical sense.

Hebrew writers are more concrete, and their thinking includes two main points: (

1) God has the dignity appropriate to old age, but without its disabilities…; and

(2) God is faithful to his covenant promises, even though men break theirs…."116 (Cf. Isaiah 40:28; Exodus 34:9-10) When God is described as "From everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 41:13 NEB), the word translated as "everlasting" is the Hebrew olam, which means "(practically) eternity" or "time out of mind."117

Another Psalm (104:5 NASB) says that God "established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter forever and ever." And yet Isaiah (24:20 NEB) saw a future time when "the earth reels to and fro like a drunken man…."

To the Hebrew mind these passages were not contradictory, because terms like "everlasting" and "forever" were relative terms, and they had no conception of "eternity" and "infinity" as modern people see them.

So it is with the Latter-day Saints. We see such scriptural statements about the "everlasting" and "unchanging" God as an indication of God's perfect and unchanging moral character, as well as God's eternity relative to men. God is spoken of as the "only true God," because in relation to us this is perfectly true. Given this Hebrew mindset, it is easy to see how Latter-day Saints can accept the biblical statements about God and also believe that God was once a man, having a Father Himself.

And as it turns out, some early Christians may have believed the same type of doctrine. Consider the reasoning of Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 180 A.D.) while arguing against the Gnostic belief that the Creator was only a secondary God.118 Irenaeus pounded home the fact that the true God is the Creator, but what about the possibility that there is a God above God? And what was God doing before the creation of the world? Irenaeus cited Matthew 24:36, where Christ indicates that only the Father knows the time of the Second Coming, and asserted that since even Jesus doesn't know everything, we ought to leave such unrevealed questions to God.

If, for instance, any one asks, "What was God doing before He made the world?" we reply that the answer to such a question lies with God Himself.

For that this world was formed perfect by God, receiving a beginning in time, the Scriptures teach us; but no Scripture reveals to us what God was employed about before this event….

The Father, therefore, has been declared by our Lord to excel with respect to knowledge; for this reason, that we, too, as long as we are connected with the scheme of things in this world, should leave perfect knowledge, and such questions [as have been mentioned], to God, and should not by any chance, while we seek to investigate the sublime nature of the Father, fall into the danger of starting the question whether there is another God above God.

Certainly Irenaeus, as a Gentile Christian with a philosophical viewpoint, believed no such thing.

Irenaeus was not shy at all about labeling the Gnostic heresies as damnable and ridiculous falsehoods, yet in this case his language was strangely subdued.

It is not clear whether this particular doctrine had been revealed to the early Christians, but certainly the Hebrew conception of God had not died out in all quarters of the Church, and in this mindset these "speculations" could be seen as a distinct possibility.

There were some Christians - probably Jewish Christians -- who were "speculating" about these things, or Irenaeus would have said things differently.

In the preface to his book, On First Principles, the early Christian theologian Origen listed several questions for which he said there was no uniform answer in the Church of his time.

These included the origin of the Holy Spirit, the origin of the soul and of angels, what existed before the creation of the world and what will exist after, whether God has a body, and some others also of interest to Latter-day Saints.

Robert M. Grant comments on Origen's list, "If one takes all these questions together, it is obvious that they are concerned with the basic question as to what kind of philosophical-theological framework is to be provided for the apostolic preaching."119

It should be clear from the information presented here that one of the competing philosophical frameworks was very similar to that taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Detractors often point to various disparate sources contemporary with Joseph Smith as the inspiration for this or that doctrine.

But wherever he got his ideas, Joseph Smith put them together in a coherent and complete system, which can be found almost in its entirety within ancient Jewish Christianity.

Finally, he went beyond what we now find in the ancient documents with striking insight and clarity. How did he accomplish this amazing feat at a time when very little was known about the Jewish origins of the Church? Personally, I can think of no other reasonable explanation than the one Joseph Smith gave, and to which the Holy Spirit testifies.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a divinely ordained Restoration of the ancient Apostolic Church.

Notes 11 Patrick Madrid, "In Search of 'The Great Apostasy,'" Catholic Answers tract.

2 "The term 'apocalyptic literature' is taken to refer to a body of revelatory writing produced in Jewish circles between 250 BCE and 200 CE and subsequently taken up and perpetuated by Christianity. It includes not only the genre 'apocalypse' but may also include other related types of literature, such as testaments, hymns, and prayers, which share some of its more important characteristics and motifs; that is, it does not have a common literary form but is diverse and even hybrid in its literary expression. The apocalypse type of writing, which forms the core of this literature, is a record of divine disclosures made known through the agency of angels, dreams, and visions. These may take different forms: an otherworldly journey in which the 'secrets' of the cosmos are made known…, or a survey of history often leading to an eschatological crisis in which the cosmic powers of evil are destroyed, the cosmos is restored, and Israel (or 'the righteous') is redeemed…." Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 34.

3 For a good summary of much of the evidence, see Jean Daniélou, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity, translated by Salvator Attanasio (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979).

4 Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, translated by John A. Baker (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973), 10, emphasis in original; cf. Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, 7 vols., translated by Neil Buchanan (New York: Dover, 1961), 1:287.

5 J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, Revised ed. (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1978), 6.

6 Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 49.

8 Some have suggested that these anti-Pauline, Judaizing sects represented the most primitive form of Christianity. E.g. Hans-Joachim Schoeps, Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church, translated by Douglas R.A. Hare (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969). However, this interpretation is based on the assertion that there was a major rift between the Hellenizing Christians, led by Paul, and the original Church, led by Peter and James the Lord's brother. While Latter-day Saints can recognize the tensions that must have existed within the Church as it moved beyond the borders of Palestine, we see no reason to discount the portrayal of the relationship between Paul and the rest of the Apostles in the New Testament, as we have received it.

9 Hermas was an early Christian prophet who lived in Rome during the early second century, and was the brother of bishop Pius. Daniélou believes that Hermas was a converted Essene. Jean Daniélou, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity, 125-128.

11 Kelly (Early Christian Doctrines, 26) points out that Gnosticism was not really a movement, as such, since although there were a multitude of Gnostic teachers, there was no single Gnostic organization or church.

13 Joseph Smith, in Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 217. Hereafter cited as TPJS.

16 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3:32, in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, 14 vols. (New York: The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1890-1900), 1:164. Hereafter cited as NPNF Series 2.

17 Adolf von Harnack, What is Christianity?, tr. Thomas B. Saunders (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 191-192.

18 In reality the interaction between Judaism and Hellenism was quite complex. Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974). On the other hand, consider how classicist James Shiel describes the reaction of the student of Greek thought to the Greek New Testament. "Yet when he attempts to read this document of the ancient mind he is surprised. Its style of expression is not that of the Greek he knows. It feels rather like a veneer of Greek over a Semitic mode of expression." James Shiel, Greek Thought and the Rise of Christianity (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968), 1.

19 Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, vol. 1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 1:9-10.

22 Daniélou, J., The Lord of History: Reflections on the Inner Meaning of History, translated by N. Abercrombie (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1958), 1.

24 Harry Wolfson of Harvard University gives three reasons for the rise of this "philosophized Christianity."

First, it came about through the conversion to Christianity of pagans who had been trained in philosophy.…Second, philosophy was used by Christians as a help in their defense against accusations brought against them [by the pagans].…Third, philosophy…was found to be of still greater usefulness as an immunization or an antidote against the heresy of Gnosticism. The Gnostics happened to have done what Paul said he was not going to do: they adorned the faith of the New Testament with 'persuasive words of wisdom'.…[Therefore, some of the Fathers] undertook to set up a new Christian philosophy in opposition to that of the Gnostics…Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, 1:11-14.

25 J. Rebecca Lyman, Christology and Cosmology: Models of Divine Activity in Origen, Eusebius, and Athanasius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 10.

26 Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church (London: Williams and Norgate, 1914), 350.

27 W.D. Davies, "Israel, the Mormons and the Land," in Truman G. Madsen, ed., Reflections on Mormonism: Judaeo-Christian Parallels (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1978), 91.

30 Plutarch, quoted in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 14:16, translated by E.H. Gifford (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1903), 812.

31 Tertullian, Against Marcion 2:27, in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885-1896), 3:319. Hereafter cited as ANF.

32 Origen, Homilies on Genesis 3:1, translated by Ronald E. Heine (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 89.

34 Clementine Homilies 16:19, in ANF 8:316. The Clementine Recognitions also seem to imply that God is cognizable only through the senses:

Then said Peter: "Give us then, as I have often said, as being yourself a new God, or as having yourself come down from him, some new sense, by means of which we may know that new God of whom you speak; for those five senses, which God our Creator has given us, keep faith to their own Creator, and do not perceive that there is any other God, for so their nature necessitates them." Peter, in Clementine Recognitions 2:60, in ANF 8:114.

The so-called "Pseudo-Clementine" literature, including the Homilies and Recognitions, were likely put into their present form during the third and fourth centuries, but trace their roots to a common second-century source. R.M. Grant calls the Recognitions "a favourite piece of 'Sunday afternoon literature'" of the second century. Robert M. Grant, Second-Century Christianity (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1946), 10. Many scholars consider them to be a product of a widespread branch of Jewish-Christianity of which we have no other witness. Fergusen, ed., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990), 768-769.

35 Cherbonnier, E. LaB., "In Defense of Anthropomorphism," in Madsen, ed., Reflections on Mormonism: Judaeo-Christian Parallels, 162; cf. G.E. Wright, God Who Acts (London: SCM Press, 1952), 49-50.

36 Christopher Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 120.

40 Hansen, R., "The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century AD," in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in honour of Henry Chadwick (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 153.

41 Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 330. See also Linwood Urban, A Short History of Christian Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 54.

43 The Ascension of Isaiah, in Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), 528.

45 Specifically, Hermas seems to have identified Jesus with Michael. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, 123-124. However, this may not be particularly significant, since other Jewish Christian texts speak of Jesus appearing to mortals disguised as one of the archangels. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, 131.

46 Robert M. Grant, The Early Christian Doctrine of God (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1966), 81.

47 Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 268.

Then I replied, "I shall attempt to persuade you, since you have understood the Scriptures,[of the truth] of what I say, that there is, and that there is said to be, another God and Lord subject to the Maker of all things; who is also called an Angel, because He announces to men whatsoever the Maker of all things--above whom there is no other God--wishes to announce to them.... I shall endeavour to persuade you, that He who is said to have appeared to Abraham, and to Jacob, and to Moses, and who is called God, is distinct from Him who made all things,--numerically, I mean, not[distinct] in will." Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 56, in ANF 1:223, brackets in original.

49 Justin Martyr, First Apology 6, in William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970), 1:51. Father Jurgens insists that this is the correct translation of Justin 's statement, and admits that here Justin "apparently [made] insufficient distinction between Christ and the created Angels." Father Jurgens continues, "There are theological difficulties in the above passage, no doubt. But we wonder if those who make a great deal of these difficulties do not demand of Justin a theological sophistication which a man of his time and background could not rightly be expected to have." Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 1:56, n. 1. "This passage presents us with considerable difficulties. The word 'other,' used in relation to the angels, suggests that Jesus himself is an angel." Grant, The Early Christian Doctrine of God, 81.

53 "Let us plead the justice of our cause; trusting in the arm of Jehovah, the Eloheim, who sits enthroned in the heavens." Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1980), 5:94. Likewise, Brigham Young spoke the following with reference to the Father, "We obey the Lord, Him who is called Jehovah, the Great I Am, I am a man of war, Elohim, etc." Brigham Young, in J. Watt, ed., Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: 1854-1886), 12:99.

54 See "The Father and the Son: A Doctrinal Exposition by the First Presidency and the Twelve", in James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1984), 420-426.

55 Otto Eissfeldt, "El and Yahweh," Journal of Semitic Studies 1 (1956): 25-30; Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992). For a good summary of the current scholarly debate, see Larry W. Hurtado, "What Do We Mean by 'First-Century Jewish Monotheism'?," in E.H. Lovering, Jr., ed. Society of Biblical Literature 1993 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 348-368.

56 Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel 4:7, tr. W.J. Ferrar (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920), 1:176.

58 See Apocalypse of Abraham 17:11 and 13:1 (footnoted alternate reading), in H.F.D. Sparks, ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 381, 378.

59 Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977), 262, 149.

61 Peter Hayman, "Monotheism - A Misused Word in Jewish Studies?", Journal of Jewish Studies 42 (1991), 1-15. See also Jonathan Goldstein, "The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo", Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), 127-135; Jonathan Goldstein, "Creation Ex Nihilo: Recantations and Restatements", Journal of Jewish Studies f38 (1987), 187-194; David Winston, "Creation Ex Nihilo Revisited: A Reply to Jonathan Goldstein", Journal of Jewish Studies 37 (1986), 88-91.

63 Sefer Yesira 20, quoted in Hayman, "Monotheism - A misused Word in Jewish Studies?", 2.

64 Bereshit Rabba, quoted in Hayman, "Monotheism - A misused Word in Jewish Studies?", 2, emphasis in original.

67 Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of 'Creation out of Nothing' in Early Christian Thought, tr. A.S. Worrall, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 8.

70 Young, F., "'Creatio ex Nihilo': A Context for the Emergence of the Christian Doctrine of Creation," Scottish Journal of Theology 44 (1991), 141. The one text that might bear negatively on this view is from Rabban Gamaliel II (ca. 90/110 A.D.) A philosopher challenged him by stating that God was indeed a great artist, but he had also found pre-existent material to help him. To this Gamaliel responds that all this primitive material is created by God. May, Creatio Ex Nihilo, 23. However, David Winston has pointed out that Gamaliel likely reacted negatively to the philosopher's statement because he used the verb sy' to imply that God was "actively assisted" in the creation. Winston also provides prima facie evidence that the Rabbis did not hold to any doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Winston, "Creation Ex Nihilo Revisited: A Reply to Jonathan Goldstein", 91.

Recently a graduate student at Marquette University, Paul Copan, has challenged the notion that creatio ex nihilo is a post-Biblical invention in an Evangelical scholarly forum. Paul Copan, "Is Creatio Ex Nihilo a Post-Biblical Invention? An Examination of Gerhard May's Proposal", Trinity Journal 17NS (1996), 77-93. However, Copan does not deal with May's primary evidence - the description by ancient authors of creation as "out of nothing" where pre-existent matter is clearly presupposed. And while he cites Jonathan Goldstein's views, he nowhere mentions the fact that Goldstein has conceded the weakness of his position in debate with David Winston.

73 Robert G. Hammerton-Kelly, Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 15.

75 David Winston, "The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha and Qumran," History of Religions 5 (1965): 212.

76 Sefer Haparshiyot, Midrash Kee Tov, "Alef" Machon Lehotzaat Sefarim, 31, quoted in Nissim Wernick, "A Critical Analysis of the Book of Abraham in the Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings" (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1968), 22.

79 Secrets of Enoch 23:2, in Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. , ed., The Forgotten Books of Eden (New York: Random House, 1980), 89.

81 1 Enoch 39:4-7, 40:5, 61:12. Quoted in Wernick, "A Critical Analysis of the Book of Abraham in the Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings," 23.

82 Hammerton-Kelly, Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man, 22, 134, 224, 270.

84 2 Clement 14:2, in Robert M. Grant, ed., The Apostolic Fathers, (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1964-1968), 2:126.

87 The Apocalypse of Abraham 22, in H.F.D. Sparks, ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament, 384.

90 The Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistus, quoted in Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, 153.

91 11Q13, in Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 456.

92 War Scroll 17, in Wise, Abegg, and Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, 165.

96 Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 234-235; Christopher Stead, Divine Substance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 160-172.

97 Jean Daniélou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, tr. John Austin Baker, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973), 376-378.

99 Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 125-130; Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 84; Ernst Müeller, A History of Jewish Mysticism (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1995), 44; Stroumsa, G. G., Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism, (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996); also Cardinal Daniélou's The Theology of Jewish Christianity.

100 Clementine Homilies 19:20, in ANF 8:336. "For the most sublime truths are best honoured by means of silence." Peter, in Clementine Recognitions 1:23, in ANF 8:83.

But if he remains wrapped up and polluted in those sins which are manifestly such, it does not become me to speak to him at all of the more secret and sacred things of divine knowledge, but rather to protest and confront him, that he cease from sin, and cleanse his actions from vice. Peter, in Clementine Recognitions 2:4, in ANF 8:98.

101 Robert M. Grant, After the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 184.

102 John Tvedtnes, "A Much-Needed Book That Needs Much", FARMS Review of Books 9 (1997): 33-42, see p. 41.

103 Origen, De Principiis 2:11:2, in ANF 4:297. Even where eternal marriage was not necessarily implied, many Jewish Christian groups regarded marriage as a requirement for those of marriageable age. A.F.J. Klijn and G.J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 33, 79.

106 The Gospel of Philip, in James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), 139.

107 The Gospel of Philip, in Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 142.

108 Stuart George Hall, ed., Melito of Sardis On Pascha and Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), xxxviii.

109 Robinson, T., "Hebrew Myths," in Samuel H. Hooke, ed., Myth and Ritual (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 185. Some have seen the Hebrew Goddess as a foreign importation, but Margaret Barker notes that there is not complete correspondence between the goddess of Israel and those of other nations, and concludes that she was not a foreign goddess at all. Barker, The Great Angel, 52, 57.

110 Widengren, G., "Early Hebrew Myths and Their Interpretation," in Samuel H. Hooke, ed., Myth, Ritual, and Kingship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 183.

111 Gordon B. Hinckley, in R. Clayton Brough, Teachings of the Prophets (Bountiful, UT: Horizon Publishers, 1993), 121.

113 Melito, Fragment 17, in Hall, ed., Melito of Sardis On Pascha and Fragments, 85.

114 The Apocryphon of John, in Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 103.

116 Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 102. Stead uses the example of Revelation 1:4: "'From Him who Is and who Was and who Is to Come' expresses God's perpetuity within and throughout all ages." However, he points out that when Christianity became Hellenized, "This doctrine came to be developed in an absolute sense which goes well beyond anything that we find in the Bible." Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 128, emphasis in original. For an excellent discussion of the scriptural evidence for this point, see Richard R. Hopkins, How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God (Bountiful, UT: Horizon Publishers & Distributors, Inc., 1998), 345-370.

117 James Strong, The New Strong's Complete Dictionary of Bible Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996), 470.

If the peers were strict holders of the Priesthood or members of the 70 then there would be absolute and unanimous approval. The question is flawed as LDS does not consider other religions or adherents of other doctrines, peers.

Our Relationship with the Lord

BRUCE R. MCCONKIE

Bruce R. McConkie was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional
address was given at Brigham Young University on 2 March 1982.

Complete volumes of Speeches are available wherever LDS books are sold.

For further information contact:
Speeches, 218 University Press Building, Provo, Utah 84602.
(801) 422-2299 / E-mail: speeches@byu.edu / Speeches Home Page

I shall speak of our relationship with the Lord and of the true fellowship all Saints should have with the Father. I shall set forth what we must believe relative to the Father and the Son in order to gain eternal life.

I shall expound the doctrine of the Church relative to what our relationship should be to all members of the Godhead and do so in plainness and simplicity so that none need misunderstand or be led astray by other voices.

I shall express the view of the Brethren, of the prophets and apostles of old, and of all those who understand the scriptures and are in tune with the Holy Spirit.

These matters lie at the very foundation of revealed religion. In presenting them I am on my own ground and am at home with my subject. I shall not stoop to petty wranglings about semantics but shall stay with matters of substance. I shall simply go back to basics and set forth fundamental doctrines of the kingdom, knowing that everyone who is sound spiritually and who has the guidance of the Holy Spirit will believe my words and follow my counsel.

Please do not put too much stock in some of the current views and vagaries that are afloat, but rather, turn to the revealed word, get a sound understanding of the doctrines, and keep yourselves in the mainstream of the Church.

Now, it is no secret that many false and vain and foolish things are being taught in the sectarian world and even among us about our need to gain a special relationship with the Lord Jesus. I shall summarize the true doctrine in this field and invite erring teachers and beguiled students to repent and believe the accepted gospel verities as I shall set them forth.

There is no salvation in believing any false doctrine, particularly a false or unwise view about the Godhead or any of its members. Eternal life is reserved for those who know God and the One whom he sent to work out the infinite and eternal atonement.

True and saving worship is found only among those who know the truth about God and the Godhead and who understand the true relationship men should have with each member of that Eternal Presidency.

It follows that the devil would rather spread false doctrine about God and the Godhead, and induce false feelings with reference to any one of them, than almost any other thing he could do. The creeds of Christendom illustrate perfectly what Lucifer wants so-called Christian people to believe about Deity in order to be damned.

These creeds codify what Jeremiah calls the lies about God (see Jeremiah 16:19; 23: 14–32). They say he is unknown, uncreated, and incomprehensible. They say he is a spirit, without body, parts, or passions. They say he is everywhere and nowhere in particular present, that he fills the immensity of space and yet dwells in the hearts of men, and that he is an immaterial, incorporeal nothingness. They say he is one-god-in-three, and three-gods-in-one who neither hears, nor sees, nor speaks. Some even say he is dead, which he might as well be if their descriptions identify his being.

These concepts summarize the chief and greatest heresy of Christendom. Truly the most grievous and evil heresy ever imposed on an erring and wayward Christianity is their creedal concept about God and the Godhead! But none of this troubles us very much. God has revealed himself to us in this day even as he did to the prophets of old.

We know thereby that he is a personal Being in whose image man was made. We know that he has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; that he is a resurrected, glorified, and perfected Being; and that he lives in the family unit. We know that we are his spirit children; that he endowed us with the divine gift of agency; and that he ordained the laws whereby we might advance and progress and become like him.

We know that God is the only supreme and independent Being in whom all fullness and perfection dwell and that he is omnipotent, omniscient, and, by the power of his Spirit, omnipresent.

We know "the Almighty God gave his Only Begotten Son" (D&C 20:21), as the scriptures attest, to ransom man from the temporal and spiritual death brought into the world by the fall of Adam and to put into operation all of the terms and conditions of the Father's plan.

We know that the Holy Ghost, as a "personage of Spirit," is both a Revelator and a Sanctifier and that his chief mission is to bear record of the Father and the Son.

Thus there are, in the Eternal Godhead, three persons--God the first, the Creator; God the second, the Redeemer; and God the third, the Testator. These three are one--one God if you will--in purposes, in powers, and in perfections. But each has his own severable work to perform, and mankind has a defined and known and specific relationship to each one of them. It is of these relationships that we shall now speak.

Doctrines of Eternal Life

Let us set forth those doctrines and concepts that a gracious God has given to us in this day and which must be understood in order to gain eternal life. They are:

1. We worship the Father and him only and no one else.

We do not worship the Son, and we do not worship the Holy Ghost. I know perfectly well what the scriptures say about worshipping Christ and Jehovah, but they are speaking in an entirely different sense--the sense of standing in awe and being reverentially grateful to him who has redeemed us. Worship in the true and saving sense is reserved for God the first, the Creator.

Our revelations say that the Father "is infinite and eternal," that he created "man, male and female,"

And gave unto them commandments that they should love and serve him, the only living and true God, and that he should be the only being whom they should worship. [D&C 20:17–19]

Jesus said:

True worshippers shall [note that this is mandatory] worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth. [JST John 4:25–26]

There is no other way, no other approved system of worship.

2. We love and serve both the Father and the Son.

In the full, final, and ultimate sense of the word the divine decree is:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him. [D&C 59:5]

And Jesus also said:

If ye love me, keep my commandments. [John 14:15]

These, then, are the commandments of commandments. They tie the Father and the Son together, as one, so that both receive our love and service.

3. Christ himself loves, serves, and worships the Father.

Though Christ is God, yet there is a Deity above him, a Deity whom he worships. That God is the Father. To Mary Magdalene, the first mortal to see a resurrected person, Jesus said:

I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. [John 20:17]

All of us, Christ included, are the spirit children of the Father; all of us, Christ included, seek to become like the Father. In this sense the Firstborn, our Elder Brother, goes forward as we do.

4. The plan of salvation is the gospel of the Father

The plan of salvation originated with the Father; he is the Author and Finisher of our faith in the final sense; he ordained the laws by obedience to which both we and Christ can become like him.

The Father did not ask for volunteers to propose a plan whereby man might be saved. What he did was ask whom he should send to be the Redeemer in the plan he devised. Christ and Lucifer both volunteered, and the Lord chose his Firstborn and rejected the amendatory offer of the son of the morning.

Thus Paul spoke of "the gospel of God, . . . concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:1–3). It is the Father's gospel, it became the gospel of the Son by adoption, and we call it after Christ's name because his atoning sacrifice put all of its terms and conditions into operation.

5. Christ worked out his own salvation by worshiping the Father.

After the Firstborn of the Father, while yet a spirit being, had gained power and

intelligence that made him like unto God; after he had become, under the Father, the Creator of worlds without number; after he had reigned on the throne of eternal power as the Lord Omnipotent--after all this he yet had to gain a mortal and then an immortal body.

After the Son of God "made flesh" his "tabernacle," and while he "dwelt among the sons of men"; after he left his preexistent glory as we all do at birth; after he was born of Mary in Bethlehem of Judea--after all this he was called upon to work out his own salvation.

Of our Lord's life while in this mortal probation the scripture says:

He received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace;

And he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness.

Finally, after his resurrection,

he received a fulness of the glory of the Father;

And he received all power, both in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him. [D&C 93:12–14, 16–17]

Note it, please, the Lord Jesus worked out his own salvation while in this mortal probation by going from grace to grace, until, having overcome the world and being raised in immortal glory, he became like the Father in the full, complete, and eternal sense.

6. All men must worship the Father in the same way Christ did in order to gain salvation.

Thus spake the Lord: "I give unto you these sayings"--those we have just quoted which tell how Christ gained his salvation by worshipping the Father--

I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness.

What a wondrous concept this is! We too can become like the Father,

For if you keep my commandments, the Lord continued, you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. [D&C 93:19–20; emphasis added]

7. The Father sent the Son to work out the infinite and eternal atonement.

As temporal and spiritual death came by the fall of Adam, so immortality and eternal life come by the atonement of Christ. Such was and is and ever shall be the plan of the Father. Adam was sent to earth to fall, and Christ came to ransom men from the fall.

Thus the Father sent forth this call in the councils of eternity: "Whom shall I send to be my Son, to ransom all people from temporal and spiritual death, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, to put into full operation all the terms and conditions of my eternal plan of redemption and salvation?"

Christ is the Redeemer of men and the Savior of the world because his Father sent him and gave him power to do the assigned work. He said he had power to lay down his life and to take it again because he had been so commanded by the Father. Lehi said he rose from the dead "by the power of the Spirit" (2 Nephi 2:8).

The great and eternal redemption, in all its phases, was wrought by Christ using the power of the Father.

8. The Son came to do the will of the Father in all things.

Jesus said:

I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. [John 6:38]

Also:

I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross. [3 Nephi 27:13–14]

And Paul said of him that he

made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. [Philippians 2:7–8]

How better could his relationship with his Father be stated?

9. God, through Christ, is reconciling men to himself.

Fallen man is carnal, sensual, and devilish by nature; he is spiritually dead; he is out of harmony with the Father.

Thus, as Paul said,

All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.

We have the "word of reconciliation," which is the gospel, and our preaching is, "Be ye reconciled to God," that is, to the Father (2 Corinthians 5:18–20).

10. Christ is the Mediator between God and man.

Because all people must be reconciled to God in order to be saved, he, in his goodness and grace, has provided a Mediator for them.

Paul told us:

There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. [1 Timothy 2:5–6]

To this we add: If there were no Mediator, we could never be reconciled to the Father, and hence there would be no salvation.

11. Christ is our Intercessor with the Father, our Advocate in the courts above.

In the process of mediating between us and our Maker, in the process of reconciling sin-ridden men with a sin-free God, Christ makes intercession for all who repent. He advocates the cause of those who believe in him. "Father," he pleads,

spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life. [D&C 45:5]

12. Our eternal fellowship is with the Father and the Son.

John wrote:

Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. [1 John 1:3]

If we keep the commandments, "we have fellowship" with the Father--which is the object and end of our existence And in the very nature of things we also have eternal fellowship with Christ, because he walked in the light and became and is one with the Father. (see 1 John 1:4–7).

13. God was in Christ manifesting himself to the world.

The Son, Paul told us, is in "the express image of his [Father's] person" (Hebrews 1:3). "I and my Father are one," Jesus said (John 10:30). Thus in his appearance, in his person, and in his attributes, the Son is the image and likeness of the Father. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," Jesus said (John 14:9). The four gospels are a treasure house of knowledge concerning the Father because they set forth what the Son is like, and he is like his Father.

14. Christ is the Revealer of the Father

God is and can be known only by revelation; he stands revealed or he remains forever unknown. Jesus said:

No man knoweth . . . who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. [Luke 10:22]

15. Christ is the Way to the Father.

"I am the way," he said. "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

Who can doubt that Christ's mission is to reveal the Father, to lead us to the Father, to teach us how to worship the Father, to reconciles us to the Father?

16. Christ proclaims the gospel of the Father.

In the ultimate sense the word of salvation comes from the Father. Said Paul,

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. [Hebrews 1:1]

The Father sent the prophets; they represented him; and they spoke his word. When Jesus quoted the Old Testament prophets to the Nephites, he attributed their words to the Father.

Though the revelations came from the Son, yet in the ultimate sense the truths taught were those of the Father. We are also aware of many instances in which Jesus, acting by divine investiture of authority, speaks in the first person as though he were the Father.

Thus Jesus said:

My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. [John 7:16–17]

17. Christ glorifies the Father and so must we.

"Glorify thy Son," Jesus prayed to the Father,

that thy Son also may glorify thee. . . .

I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. [John 17:1, 4]

As Christ our Pattern, by obedience and by doing his appointed labors, glorified the Father, so must we. Acting in his Father's name, Jesus ascribed the honor and glory in all things to the Father. The very pattern of prayer that he gave us directs that we go and do likewise.

Now, we might continue on and list added concepts, all of which would bear the same witness and accord with what we have said. Let us instead, on the basis of these present concepts, discuss the problem at hand and draw some conclusions.

Our Relationship to Members of the Godhead

What is and should be our relationship to the members of the Godhead?

First, be it remembered that most scriptures that speak of God or of the Lord do not even bother to distinguish the Father from the Son, simply because it doesn't make any difference which God is involved. They are one. The words or deeds of either of them would be the words and deeds of the other in the same circumstance.

Further, if a revelation comes from, or by the power of the Holy Ghost, ordinarily the words will be those of the Son, though what the Son says will be what the Father would say, and the words may thus be considered as the Father's. Thus any feelings of love, praise, awe, or worship that may fill our hearts when we receive the divine words will be the same no matter who is thought or known to be the author of them.

And yet we do have a proper relationship to each member of the Godhead, in part at least because there are separate and severable functions which each performs, and also because of what they as one Godhead have done for us.

Our relationship with the Father is supreme, paramount, and preeminent over all others. He is the God we worship. It is his gospel that saves and exalts. He ordained and established the plan of salvation. He is the one who was once as we are now. The life he lives is eternal life, and if we are to gain this greatest of all the gifts of God, it will be because we become like him.

Our relationship with the Father is one of parent and child. He is the one who gave us our agency. It was his plan that provided for a fall and an atonement. And it is to him that we must be reconciled if we are to gain salvation. He is the one to whom we have direct access by prayer, and if there were some need--which there is not!--to single out one member of the Godhead for a special relationship, the Father, not the Son, would be the one to choose.

Our relationship with the Son is one of brother or sister in the premortal life and one of being led to the Father by him while in this mortal sphere. He is the Lord Jehovah who championed our cause before the foundations of the earth were laid. He is the God of Israel, the promised Messiah, and the Redeemer of the world.

By faith we are adopted into his family and become his children. We take upon ourselves his name, keep his commandments, and rejoice in the cleansing power of his blood. Salvation comes by him. From Creation's dawn, as long as eternity endures, there neither has been nor will be another act of such transcendent power and import as his atoning sacrifice.

We do not have a fraction of the power we need to properly praise his holy name and ascribe unto him the honor and power and might and glory and dominion that is his. He is our Lord, our God, and our King.

Our relationship with the Holy Spirit is quite another thing. This holy personage is a Revelator and a Sanctifier. He bears record of the Father and the Son. He dispenses spiritual gifts to the faithful. Those of us who have received the gift of the Holy Ghost have the right to his constant companionship.

And again, if it were proper--and I repeat, it is not!--to single out one member of the Godhead for some special attention, we might well conclude that member should be the Holy Ghost. We might well adopt as a slogan: Seek the Spirit. The reason of course is that the sanctifying power of the Spirit would assure us of reconciliation with the Father. And any person who enjoys the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit will be in complete harmony with the divine will in all things.

Heresies among Us

Now, in spite of all these truths, which ought to be obvious to every spiritually

enlightened person, heresies rear their ugly heads among us from time to time.

There are those deluded cultists, and others who, unless they repent, are on the road to becoming cultists, who choose to believe we should worship Adam. They have found or should find their way out of the Church.

There are others--in the main they are intellectuals without strong testimonies--who postulate that God does not know all things but is progressing in truth and knowledge and will do so everlastingly. These, unless they repent, will live and die weak in the faith and will fall short of inheriting what might have been theirs in eternity.

There are yet others who have an excessive zeal which causes them to go beyond the mark. Their desire for excellence is inordinate. In an effort to be truer than true they devote themselves to gaining a special, personal relationship with Christ that is both improper and perilous.

I say perilous because this course, particularly in the lives of some who are spiritually immature, is a gospel hobby which creates an unwholesome holier-than-thou attitude. In other instances it leads to despondency because the seeker after perfection knows he is not living the way he supposes he should.

Another peril is that those so involved often begin to pray directly to Christ because of some special friendship they feel has been developed. In this connection a current and unwise book, which advocates gaining a special relationship with Jesus, contains this sentence:

Because the Savior is our mediator, our prayers go through Christ to the Father, and the Father answers our prayers through his Son.

This is plain sectarian nonsense. Our prayers are addressed to the Father, and to him only. They do not go through Christ, or the Blessed Virgin, or St. Genevieve or along the beads of a rosary. We are entitled to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

And I rather suppose that he who sitteth upon the throne will choose his own ways to answer his children, and that they are numerous. Perfect prayer is addressed to the Father, in the name of the Son; and it is uttered by the power of the Holy Ghost; and it is answered in whatever way seems proper by him whose ear is attuned to the needs of his children.

The Mainstream of the Church

Now I know that some may be offended at the counsel that they should not strive for a special and personal relationship with Christ. It will seem to them as though I am speaking out against mother love, or Americanism, or the little red schoolhouse. But I am not. There is a fine line here over which true worshipers will not step.

It is true that there may, with propriety, be a special relationship with a wife, with children, with friends, with teachers, with the beasts of the field and the fowls of the sky and the lilies of the valley. But the very moment anyone singles out one member of the Godhead as the almost sole recipient of his devotion, to the exclusion of the others, that is the moment when spiritual instability begins to replace sense and reason.

The proper course for all of us is to stay in the mainstream of the Church. This is the Lord's Church, and it is led by the spirit of inspiration, and the practice of the Church constitutes the interpretation of the scripture.

And you have never heard one of the First Presidency or the Twelve, who hold the keys of the kingdom, and who are appointed to see that we are not "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14)--you have never heard one of them advocate this excessive zeal that calls for gaining a so-called special and personal relationship with Christ.

You have heard them teach and testify of the ministry and mission of the Lord Jesus, using the most persuasive and powerful language at their command. But never, never at any time have they taught or endorsed the inordinate or intemperate zeal that encourages endless, sometimes day-long prayers, in order to gain a personal relationship with the Savior.

Those who truly love the Lord and who worship the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit, according to the approved patterns, maintain a reverential barrier between themselves and all the members of the Godhead.

I am well aware that some who have prayed for endless hours feel they have a special and personal relationship with Christ that they never had before. I wonder if this is any or so much different, however, from the feelings of fanatical sectarians who with glassy eyes and fiery tongues assure us they have been saved by grace and are assured of a place with the Lord in a heavenly abode, when in fact they have never even received the fullness of the gospel.

I wonder if it is not part of Lucifer's system to make people feel they are special friends of Jesus when in fact they are not following the normal and usual pattern of worship found in the true Church.

Let me remind you to stay in the course chartered by the Church. It is the Lord's Church, and he will not permit it to be led astray. If we take the counsel that comes from the prophets and seers, we will pursue the course that is pleasing to the Lord.

Would it be amiss if I reminded you that Jesus maintained a reserve between him and his disciples and that he did not allow them the same intimacy with him that they had with each other? This was particularly true after his resurrection.

For instance, when Mary Magdalene, in a great outpouring of love and devotion, sought to embrace the risen Lord, her hands were stayed. "Touch me not," he said. Between her and him, no matter what the degree of their love, there was a line over which she could not pass. And yet, almost immediately thereafter, a whole group of faithful women held that same Lord by the feet, and, we cannot doubt, bathed his wounded feet with their tears.

It is a fine and sacred line, but clearly there is a difference between a personal and intimate relationship with the Lord, which is improper, and one of worshipful adoration, which yet maintains the required reserve between us and him who has bought us with his blood.

Conclusion

Now I sincerely hope that no one will imagine that I have in the slightest degree downgraded the Lord Jesus in the scheme of things. I have not done so. As far as I know there is not a man on earth who thinks more highly of him than I do. It just may be that I have preached more sermons, taught more doctrine, and written more words about the Lord Jesus Christ than any other man now living. I have ten large volumes in print, seven of which deal almost entirely with Christ, and the other three with him and his doctrines.

I do not suppose that what I have here said will be an end to controversy or to the spread of false views and doctrines. The devil is not dead, and he delights in controversy. But you have been warned, and you have heard the true doctrine taught. Those who need to study the matter further would do well to get and study a copy of what I have said when it is published by Brigham Young University.

Let us then end on the note of testimony and of prayer. I bear record of the divine sonship of him whom we have this day spoken. He is or should be our best Friend through whom we can be reconciled to God.

And I pray that the true doctrine of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, who, as the Book of Mormon says, are one God, may be found in the hearts and souls of all of us. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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