Journal entry, Sunday 30 October 2005

I learned something in the deacons quorum lesson that I taught today.

When I first read the Book of Mormon as a non-member, I read the whole book looking for the answer to a particular question without finding it.  The question that I had was this:  Is God one person or two?

The Book of Mormon didn't help a bit.  If anything it confused the issue even more with such verses as these:

 "And now Abinadi said unto them:  I would that ye should understand that God himself shall                               come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.

          "And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—

          "The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—

          "And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.”(Mosiah 15:1-4)

Verses like that are not helpful to an investigator.  They aren't helpful to seminary students, either.  I taught the Book of Mormon the year that Josh Bingham took it in seminary.  He was wrestling with the same problem and question about God that I had when I was investigating the Church.  Every time we read something from the Book of Mormon that indicated the Father and Son were one, Josh would bang his hand on the table and shout in frustration, "They said it again!"  He was very frustrated with the apparent ambiguity found in the scriptures on this point.

I have maintained that it took the First Vision to Joseph Smith to answer this question.  In that vision he saw two separate beings.  Taking that as our basis for the truth, we can begin to sort out what prophets like Abinadi were trying to say.  Josh and I both accepted that, but I have never quite been able to understand how Jesus can be called "the Father."

I've finally found my answer.  It was in the Aaronic Priesthood teacher's manual.  The manual asked for a definition of the the word "father."  The definition given was, "A father is one who gives life."  The lights came on for me at last.

God is our father because He is the father of our spirits.

Our earthly fathers gave us mortality and physical bodies.

Jesus is our father because He gives us eternal life if we qualify for it.  We are, therefore, "the children of Christ" or "the seed of Christ" as the scriptures state.

I finally understand!