Gospel topic
God the Father
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I will now say a few words relating to the subject which was presented to the people this morning. Inquiries were made by the speaker, why we have not seen God; why we are subject to sin; why we are in this fallen world? I will briefly answer these queries. If our Father and God should be disposed to walk through one of these aisles, we should not know him from one of the congregation. You would see a man, and that is all you would know about him; you would merely know Him as a stranger from some neighboring city or country. This is the character of Him whom we worship and acknowledge as our Father and God: when He is disposed to visit a house, a neighborhood, or a congregation, He does it at His pleasure; and although He may be seen by mortals in this character, yet no man can see Him in His glory and live. When the Lord sends an angel to visit men, He gives him power and authority to appear to the people as a man, and not as an angel in his glory; for we could not endure the presence even of an angel in his glory. No mortal man has ever seen God in His glory at any time and lived. We may have seen the Lord and angels many times, and did not know it. I will be satisfied with seeing and associating with His children whom I now behold, for there is not a son or daughter of Adam and Eve before me today but what is the offspring of that God we worship. Brigham Young, in Journal Discourses, 11:40b-41a. (IF)
President Brigham Young
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Counselor in the First Presidency We come here and sojourn in the flesh a little season and then we pass away. Every soul that is born into the world will die. There is not a soul that has escaped death, except those upon whom God has passed, by the power of his Spirit, that they should live in the flesh until the second coming of the Son of Man; but they will eventually have to pass through the ordeal called death; it may be in the twinkling of an eye, and without pain or suffering; but they will pass through the change, because it is an irrevocable edict of the Almighty. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” This was the edict of the Almighty and it pertains to Adam—that is, all the human race; for Adam is many, and it means you and me and every soul that lives and that bears the image of the Father. We shall all die. But is that the end of our being? If we had an existence before we came here we certainly shall continue that existence when we leave here. The spirit will continue to exist as it did before, with the additional advantages derived from having passed through this probation. It is absolutely necessary that we should come to the earth and take upon us tabernacles; because if we did not have tabernacles we could not be like God, or like Jesus Christ. God has a tabernacle of flesh and bone. He is an organized being just as we are who are now in the flesh. Jesus Christ was born of his mother, Mary. He had a fleshly tabernacle; he was crucified on the cross, and his body was raised from the dead. He burst the bonds of the grave and came forth to newness of life, a living soul, living being, a man with a body, and with parts and with spirit—the spirit and the body becoming a living and immortal soul. You and I have got to do the same thing. We must go through the same ordeal in order to attain to the glory and exaltation which God designed we should enjoy with him in the eternal worlds. In other words, we must become like him; peradventure to sit upon thrones, to have dominion, power and eternal increase. God designed this in the beginning. We are the children of God. He is an eternal being, without beginning of days or end of years. He always was, he is, he always will be. We are precisely in the same condition and under the same circumstances that God our heavenly Father was when he was passing through this or a similar ordeal.
President Joseph F. Smith
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Heresy one: There are those who say that God is progressing in knowledge and is learning new truths. This is false—utterly, totally, and completely. There is not one sliver of truth in it. It grows out of a wholly twisted and incorrect view of the King Follett Sermon and of what is meant by eternal progression. God progresses in the sense that his kingdoms increase and his dominions multiply—not in the sense that he learns new truths and discovers new laws. God is not a student. He is not a laboratory technician. He is not postulating new theories on the basis of past experiences. He has indeed graduated to that state of exaltation that consists of knowing all things and having all power. The life that God lives is named eternal life. His name, one of them, is “Eternal,” using that word as a noun and not as an adjective, and he uses that name to identify the type of life that he lives. God’s life is eternal life, and eternal life is God’s life. They are one and the same. Eternal life is the reward we shall obtain if we believe and obey and walk uprightly before him. And eternal life consists of two things. It consists of life in the family unit, and, also, of inheriting, receiving, and possessing the fullness of the glory of the Father. Anyone who has each of these things is an inheritor and possessor of the greatest of all gifts of God, which is eternal life. Eternal progression consists of living the kind of life God lives and of increasing in kingdoms and dominions everlastingly. Why anyone should suppose that an infinite and eternal being who has presided in our universe for almost 2,555,000,000 years, who made the sidereal heavens, whose creations are more numerous than the particles of the earth, and who is aware of the fall of every sparrow—why anyone would suppose that such a being has more to learn and new truths to discover in the laboratories of eternity is totally beyond my comprehension. Will he one day learn something that will destroy the plan of salvation and turn man and the universe into an uncreated nothingness? Will he discover a better plan of salvation than the one he has already given to men in worlds without number? The saving truth, as revealed to and taught, formally and officially, by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Lectures on Faith is that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He knows all things, he has all power, and he is everywhere present by the power of his Spirit. And unless we know and believe this doctrine we cannot gain faith unto life and salvation. Joseph Smith also taught in the Lectures on Faith “that three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation.” These he named as— 1. The idea that he actually exists; 2. A correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes; and 3. An actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to the divine will. The attributes of God are given as knowledge, faith or power, justice, judgment, mercy, and truth. The perfections of God are named as “the perfections which belong to all of the attributes of his nature,” which is to say that God possesses and has all knowledge, all faith or power, all justice, all judgment, all mercy, and all truth. He is indeed the very embodiment and personification and source of all these attributes. Does anyone suppose that God can be more honest than he already is? Neither need any suppose there are truths he does not know or knowledge he does not possess. Thus Joseph Smith taught, and these are his words: Without the knowledge of all things, God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures; for it is by reason of the knowledge which he has of all things, from the beginning to the end, that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures by which they are made partakers of eternal life; and if it were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God had all knowledge it would be impossible for them to exercise faith in him. [As quoted by Bruce R. McConkie in Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), p.264] If God is just dabbling with a few truths he has already chanced to learn or experimenting with a few facts he has already discovered, we have no idea as to the real end and purpose of creation.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
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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.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
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In His infinite vision, He literally can view all of us and bless all of us.
President Thomas S. Monson
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You remember long ago, we're studying the Old Testament this year, and God said to Moses, Jehovah said to Moses, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And when Jesus came upon the earth, and was asked, "What is the first commandment?" He said, "It is to love God with all of your mind, with all of your heart, with all of your soul. This is the first and great commandment." So we look at our lives differently than others look at it and we try our very best not to put anything ahead of Jesus Christ.
Elder Neil L. Anderson
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