As in the past posts on roles and missions of the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ, this short presentation lightly covers unique roles and missions of our Heavenly Father as found in the scriptures. Because I categorized certain things together, the figure 20 is loose because sometimes multiple different things are part of one category and when I counted them up, that’s about what I got. I’m sure more will be added in the future as I study the scriptures and things occur to me. This wasn’t a comprehensive study, but one based on a topical guide entry, and a few searches. However, this is a great way to dig into a topic and seek to better understand it.
Watch video here:
This study is slightly tricky because Jesus Christ is also identified as the Eternal Father, or Father of Heaven at times due to:
1) divine investiture of authority (John 3:35)
2) being the father of creation under the direction of the Father
3) being the father of our salvation
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Wow Oak. Absolutely loved this video and your collected thoughts. You quoted a couple of my favourite Joseph Smith quotes especially on fathers and sons, and I have the same thoughts and conclusions about our Saviour coming to earth to represent our Heavenly Father almost as if He was here in person himself. In fact doing for us that which He (the father) could not do directly Himself, as in the atonement.
However I do have question because following your logic as brought me to the conclusion I had previously arrived at or at least contemplated and thought, and that is if the Saviour was only doing that which He saw His father do then our Heavenly Father (Elohim) must have been a Saviour (A Jesus Christ) then how do the rest of us become Gods?
Hyrum Andre explored this subject quite deeply in his lectures and a book. He explained that when everything is finally completed at the end of the millennium Christ/Jehovah is elevated to the our Heavenly Fathers spot as Elohim and Elohim moves up in glory.
Our Saviour/Jehovah who is now Elohim presiding over the universe, he now has a firstborn whome He prepares to be like himself and become a Saviour to the newly created worlds by the next group of exalted beings. He (the new Jehovah) is able to do this because He is created in the image of His Father and can be shown all that His father did (how achieve the atonement).
So again my question is, and wondered if from your insights you had any thoughts on this or do we possibly remain, kings and Queens, and Priests and Prietesses to our new Heavenly Father (Elohim) which is an idea that has presented to me by several different people now.
Would love to know your thoughts on this!
There are many mysteries that we don’t have a full knowledge of. We speculate a lot because of it. Although I don’t comprehend exactly how this will all work, how can we advance to our fullest potential without doing the works of the Father and the Son? There will be a lot of training and preparation that goes on after this round of life.
Does Christ’s Father have a Father?
Be careful what you believe which is not in the scriptures or that does not come from the Holy Ghost. Some at the time of Joseph Smith used the verse in Rev. 1:6 to show that Christ’s Father had a Father, but Joseph Smith rendered a better translation to show that the verse did not show that but that it referred to God as the Father of Christ. Revelation 1:6; “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Revelation 1:6, NKJV reads, “to His God and Father.” Joseph Smith says, “unto God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The King Follett Sermon does not say that Christ’s Father had a Father! It does say that the intelligence of man is eternal and has always existed. See D&C 93:23, 29; And the scriptures tell us that the intelligence of Christ’s God is more intelligent than all other intelligences that have always existed. If this is true then how can Christ’s Father have a Father, and if so was His Father less intelligent? See Abr. 3:17–24.
Hi Mavin, thanks for commenting. The particular quote I shared above by Joseph Smith does indeed directly contradict the JST translation. I was also puzzled by that a little bit when I discovered it. However, here is something to consider. Joseph worked on the inspired translation of the Bible around 1830-1833. The quote about “God and His Father” came from a meeting in the grove, East of the Temple, June 16, 1844, 2 weeks before he was murdered. He never finished his inspired version of the Bible, but it seems his views matured and he shed some greater light on the subject just before his death years after working on the JST.
As for Abraham 3:17-24, Christ is not indicating his Father is greater than all others, he was indicating that HE was greater than all the intelligences that were part of this round of creation coming to this earth to be tested. He later stated in the New Testament that his Father was greater than he. If they were both all-knowing and all-powerful and so on, how was his Father greater than he? It must be in some other way, and when we discover that way as some form of advancement that doesn’t involve intelligence and knowledge and power, then we may begin to comprehend that if the Father can be greater than the Son, then a being beyond the Father can be greater than the Father in a way that also doesn’t violate those traits.
Here is an interesting quote to consider by Dr. Chauncey Riddle, given at the Sperry Symposium in 1989:
“Though there be gods and lords many, there is but one God, and that God is the priesthood – ordered community of all the righteous exalted beings who exist. To be invited to join them by hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to receive the greatest message in the universe; to be enabled to join them by receiving the New and Everlasting Covenant is to have the greatest opportunity in the universe; to be joined with them is the greatest gift in the universe, which gift is life eternal, sharing with them all the good they have and are. This good which they share is righteousness. Righteousness is that necessary order of social relationships in which beings of knowledge and power must bind themselves in order to live together in accomplishment and happiness for eternity. They bind themselves to each other with solemn covenants to become predictable, dependable and united so that they can be trusted. They bind themselves to be honest, true, chaste and benevolent so that they can do good for all other beings, which good they do by personal sacrifice to fulfill all righteousness.
The contrary of this good is evil. Evil is departing from God’s order of righteousness by twisting and/or diminishing it. Evil enables one being in a social order to fulfill his own personal desires at the expense of others, thus to be a law unto himself.”