God An Exalted Man
I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth, for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible, and to tell you the designs of God in relation to the human race, and why He interferes with the affairs of man.
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible,—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.
In order to understand the subject of the dead, for consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how He came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.
These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.
Joseph Smith's King Follet Sermon
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the vail was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible,—I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another.
Joseph Smith Journal of Discourses vol 6:3
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the vail was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible,—I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another.
Joseph Smith Journal of Discourses vol 6:3
interesting that the idea God is God from Eternity comes from the Book of Mormon as well as the Bible
(As printed in History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 302-317)
An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a
record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord
confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get
to heaven—Which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great
things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the
covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the
convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting
himself unto all nations—And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of
men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at
the judgment-seat of Christ.
Translated by Joseph
Smith, Jun.
2 Nephi 26:12 And as I spake concerning the convincing of the Jews, that Jesus is the very Christ, it must needs be that the Gentiles be convinced also that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God;
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Nephi 19:18 And behold, they began to pray; and they did pray unto Jesus,
calling him their Lord and their God.
Mosiah 3:5 For behold, the time
cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is
from all eternity to all eternity,
shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall
go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the
sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their
sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.
Mosiah 5:15 Therefore, I would
that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ,
the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you
may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal
life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in
heaven and in earth, who is God above all. Amen.
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For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in
him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?
Moroni 7:22 For behold, God knowing all things, being
from everlasting to everlasting,
behold, he sent angels to minister unto the
children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in
Christ there should come every good thing.
Moroni
8:18 For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but
he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.
Check out the following verses from the Bible
- "For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed," (Mal. 3:6).
- "Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God," (Psalm 90:2).
- "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God," (2 Cor. 4:3-4).
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