Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
Here, unequivocally, the author of the Book of Hebrews states
that Jesus Christ was always an immortal physical being living on this earth
and being crucified. This of course is a preposterous conclusion. He has since
gone on to His glory, and is now in heaven having completed His earthly
mission. When a scripture states that something or someone is
unchanging, we must take into account that the something or someone does in
fact go through stages and events changing as circumstances permit.
In
the pre-earth life, Jesus was Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament – a spirit
being. Before the earth came into existence Jesus was the Son of God preparing
the earth for habitation and His eventual sacrifice for mankind. Is Jesus still
preparing the earth for mankind to inhabit so that He can someday offer Himself
for sacrifice? No, that has been accomplished. Therefore, what Jesus is now doing is something else. Thus,
what Jesus does and what
Jesus is are two
different topics. Has Jesus always been God? Yes. How is that so?
At
some point in the annals of the history of the universe, before Jesus became the spirit
Son of God, Jesus was an intelligence, the same as God and all of us were [and
are].
For intelligence
cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth;
virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy
and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own;
judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth
and executeth all things. 41 He comprehendeth all things, and all things are
before him, and all things
are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is
through all things, and is round about all things; and all
things are by him, and of him, even God,
forever and ever. (D&C
88:40, 41, bold added)
Who
is this God in verse 41? Is it God the Father?
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 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, DHC** VI:305, bold added) *Doctrinal History
of the Church
This
doctrine taught by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow and many other LDS
Leaders clearly states that God the Father was not always doing the acts of
a God of the Universe.
Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth,
was not created or made, neither indeed can be. 30 All truth is independent in
that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence
also; otherwise there is no existence. (D&C
93:29, 30 bold added)
Not
only was man in the beginning with God, but God was in the beginning with man.
The point here is that both God and we were “intelligences.” Neither God nor
we, as
intelligences, were ever created! We have always existed as intelligences.
And as intelligences, we clove “unto intelligence.”
We clove unto the
intelligence known as God which comprehendeth all things, is round about
all things, and in all things. Who is this uncreated intelligence that can be
round about, in and through all things? The Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is
known to us as God. It was never created, and never changes, and remains
the same from eternity to eternity.
For 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)
…
for the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. … (2 Nephi 2:4)
Both
God the Father and Jesus Christ were, are and ever will be sinless. Thus, their status as
Gods was never compromised. As self-existing intelligences, each of us, and God
and Jesus, was sinless. Only by our organization into spirits and then
mortality did we fail and transgress. The Father and the Son never failed. By
nature as intelligences, we cleaved unto the Holy Spirit. We were one with the
Holy Spirit. As intelligences, we were, as Jesus taught, “gods.”
I have
said, Ye are gods; and
all of you are
children of the most High. 7 But ye shall die
like men, and fall like one of the princes. (Psalms 82:6, 7, bold
added)
I
and my Father
are one. 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered
them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those
works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we
stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou,
being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in
your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them
gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36
Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not the works of
my Father, believe me not. (John 10:30-37)
This
is a hard teaching of Jesus Christ for modern day Protestantism, just like the
Jews at the time of Christ, indeed nearly all who profess a belief in Christ,
including Mormons, get a lot of heartburn over this simple teaching by Jesus.
He clearly taught, both as Jehovah and then later as Jesus the doctrine that
mortal humans ARE gods, IF
they have “the word of God” come into their hearts and live accordingly.
Nevertheless, such are mortal
gods, and shall die “like one of the princes.”
Someday,
in the future as full-fledged gods with our own spirit children and our own
worlds, etc., we can say we have been the same, yesterday, and forever, if we are referring to our core being as eternal
intelligences. These bodies of spirit and mortal matter are “organizations”
that we are in the process of exalting and making a permanent addition* to our individual organizations or souls. In
essence, we are intelligences, always have been and always will be.
Consider the scripture which refers to us as intelligences rather than spirits
or as mortals:
Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized
before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and
great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them,
and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were
spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art
one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. (Abraham 3:22, 23, bold added)
* And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their
first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate;
and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever
and ever. (Abraham 3:26, bold added)
Nevertheless,
our spirit children will acknowledge the same God Elohim** as their Father in
heaven as we do.
**Elohim
is the name attributed to God the Father of the universe.
Elohim is
the same yesterday, today and forever. What He does changes
from day-to-day, from activity to activity, but what He is as a God does not change. In
the past, He clove as a God intelligence one with the Holy Spirit. Later, as an
organized spirit God, He clove as one with the Holy Spirit. Still later, as a
sinless mortal, He clove as one with the Holy Spirit.
Then
answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can
do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the
Father do: for what things so ever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
(John 5:19, bold
added)
And still
later, He clove as a resurrected immortal God, the Father and Supreme Controller
of the Universe, as one with the Holy Spirit. His core Being has never changed. But his actions, and so on - His doings do change from one activity to the next.
It
is through the act of They cleaving unto the glorious Holy Spirit and the Holy
Spirit cleaving unto Them that God the Father and the Son are one. Likewise, it
is how we become
one with Them.
And the glory which
thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be
one, even as we are one: 23 I in them, and thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know
that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:22, 23, bold
added)
That
“glory” which Jesus gave unto us is the gift of the Holy Ghost: the Holy
Spirit. The more we cleave unto that Holy Spirit, the more we become one with
God and His Son.
… God
is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness
neither shadow of changing (Mormon 9:9)
Again,
the statement “no variableness
neither shadow of changing” refers to His Being, who He is, a sinless
God-intelligence, and not what He does. He has always operated in accordance
with the laws of the universe – operated as one with the Holy
Spirit. Thus, He is the
same, yesterday, and forever.
ddd
Updates: 06Jul15, a few minor fixes.
16Jul15: My earlier thoughts stating we can never say we are the same, yesterday and forever was somewhat inaccurate. As intelligences per se, we can always say that, though our organizations might not: "...the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41). The article is updated to reflect this idea, beginning with the paragraph above that begins with "Someday."
