As I continued to ponder about Genesis 1-3 today, I felt it quite appropriate to add the greatest man whom ever lived besides Jesus Christ Him self's words regarding the doctrine of whom God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ are.
To my posterity and friends, I hope you will take some time out of your busy day and read these words of Joseph Smith with appreciation and love in your heart for what he has done for us in restoring Jesus Christ's church on the earth. After all what are 5 min. in a day for a man whom lost all he had upon the earth for the sake of serving our Savior, Jesus Christ; and us, His children.
Joseph Smith's words in the King Follet Discourse :
"In the first place I wish to go back to the beginning of creation. There
is the starting point in order to know and be fully acquainted with the
mind, purposes, decrees, and ordinations of the great Elohim that sits in
the heavens. For us to take up beginning at the creation it is necessary for us
to understand something of God Himself in the beginning. If we start
right, it is very easy for us to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we
may go wrong, and it is a hard matter to get right.
There are but very few beings in the world who understand rightly the
character of God. If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do
not comprehend their own character. They cannot comprehend anything
that is past or that which is to come; they do not know—the do not understand
their own relationship to God. The world knows and comprehends
but little more than the brute beast. If a man knows nothing more than to
eat, drink, sleep, arise, and not any more, and does not comprehend what
any of the designs of Jehovah are, what better is he than the beast, for it
comprehends the same things—it eats, drinks, sleeps, comprehends the
present and knows nothing more about God or His existence. This is as
much as we know, unless we are able to comprehend by the inspiration of
Almighty God. And how are we to do it by any other way?
I want to go back, then, to the beginning that you may understand and
so get you to lift your minds into a more lofty sphere and exalted standing
than what the human mind generally understands. I want to ask this congregation—
every man, woman, and child—to answer this question in
their own heart: What kind of a being is God? Ask yourselves! I again repeat
the question: What kind of a being is God? Does any man or woman know?
Turn your thoughts in your hearts, and say, Have any of you seen Him? Or
heard Him? Or communed with Him? Here is a question that will, peradventure,
from this time henceforth occupy your attention while you live.
The Apostle says that this is eternal life to know the only wise God and
Jesus Christ whom He has sent—that is eternal life. If any man inquire,
What kind of a being is God?—if he will cast his mind to know and search
diligently his own heart—if the declaration of the Apostle be true, he will
realize that unless he knows God he has not eternal life for there can be
eternal life on no other principle.
My first object is to go back and find out the character of the only wise
and true God and what kind of a being He is. If I should be the man so fortunate
as to comprehend God and explain to your hearts what kind of a
being God is, so that the Spirit seals it, then let every man and woman henceforth
put his hand on his mouth, sit in silence, and never say anything or
lift his voice against the servants of God again. But if I fail to do it, I have
no right to revelation and inspiration and it becomes my duty to renounce
all of my pretensions to inspiration or to being a prophet, etc. If I should do
so, should I not be as bad as all the rest of the false teachers of the world?
They will all be as badly off as I am. They will all say I ought to be damned.
There is not a man or a woman who would not breathe out an anathema
on my head if they knew I was a false prophet. Some would feel authorized
to take away my life, but you might just as well take the lives of other false
teachers as mine, if I were false. If any man is authorized to take away my life
who says I am a false teacher, then, upon the same principle, I should have
the same right to take the life of all false teachers and who would not be the
sufferer and where would be the end of the blood?
But meddle not with any man for his religion, for no man is authorized
to take away life in consequence of religion. All laws and government ought
to tolerate and permit every man to enjoy his religion, whether right or
wrong. There is no law in the heart of God that would allow anyone to
interfere with the rights of man. Every man has a right to be a false prophet,
as well as a true prophet. If I show verily that I have the truth of God, show
the world is wrong by showing what God is, and show that ninety-nine out
of a hundred are false prophets and teachers while they pretend to hold the
keys of God, and go to killing them, would it not deluge the whole world
with blood?
I am going to inquire after God because I want you all to know God and
to be familiar with Him. If I can get you to know Him, I can bring you to
Him. And if so, all persecution against me will cease. This will let you know
that I am His servant, for I speak as one having authority and not as a scribe.
What kind of a being was God in the beginning, before the world was?
I will go back to the beginning to show you. I will tell you, so open your ears
and eyes, all ye ends of the earth, and hear, for I am going to prove it to you
with the Bible. I am going to tell you the designs of God for the human
race, the relation the human family sustains with God, and why He interferes
with the affairs of man. First, God Himself who sits enthroned in yonder
heavens is a Man like unto one of yourselves—that is the great secret!
If the veil were rent today and the great God that holds this world in its
sphere and the planets in their orbit and who upholds all things by His
power—if you were to see Him today, you would see Him in all the person,
image, fashion, and very form of a man, like yourselves. For Adam was a
man formed in His likeness and created in the very fashion and image of
God. Adam received instruction, walked, talked, and conversed with Him
as one man talks and communicates with another.
In order to understand the subject of the dead and to speak for the
consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary
to understand the character and being of God. For I am going to tell you
how God came to be God and what sort of a being He is. For we have imagined
that God was God from the beginning of all eternity. I will refute that
idea and take away the veil so you may see. Truth is the touchstone. These
things are incomprehensible to some, but they are simple. The first principle
of truth and of the Gospel is to know for a certainty the character of
God, and that we may converse with Him the same as one man with
another, and that He once was a man like one of us and that God Himself,
the Father of us all, once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself
did in the flesh and like us.
I will show it from the Bible. I wish I were in a suitable place to tell it.
I wish I had the trump of an archangel. If I had the privilege, I could tell the
story in such a manner that persecution would cease forever. The scriptures
inform us (Mark it, Brother Rigdon) that Jesus Christ said:—What did Jesus
say?—As the Father has power in Himself, even so has the Son power in
himself. To do what? Why, what the Father did. That answer is obvious;
even in a manner to lay down His body and take it up again. Jesus, what are
you going to do? “To lay down my life as my Father laid down His body that
I might take it up again.” Do you believe it? If you don’t believe it, you don’t
believe the Bible. The Scriptures say it and I defy all hell—all the learned
wisdom and records and all the combined powers of earth and hell together
to refute it!
Here then is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God. You
have got to learn how to make yourselves Gods in order to save yourselves
and be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done—by
going from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree to
another, from grace to grace, until the resurrection of the dead, from exaltation
to exaltation—till you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and
everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before, sit enthroned.
I want you to know that God in the last days, while certain individuals are
proclaiming His name, is not trifling with you nor me.
I want you to know the first principles of consolation. How consoling
to the mourners when they are called to part with a husband, father, wife,
mother child, dear relative, or friend, to know, though they lay down this
body and all earthly tabernacles shall be dissolved, that their very being
shall rise in immortal glory to dwell in everlasting burnings and to sorrow,
die, and suffer no more. And not only that, but to contemplate the saying
that they will be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it?
To inherit and enjoy the same glory, powers, and exaltation until you
ascend a throne of eternal power and arrive at the station of a God, the same
as those who have gone before. What did Jesus Christ do? “Why I do the
same things that I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into exis-
tence.” Saw the Father do what?” I saw the Father work out His kingdom
with fear and trembling and I am doing the same, too. When I get my kingdom,
I will give it to the Father and it will add to and exalt His glory. He will
take a higher exaltation and I will take His place and I am also exalted, so
that He obtains kingdom rolling upon kingdom.” So that Jesus treads in
His tracks as He had gone before and then inherits what God did before.
God is glorified in the salvation and exaltation of His creatures.
It is plain beyond comprehension and you thus learn that these are
some of the first principles of the Gospel, about which so much has been
said. When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom rung. You
have got to find the beginning of the history and go on until you have
learned the last principle of the Gospel. It will be a great while after the grave
before you learn to understand the last, for it is a great thing to learn salvation
beyond the grave and it is not all to be comprehended in this world.
I suppose I am not allowed to go into an investigation of anything that
is not contained in the Bible. If I should, you would cry treason, and I think
there are so many learned and wise men here who would put me to death
for treason. I will, then, go to the old Bible and turn commentator today.
I will go to the very first Hebrew word—BERESHITH—in the Bible and
make a comment on the first sentence of the history of creation: “In the
beginning. . . .” I want to analyze the word BERESHITH. BE—in, by,
through, and everything else; next, ROSH—the head, ITH. Where did it
come from? When the inspired man wrote it, he did not put the first part—
the BE—there; but a man—an old Jew without any authority—put it there.
He thought it too bad to begin to talk about the head of any man. It read in
the first: “The Head One of the Gods brought forth the Gods.” This is the
true meaning of the words. ROSHITH [BARA ELOHIM] signifies [the Head]
to bring forth the Elohim. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the
learned man of God. No learned man can tell you any more than what I
have told you. Thus, the Head God brought forth the Head Gods in the
grand, head council. I want to simplify it in the English language.
O, ye lawyers, ye learned doctors, who have persecuted me, I want to
let you know and learn that the Holy Ghost knows something as well as you
do. The Head One of the Gods called together the Gods and the grand
councilors sat in grand council at the head in yonder heavens to bring forth
the world and contemplated the creation of the worlds that were created
at that time. When I say doctors and lawyers, I mean the doctors and
lawyers of the Scriptures I have done so hitherto, to let the lawyers flutter
and let everybody laugh at them. Some learned doctor might take a notion
to say that the Scriptures say thus and so, and we must believe the Scriptures,
for they are not to be altered. But I am going to show you an example
of an error.
I have an old book (New Testament) in the four languages: Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and German. I have been reading the German. I find it to
be the most correct that I have found and find it corresponds the nearest
to the Revelation that I have received and given the last fourteen years.
What does this text say? It tells about JAKOBUS, the son of Zebedee, which
means Jacob. In the English New Testament it says James, the son of Zebedee,
but this says Jacob, the son of Zebedee. Now, if Jacob had the keys, you
might talk about James through all eternity and never get the keys.
Matthew 4:21 gives the testimony that it is the word of Jacob, instead of
James. The doctors (I mean doctors of law, not of physic) say, “If you say anything
not according to the Bible, we will cry treason.” How can we escape the
damnation of hell, unless God be with us and reveal it to us. Men bind us
with chains. The Latin says IACOBUS, which means Jacob; the Hebrew
says YA’AQOB, which means Jacob; the Greek says IAKOBOS—Jacob; and
the German says Jacob. I thank God I have got the oldest book in the world
and the Holy Ghost. I thank Him for the old book, but more for having the
oldest book in my heart—the gift of the Holy Ghost. Here I have all four
testimonies: Greek, Hebrew, German, and Latin.
Come here, ye learned men, and read, if you can. I should not have
introduced this testimony, only to show that I am right and to back up the
word ROSH—the Head Father of the Gods. In the beginning the Head of
the Gods called a council of the Gods. The Gods came together and concocted
a scheme to create this world and the inhabitants. When we begin to
learn in this way, we begin to learn the only true God. We find out God and
what kind of a being we have got to worship. Having a knowledge of God, we
know how to approach Him and ask so that He will answer. When we begin
to know how to come to Him, He begins to come to us. When we are ready
to come to Him, He is ready to receive us. As soon as we begin to understand
the character of God, He begins to unfold the heavens to us and tell
us all about it before our prayers get to His ears.
Now, I ask all the learned men who hear me, why the learned doctors
who are preaching salvation say that God created the heavens and the earth
out of nothing. They account it blasphemy to contradict the idea. If you tell
them that God made the world out of something, they will call you a fool. The
reason is that they are unlearned but I am learned and know more than all
the world put together—the Holy Ghost does, anyhow. If the Holy Ghost in
me comprehends more than all the world, I will associate myself with it.
You ask them why, and they say, “Doesn’t the Bible say He created the
world?” And they infer that it must be out of nothing. The word create
came from the word BARA, but it doesn’t mean so. What does BARA
mean? It means to organize; the same as a man would organize and use
things to build a ship. Hence, we infer that God Himself had materials to
organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter—which is element and in
which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time He had.
The pure principles of element are principles that never can be destroyed.
They may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed. Nothing can
be destroyed. They never can have a beginning or an ending; they exist
eternally. It is associated with the subject in question, the resurrection of
the dead.
I have another subject to dwell on which is calculated to exalt man, but
it isn’t possible for me to say much but to touch upon it. Time will not permit
me to say all. So I must come to what I wish to speak of—the resurrection
of the dead—the soul—the immortal spirit—the mind of man. Where
did it come from? All doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning,
but it is not so. The very idea lessens the character of man, in my estimation.
I don’t believe the doctrine. Hear it, all ye ends of the earth: I know
better for God has told me so. "
