Mormon Identity PRE-MORTAL LIFE, PART 2

Episode 31 Mormon Identity PRE-MORTAL LIFE, PART 2

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INTRODUCTION: Welcome to Mormon Identity: a thirty-minute talk radio program that addresses Church topics important to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our host is Robert L. Millet, Professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University.

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BOB MILLET (HOST): We welcome you to this edition of Mormon Identity. I’m Bob Millet of religious education at Brigham Young University. With me is my friend and colleague, Brent Top, who is the Chair of the Department of Church History and Doctrine at BYU. Welcome, Brent.

BRENT TOP: Thank you.

BOB MILLET: This is the second segment of, the second treatment of the subject of, we had such fun with last time, the subject of our first estate, or the pre-mortal existence of men and women. We want to follow up on that. We talked about last time the distinctiveness of that teaching. We’ve talked about how the doctrine began to be revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, first through the Book of Mormon, through the Joseph Smith Translation of the early chapters of Genesis, through the 93rd section of the Doctrine and Covenants, through the book of Abraham, through the King Follett Sermon. Let’s, let’s begin, Brent, by talking a little bit about something that was said in Section 93. The revelation says, “Man was in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.” What, what do we know about this word “intelligence?”

BRENT TOP: Well, there’s a, there’s a couple of things. Not only that passage in Section 93, but the statement that you read from the King Follett Discourse in our last program, right at the end of the program, where he talks about the intelligence of man is coeternal, or coequal with God. The word “intelligence” shows up in that context of being the glory of God.

And then it says that is something about man that is eternal. Now, remember, Joseph is reacting and the Lord is revealing the truth concerning the origins of man, and—

BOB MILLET: As, as opposed to a creation out of nothing, ex nihilo creation.

BRENT TOP: --to ex nihilo creation. And that is the context for this, is that the religious traditions have been that man is just created out of nothing. Hocus-pocus, if you will. And at the word of God, and then man appears. And so the Lord is saying, “No, man didn’t just appear; there is something about man that has always existed and is eternal. Just like the elements are eternal, intelligence is eternal. And so then we get into a little bit of a discussion of “What was it that Joseph meant where he talked about the mind of man?” And that it is spirit, and has been from ages to ages. And I think, then, Abraham helps us to understand that concept a little bit.

BOB MILLET: Well, let’s, let’s go to the third chapter of Abraham. Why don’t you read for us, Brent, to 22 and 23 of Chapter Three?

BRENT TOP: Okay. Before I do that, let me just say again in context, so that our listeners, I think, will understand, as far as I know, there is only one place in all of the Standard Works where the term “intelligences,” plural…

BOB MILLET: Plural. [TOGETHER]

BRENT TOP: …appears, and this is it. Every other time the word is used it is singular, speaking of the glory of God, this eternal nature. This is the only place in all of the Standard Works where the term “intelligences” appears.

BOB MILLET: And it’s going to give us an equivalent, equivalent word for intelligences.

BRENT TOP: Exactly, just a second. And so you will see the antecedent for it is in verse 21, but we’ll pick up with verse 22: “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; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These will I make my rulers; for he stood among those,” and

here comes the punch line, “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.”

BOB MILLET: So, we, he seems to be equating organized intelligences with—

BRENT TOP: Spirits. And it, it—

BOB MILLET: There’s our definition for spirit—

BRENT TOP: That’s right.

BOB MILLET: —an organized intelligence.

BRENT TOP: Yeah. And so the discussion about “Were we intelligences before we were spirits?” That isn’t really in the scriptures there. That’s not the context of the scripture.

BOB MILLET: Yeah.

BRENT TOP: And that isn’t what that passage is saying. Abraham’s showing us spirits, and that there is something called intelligence that is then organized. And how that is done the scriptures don’t teach us.

BOB MILLET: Brent, what, what do you understand that, that the prophets have taught us about the next stage, as it were. Though we don’t know a great deal about what intelligence, intelligences, what the distinctions might be in the mind of God, what do we know in terms of spirit birth, spirit organization, spirit life?

BRENT TOP: Well, one of the ways that I teach my students at Brigham Young University is because they’ve, they come into it having heard lots of different things, and I’ll say, “Well, what do we know for sure?” rather than just, “What do we speculate?” And I think, I draw a line up at the top of the board and say, “What do we know for sure with regards to intelligence?” Well, the Lord says that there is something called intelligence, which is

light and truth, which is not created or made, that the prophet Joseph Smith calls the mind of man. Those are definitive, “We know this to be true.” Then I draw a line down at the bottom of the board that then says, “Here’s what we know for sure from the Proclamation on the Family,” most recently. But one of the most authoritative statements of the First Presidency in 1909 said, “All men and women are in the similitude of the Universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.” So down at the bottom of the line I say, “We know absolutely for sure that we were begotten sons and daughters of God, before we ever came here, as spirits.” And then I say, “What do we know in between there?” And the answer is: nothing. We do not know. President Joseph Fielding Smith said that it is purely, it’s, it’s really futile to even speculate as to what in- between there is, because nothing’s been revealed on it.

BOB MILLET: K. But we do know that we are children of God. And I think when we say children of God, we mean that in a way very, very different than, for example, other Christians do. We believe he’s literally—and oddly enough, and strangely enough, at least twice in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, He’s called the Father of the spirits of all men.

BRENT TOP: Exactly.

BOB MILLET: And we recognize it—

BRENT TOP: Well, and Paul says to the Hebrew saints the exact same, he uses the same phrase.

BOB MILLET: Yeah. The offspring of God.

BRENT TOP: And to the Athenian intellectuals, he says it in Acts 17, in Romans to the Roman saints, he’s once again saying, “The spirit beareth record that ye are the, you are the children of God.” And so, yeah. I think, I think we take those scriptures very literally, not just figuratively.

BOB MILLET: The doctrine of the pre-mortal existence of men and women, our First Estate as the scriptures call it. Brent, we were talking in our last segment about how seriously Latter- day Saints take the idea that we are the sons and daughters of God. And how sometimes people can read from the 16th Chapter of Numbers or the 27th Chapter of Numbers: two statements in which Moses actually records that God is the Father of the spirits of all men and women, and not understand what that is. As you see it, Brent, what are, what are

some of the significant, significant tenants of our faith based upon we’re children of God. What does that do for us?

BRENT TOP: Well, I think it, number one, tells us who we come from and how we read the scripture when it says we were created in God’s image.

BOB MILLET: Or even what we, what—

BRENT TOP: That changes our whole view of that passage.

BOB MILLET: Or even what we mean when we say, “Our Father who art in heaven.”

BRENT TOP: Exactly. And so I think it tells us a lot about who we were, I think it gives us a lot of direction in how we live our lives, and that we are related to our Heavenly Father, and we can call upon Him for blessings. And I think it also tells us the destiny, or the future. So, you have the past, the present, and the future all linked to that, to that doctrine. And that, and so, and it says we were created in the image and likeness. You know, is that just a facsimile, or is it saying we have, for a lack of better way of saying it, we have divine genes within our very system, that we have that potential to be become like our Father in Heaven because of who, who really is our Father.

BOB MILLET: Mhmm. That idea that poets, and philosophers, and religionists for generations have dealt with: created in the image and likeness of God. I think we’d agree that to some extent as a result of the Fall, or as a result of some of the traumatic conditions on Earth, that sometimes that image is marred a bit. But the image is always there, that is, there’s something about men and women that points them and points other people to something higher and greater.

BRENT TOP: Well, I think you see that even in a general, universal way in literature, and just in humanity of how we speak of the, the universal brotherhood of man. Well, we’re just saying, “Yeah, we take that literally.”

BOB MILLET: Yeah.

BRENT TOP: And I think it comes back again, if I could just emphasize again that 1909 statement of the First Presidency, the official doctrine of the Church on this, by President Joseph F. Smith and his councilors John R. Wyndor and Anton H. Lund. It makes this statement right here that I really love, and the value of the Restoration says: “The doctrine of the preexistence revealed so plainly particularly in latter days pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin.” Now here’s the next statement: “It shows that man as a spirit was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the father prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all man existed in spirit before any man existed in the flesh.” And then that statement concludes with just this very simple, little line that I think we take for granted and don’t realize how profound it is: “Man is the child of God.”

BOB MILLET: You know, it probably says something, Brent, about why singing the sweet hymn, “I Am a Child of God,” brings such a settled and soothing influence into our souls, don’t you think?

BRENT TOP: Yeah, and I, and again, I think we, we take it for granted, because it, that little hymn, that Primary song that started out when we, you and I were in Primary, shortly after the Fall of Adam, and…

BOB MILLET: Just after he lied to her.

BRENT TOP: (laughing) …but you remember as we, it becomes so familiar to us. We sing it in our Family Home Evenings, we sing it in Primary. But it is so profound. I had an experience; it was so touching to me. I had a student of mine that had joined the Church while attending Brigham Young University, and I had him speak to the class, and I said, “Well, what difference has your joining the Church, what has it made a difference in your life? What’s the biggest difference?” I expected it to be some kind of lifestyle change, but he made a very interesting observation to the class, he said, “The biggest difference that the Gospel, the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ has made to me is that now I know when I pray, I’m talking to my Father.”

BOB MILLET: That’s beautiful. I had an experience once where I was asked by, when I was Bishop, a woman in my ward asked for a special blessing. And I laid my hands upon her head and everything seemed to go well, the words seemed to come. But toward the very end I found myself pausing and reflecting and, and, and hearing the words and sang to her, it’s important; the Lord wants you to know you’re His daughter and He loves you. And, and I didn’t think anything much about it, but I finished and the poor woman was just sitting

there in a pool of tears, and she said for all these years she’s wanted to feel and know that somebody loved her, and she said, “You know, I think I can deal with life if I just know God loves me.” And, and she and I talked to some length about why He loves you. And that He is your Father, that you are His daughter. And I, I think that idea, the fact that we don’t believe that it’s metaphorical, that it’s not some symbolic representation of some greater reality. It is the great reality. We are the children of God.

BRENT TOP: We’re not just a higher, more complex animal.

BOB MILLET: Mhmm, mhmm. I like that. And so, understanding and knowing that we are the children of God, that we came from something glorious, that we’re sent here for glorious purposes, that we have a glory and a destiny that lies ahead, that brings a sense of dignity to individuals. Brent, you read this something from the First Presidency in 1909 that I’d like to follow up just a little more. It shows that it’s the teaching of the pre-mortal existence, it shows that man is a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and I, and I love the use of language here, “And reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father.” What are some of the other things we know of that take place in the pre- mortal life that scripture or prophets point us to concerning our pre-mortal existence?

BRENT TOP: You know, I think we see a parallel to, in an earthly family: that we conceive children, they are born to us, and then we have to raise them.

BOB MILLET: Mhmm.

BRENT TOP: And, so, the pre-mortal existence was in a way the spiritual raising of Heavenly Father’s family. And you think of how we raise our children: by teaching them, by counseling with them, by empowering them, by giving them choices. I think all of those factors were, were the, the same kinds of conditions and principles that prevailed there.

BOB MILLET: Let me, let me get to one of those now, Brent. What about the idea of human agency, moral agency? Say something about that and the pre-mortal life.

BRENT TOP: Well, President David O. McKay said that next to the bestowal of life, agency is God’s greatest gift to man. And so, if agency, and if Satan is thrown out of the pre-mortal world and thrust down to heaven, and never to have a body, and to suffer a horrible, horrible, unspeakable punishment because he sought to destroy agency, the flipside of that coin

tells you how important agency is to our Heavenly Father. And that with agency, then you have to have opposition, you have to be taught; you have to be, have the ability to choose good from evil. Lehi, in the Book of Mormon, tells us of those conditions that must prevail in order for agency to operate. And if it, if those conditions prevail in a, in an earthly home, then they have to prevail to some degree in a pre-mortal, heavenly home.

BOB MILLET: Which of course, we would know, that is, we were taught, we understood, we grew, we developed. I would presume, as the book of Abraham suggests, that there was a gradation of intelligence, that, that there were those like Christ at the top of the intelligence. He’s far greater than all of them. And I would suppose that there’s just a varied group of people, spirits, of varying righteousness, of varying intelligence. Which gets us really to the, this concept of, of our coming together as a group of spirits and the Father asking a question: “Whom shall I send?” That is the Grand Council, as we call it. The Grand Council of all spirits. What do we know about that, Brent?

BRENT TOP: Well, if you think of it as a Grand Council, that implies that there were some other councils going on, too.

BOB MILLET: Which only makes sense if we’re studying, learning, growing…

BRENT TOP: Exactly. You think of the order of the Church on earth, it would be much the same as the order of Church in heaven.

BOB MILLET: Lots of meetings.

BRENT TOP: Lots of, you know, and that’s why I’m a religion teacher, because there I was sluffing spirit Seminary, I don’t know. [LAUGHTER] But yeah, I think that the Grand Council would be kind of like what we would say of a General Conference. And a sustaining vote. I like to say that when the Father issued that declaration: “Whom shall I send?” it wasn’t asking for volunteers, I say it was a call for our common consent, not a request for résumés.

BOB MILLET: That’s good. That’s good. And, and I think it would be foolish to suppose that out-of-the- blue Jehovah surfaces. I think we’re talking about somebody who had stood as a respected, admired spirit long before.

BRENT TOP: Well, I think that’s exactly what Abraham’s telling us in that great vision that we cited earlier, where it talks about one being more intelligent than all the others. Intelligent being righteous and faithful, not just cognitive ability. And, so, Elder Orson F. Whitney declared in a beautiful epic poem called Elias said that when the Father said, “Whom shall I send?” all eyes fell upon Jehovah. We knew, because he had demonstrated, because of his agency and his faithfulness in that first place.

BOB MILLET: You know, I’m thinking in that, in that light of the 24th verse of the 3rd chapter of Abraham: “And there stood one among them that was like unto God. And He said unto those who were with him: we will go down for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell.” Like unto God. And so, Brent, what, we have a minute left in this segment, let’s just ask ourselves: what stands out in your mind as worth knowing about that Grand Council? What comes of it? What, what, what, what follows on the heels of it?

BRENT TOP: Well, the, the negative side of the equation is that Lucifer rebels against the plan. He doesn’t say, “Here, Father, send me. I’ll go on your terms.” He seeks to overthrow the plan completely out of his jealousy and his envy. He seeks to destroy the Plan of Salvation and seeks to destroy agency. And he is saying, as the prophet Joseph taught, that he will save everyone, which is really contrary to the very eternal law of agency.

BOB MILLET: Here’s the prophet Joseph Smith’s statement: “The contention in heaven was: Jesus said there would be certain souls that would not be saved. And the devil said he could save them all, and laid his plans before the Grand Council, who gave their vote in favor of Jesus Christ.” I think that’s a, that’s a grand statement. This idea that in that pre-mortal life we were led, we were directed by one there, Jehovah, who would become the Savior, Redeemer, the, the Chief Advocate of the Father’s plan. That’s comforting in itself. Brent, we’ve talked about the nature of agency in the pre-mortal existence, the fact that a sustaining vote was called for, as the prophet Joseph Smith said, for Jehovah as the Chief Advocate and Proponent of the Father’s plan. And that a war in heaven came, one that caused all the, the, the faithful spirits to, to grieve, to mourn, to weep over the loss of, of the third of their number. There must have been some sort of organization, preparation that went on prior to earth life. What do you know of there?

BRENT TOP: Well, there’s a, I like to think of a passage in the scriptures, while not specifically addressing that subject, gives us a little glimpse. And that is in Doctrine and Covenants Section 77 Verse 2. The Lord is teaching the prophet Joseph in a question-and-answer session about, about spiritual matters. And, and He tells of Joseph, the Lord tells Joseph that that which is temporal is in the likeness of that which is spiritual. Now, He goes on to

talk about spirit bodies vs. temporal bodies, but I like that principle, that that which is temporal, that is which is earthly, the earthly kingdom of God, is in the pattern or likeness of that which is spiritual. And President Joseph Fielding Smith taught that there had to be a Church organization, because that’s the Kingdom of God in heaven. And we were being taught. Doctrine and Covenants Section 138, the, President Joseph F. Smith said that they received, those noble and great spirits received their first lessons there.

BOB MILLET: In the world of spirits.

BRENT TOP: And so, there, that organization. And President Smith goes on to say that if implicitly, if it’s the Kingdom of God, and it is being administered by God’s power, that Priesthood would be the prevailing principle or authorizing agent. So I think the order and organization, and the principle of agency, and how it works, and being able to make choices, being able to be faithful or not so faithful there would be after the pattern that we see here.

BOB MILLET: And, so part of that organization, as you’ve intimated, is clearly a foreordination, a fore- designation to hold the Priesthood, to hold callings in the Church, to, to work in the Lord’s Kingdom. I think one of those foreordinations, or elections, as we sometimes say, that we don’t pay quite as much attention to, but is awfully important, is the preparation of individuals to come to earth at a certain time through a certain means. I’m reminded of this passage from the book of Deuteronomy. I’m reading from the 32nd chapter. “Remember the days of old,” verse seven, “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” What do you make of those verses, Brent?

BRENT TOP: Well, he’s clearly saying that the House of Israel is designated even before the foundation of the world.

BOB MILLET: And how they would come to earth, and, and under what circumstances, because it’s as if He had to put the House of Israel in place, because they would be that leavening influence in the earth.

BRENT TOP: Well, and we see that same doctrine taught by the Apostle Paul in Acts Chapter 17. That’s what he’s teaching to them as well. But I think what we’re seeing there is that it

goes back to that Abrahamic covenant, and that one of the things, not just the land, not just the posterity, not just some of the rewards, or the temporal blessings, but that, that Abrahamic covenant, the House of Israel, required a responsibility. And they were those that were going to take the gospel to the world. They were those that were going to prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Savior, as well.

BOB MILLET: The chosen, the chosen people is not something to be boasted in, but it’s a burden of being, of being a people required to make proper choices and take the gospel to all the world.

BRENT TOP: Right. And if you are establishing your most valued, trusted, capable people to do that, you’re going to use those that you’ve already seen a track record from, that have already been faithful in doing that. That’s where the pre-mortal existence is very linked to that earthly responsibility of the covenant of the House of Israel.

BOB MILLET: I’m reminded of the October 1973 General Conference from Herald B. Lee. His opening address as President of the Church, he made this comment: “It would seem very clear,” he had quoted from Deuteronomy 32, he quoted from Acts 17, “It would seem very clear, then, that those born to the lineage of Jacob, who was later to be called Israel, and his posterity who’d be known as the children of Israel were born into the most illustrious lineage of any of those who came upon the earth as mortal beings. All these rewards were seemingly promised or foreordained before the world was. And so, coming to earth in a certain manner, in a certain way. Do you have a thought on that, Brent?

BRENT TOP: Well, I, in that same talk from President Lee where he said, why is it that some people don’t have self-respect and they fall into so many of the spiritual pitfalls of mortality is because they lose that identity. They do not have that divine identity that they are sons and daughters of God, chosen before they ever came here to not only great blessings, but also great responsibilities.

BOB MILLET: And well put. I, I’m reminded, as we close this, of a marvelous thought that President Harold B. Lee used to love to leave with groups of young people. He used to plead with them simply, and we, given what we’ve discussed, given the fact that we’ve come trailing clouds of glory, given that we’re children of an eternal Father, how, how apt is this council? President Lee used to simply say, “Be loyal to the royal within you.”

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