The Man Adam Robert L

The Man Adam Robert L. Millet Professor of Ancient Scripture, BYU Ensign, Jan. 1994, pp. 8-15

Latter-day Saints know our noble mortal patriarch as the great archangel, Michael, who not only helped create the earth but will yet lead the Lord’s armies in casting out Satan and his followers.

ew persons in all eternity have been more directly involved in the plan of salvation—the creation, the fall, and the ultimate redemption of the children of God—than the man Adam. His ministry among the sons and daughters of earth stretches from the distant past of premortality to the distant future of resurrection, judgment, labors on earth. Michael stood with Jehovah in defense of and beyond. the plan of the Father, the plan of salvation, this in As Michael, the archangel, Adam led the forces of God opposition to the amendatory offering of Lucifer, a “son of against the armies of Lucifer in the War in Heaven. Under the morning.” (2 Ne. 24:12; D&C 76:25–27.) “The the direction of Elohim and Jehovah, he assisted in the contention in heaven was,” Joseph Smith explained, that creation of the earth. After taking physical bodies, Adam “Jesus said there would be certain souls that would not be and Eve brought mortality into being through partaking of saved; and the devil said he could save them all, and laid the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. With the his plans before the grand council, who gave their vote in fall of our first parents came blood and posterity and favor of Jesus Christ. So the devil rose up in rebellion probation and death, as well as the need for redemption against God, and was cast down, with all who put up their through a Savior, a “last Adam.” (1 Cor. 15:45.) To Adam heads for him.”2 Or, as the Revelator saw in vision: the gospel was first preached, and upon him the priesthood was first bestowed. From Adam and Eve the message of “There was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought the gospel of salvation went forth to all the world. Following against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought his death, which occurred almost a millennium after he against Michael; “And the dragon prevailed not against Michael. … Neither entered mortality, Adam’s watch-care over his posterity was there place found in heaven for the great dragon, who continued. Revelations have come and angels have was cast out; that old serpent called the devil, and also ministered under his direction. Priesthood has been called Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast conferred and keys delivered at his behest. out into the earth; and his angels were cast out with him.” (JST, Rev. 12:6–8.) Before the World Was Michael was directly involved in the preparation of the physical world in which he and his posterity would undergo Adam’s role in the eternal plan of God began in our a mortal probation. Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the premortal first estate. There he was known as Michael, Quorum of the Twelve wrote: “Christ and Mary, Adam and literally one “who is like God.” Indeed, “by his diligence and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and a host of mighty men and obedience there, as one of the spirit sons of God, he equally glorious women comprised that group of ‘the noble attained a stature and power second only to that of Christ, and great ones,’ to whom the Lord Jesus said: ‘We will go the Firstborn. None of all our Father’s children equalled him down, for there is space there, and we will take of these in intelligence and might, save Jesus only.”1 He was “called materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may and prepared from the foundation of the world according to dwell.’ (Abr. 3:22–24; emphasis added.) This we know: the foreknowledge of God” (Alma 13:3) to perform his Christ, under the Father, is believe that Adam and Eve the Creator; Michael, his went into the Garden of companion and associate, Eden to fall, that their presided over much of the actions helped “open the creative work; and with way of the world,”7 and that them, as Abraham saw, the Fall was as much a part were many of the noble of the foreordained plan of and great ones.”3 The the Father as was the very Prophet Joseph Smith Atonement. “Adam did only thus taught that “the what he had to do,” Priesthood was first given President Joseph Fielding to Adam; he obtained the Smith said. “He partook of First Presidency, and held that fruit for one good the keys of it from reason, and that was to generation to generation. open the door to bring you He obtained it in the and me and everyone else Creation, before the world into this world, for Adam was formed, as in Gen. and Eve could have 1:26, 27, 28.”4 remained in the Garden of Eden; they could have been In Eden there to this day, if Eve hadn’t done something.”8 When it came time to Because the Fall (like the begin our second estate, it Creation and the was appropriate for God our Father to call upon Michael to Atonement) is one of the three pillars of eternity, and receive a tabernacle of flesh and become earth’s first because mortality, death, human experience, sin, and thus inhabitant. Luke’s genealogy of Jesus ends with a noble the need for redemption grow out of the Fall, we look upon description of Adam, “the son of God.” (Luke 3:38.) In the what Adam and Eve did with great appreciation rather than Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis, we read of the line of with disdain. “The fall had a twofold direction—downward, yet forward. It brought man into the world and set his feet great patriarchs from Adam to Enoch: “This is the 9 genealogy of the sons of Adam, who was the son of God, upon progression’s highway.” As Enoch declared, with whom God himself conversed.” (Gen. 6:23; compare “Because that Adam fell, we are.” (Moses 6:48; compare 2 Moses 6:22.) Adam’s very name means “man” or Ne. 2:25.) “man-kind,” and his position as the “first man of all men” Out of Eden (Moses 1:34) suggests the eminence of his premortal status. In addition, the Fall opened the In the morn of creation, Adam, door to sin and death. This life Eve, and all forms of life existed in became a probationary estate, a a paradisiacal condition. All things time for men and women to prepare were physical. They were spiritual in to meet God. (See 2 Ne. 2:21; Alma the sense that they were not mortal, 12:24; Alma 34:32; Alma 42:4.) With not subject to death. (See 1 Cor. the Fall came also a veil of 15:44; Alma 11:45; D&C 88:27.)5 In separation between God and the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve mankind; mortals “were shut out walked and talked with God. Adam from his presence.” (Moses 5:4.) was made “lord or governor of all After being cast from the Garden of things on earth, and at the same Eden, Adam and Eve were taught time [enjoyed] communion … with the gospel by the ministration of his Maker, without a vail to separate angels, by the voice of God, and between.”6 Our first parents would through the power of the Holy Ghost. have remained in this state (See Moses 5:1–12, 58.) indefinitely had not circumstances The veil separating Adam from the changed. (See 2 Ne. 2:22; Moses immediate presence of the Eternal 4:9.) Those circumstances did Father did not, however, remove change as a result of Adam and Adam’s memory of life in Eden. As Eve’s partaking of the forbidden Joseph Smith clarified, Adam’s fruit. transgression “did not deprive him of The Latter-day Saint view of the the previous [Edenic] knowledge with scenes in Eden is remarkably which he was endowed relative to optimistic when compared to the existence and glory of his traditional Christian views. We Creator. … Though he was cast out from the garden of Eden, his knowledge of the existence of Adam holds the keys of the dispensation of the fullness of God was not lost, neither did God cease to manifest his will times; i.e., the dispensation of all the times have been and unto him.”10 President John Taylor asked: “How did Adam will be revealed through him from the beginning to Christ, get his information of the things of God?” He then and from Christ to the end of the dispensations that are to answered: “He got it through the gospel of Jesus Christ. … be revealed.”18 A modern revelation thus states that God came to him in the garden and talked with him … ; and Jehovah has “appointed Michael your prince, and he was the first man upon this earth that had the gospel established his feet, and set him upon high, and given unto and the holy priesthood; and if he had it not, he could not him the keys of salvation under the counsel and direction of have known anything about God or his revelations.”11 the Holy One, who is without beginning of days or end of Latter-day Saints stand alone in the religious world in life.” (D&C 78:16.) certifying that Christ’s gospel is eternal—that Christian prophets have taught Christian doctrine and administered After Death Christian ordinances since the dawn of time.12 Adam was earth’s first Christian. He exercised faith in the redemption The Ancient of Days lived some 930 years on this earth. of Christ, was baptized in water, received the gift of the Holy (See Moses 6:12.) His death fulfilled the divine decree that Ghost, was “quickened in the inner man,” and was received in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit—in this case, day into the order of the Son of God. (Moses 6:64–67.) Further, means a period of time as measured by the Lord—he Adam and Eve entered into the new and everlasting would “surely die.” (Moses 3:17; Abr. 5:13.) At death Adam covenant of marriage and thus placed themselves on that entered the postmortal world of spirits and became a part pathway that leads to life eternal.13 “Father Adam was of that abode of the righteous known as paradise. (See 2 called of God,” President Wilford Woodruff explained,” and Ne. 9:13; Alma 40:12; Moro. 10:34.) As Adam passed from ordained to the fulness of the Melchizedek time into eternity, his must have been a glorious reunion Priesthood—ordained to the highest office and gift of God with holy beings. There he ministered and labored among to man on the earth.”14 his faithful descendants for some three thousand years. As they received the gospel from the lips of God and The Prophet Joseph Smith explained that Adam “presides 19 angels, Adam and Eve taught the same to their children over the spirits of all men,” and so his ministry and and grandchildren. Some of their posterity rejected the light administrative responsibilities would have continued beyond of heaven, “loved Satan more than God,” and thus turned death’s door. away from the truth. Our first parents mourned over the Just as the War in Heaven continues, in a sense, into our choices of their loved ones (see Moses 5:13, 18, 27–28), own time, even so Adam’s efforts to thwart and oppose but their mourning was not as those who have no hope; Satan, the “son of the morning,” have continued since they “ceased not to call upon God” (Moses 5:16). Adam’s mortal death. In the context of counseling the Three years prior to his death, Adam gathered his Saints to avoid speaking evil of responsible persons, Jude, righteous posterity together in the valley of the brother of our Lord, observed that “Michael the Adam-ondi-Ahman (the place where he and Eve had archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed settled after their expulsion from Eden15). Seven about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a generations of faithful patriarchs with their families met to railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” (Jude receive prophetic counsel at the feet of him who had come 1:9.) to be known as the “Ancient of Days.” There he bestowed This passage appears to be a reference to a rather upon them his last blessing. In describing a vision he had obscure pseudepigraphic work known as the Assumption of this sacred occasion, the Prophet Joseph said: “I saw of Moses. W e know that the man Moses was translated. It Adam in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman. He called appears that Satan, as one who has broad power in the together his children and blessed them with a patriarchal material world, sought Moses’ death in order to gain control blessing. The Lord appeared in their midst, and he (Adam) over his body, so that Moses “would not have a tangible blessed them all, and foretold what should befall them to body in which to come—along with Elijah, who also was the latest generation. This is why Adam blessed his taken up without tasting death—to confer the keys of the posterity; he wanted to bring them into the presence of priesthood upon Peter, James, and John” on the Mount of 20 God.”16 Transfiguration. In our own day Michael, on the banks of Adam was the Lord’s prophet-leader over the earth for his the Susquehanna River, detected “the devil when he own day, but he also stands as earth’s presiding high priest, appeared as an angel of light.” (D&C 128:20.) We wonder the man who, under Christ, holds the keys of authority for how many other occasions there may have been in earth’s the blessing of mankind and the perpetuation of history when Michael, the archangel, has stood to rebuke righteousness in the earth. “The keys have to be brought and set the bounds of Lucifer the archdeceiver. from heaven whenever the Gospel is sent. When they are There is one other occasion in which Michael as a revealed from heaven, it is by Adam’s authority.”17 On disembodied spirit may have played a particularly significant another occasion the Prophet Joseph added that Adam role in the plan of our Father. Luke records that on the night was “the first to hold the spiritual blessings, to whom was of Atonement, following the Last Supper, Jesus bowed in made known the plan of ordinances for the salvation of his awful alienation and grief in the Garden of Gethsemane posterity unto the end, and to whom Christ was first beneath the load of the world’s sins. He uttered his soul-cry: revealed, and through whom Christ has been revealed from “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: heaven, and will continue to be revealed from henceforth. nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, into the post-earth spirit world, and into the resurrection.”22 strengthening him.” (Luke 22:42–43.) An angel sent from the courts of glory. An angel sent to assist, to support, to In the Future sustain the sinless Son of Man in the depths of his greatest agony. “The angelic ministrant is not named,” Elder Bruce In what would be, without modern revelation, a rather R. McConkie wrote. “If we might indulge in speculation, we mysterious passage in the book of Daniel, reference is would suggest that the angel who came into this second made to an unusual gathering of people. “I saw in the night Eden was the same person who dwelt in the first Eden. At visions,” Daniel wrote, “and, behold, one like the Son of least Adam, who is Michael, the man came with the clouds of archangel—the head of the whole heaven, and came to the Ancient heavenly hierarchy of angelic of days, and they brought him ministrants—seems the logical near before him. one to give aid and comfort to his “And there was given him Lord on such a solemn occasion. dominion, and glory, and a Adam fell, and Christ redeemed kingdom, that all people, nations, men from the fall; theirs was a and languages, should serve joint enterprise, both parts of him: his dominion is an which were essential for the everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom salvation of the Father’s 21 that which shall not be children.” destroyed.” (Dan. 7:13–14.) President Joseph F. Smith, who was privileged to glimpse in vision Latter-day revelation informs us the world of the disembodied at that the location of this gathering the time Jesus entered therein, is Daviess County, Missouri, in wrote: “Among the great and that area we have come to know mighty ones who were assembled as Adam-ondi-Ahman (D&C 116), in this vast congregation of the the same place where Adam met righteous were Father Adam, the and counseled with and Ancient of Days and father of all, prophesied to his numerous “And our glorious Mother Eve, posterity three years before his with many of her faithful daughters death. Of this council, a meeting who had lived through the ages that will be a preliminary and worshiped the true and living appearance of the Savior (prior to God.” (D&C 138:38–39.) Adam his coming in glory), the Prophet and Eve were among that group who “waited and Joseph Smith said: “Daniel in his conversed, rejoicing in the hour of their deliverance from seventh chapter speaks of the Ancient of Days; he means the chains of death.” When the Lord of Life appeared, he the oldest man, our Father Adam, Michael, he will call his taught and organized his righteous forces and empowered children together and hold a council with them to prepare them to take the message of salvation to the wicked, “the them for the coming of the Son of Man. He (Adam) is the ungodly and the unrepentant.” The Master ministered to his father of the human family, and presides over the spirits of own “and gave them power to come forth, after his all men, and all that have had the keys must stand before resurrection from the dead, to enter into his Father’s him in this grand council. … The Son of Man stands before kingdom, there to be crowned with immortality and eternal him, and there is given him glory and dominion. Adam life.” (D&C 138:18, 20, 51.) delivers up his stewardship to Christ, that which was We do not know when Adam came forth in the first delivered to him as holding the keys of the universe, but 23 resurrection and entered celestial glory—whether it was, retains his standing as head of the human family.” like many of his prophetic colleagues, at the time of Christ’s President Joseph Fielding Smith offered the following rise from the tomb (see D&C 133:54–55), or whether he explanation: “This gathering of the children of Adam, where remained in the spirit world for a season to oversee or the thousands, and the tens of thousands are assembled in participate in the work of redemption for the dead. That the judgment, will be one of the greatest events this Adam did eventually rise to glory, to sit with his troubled earth has ever seen. At this conference, or council, descendants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see D&C all who have held keys of dispensations will render a report 132:37), and that he shall come forth to dwell in the of their stewardship. Adam will do likewise, and then he will everlasting burnings associated with celestial glory (see surrender to Christ all authority. Then Adam will be D&C 137:5) is abundantly clear from latter-day revelation. confirmed in his calling as the prince over his posterity and Following Adam’s resurrection, “Adam’s base of operation will be officially installed and crowned eternally in this would be from wherever such righteous resurrected beings presiding calling. Then Christ will be received as King of go to await the time when this earth will become kings, and Lord of lords. W e do not know how long a time celestialized and become their eternal home. Again we this gathering will be in session, or how many sessions may should remember that Adam’s priesthood keys go with be held at this grand council. It is sufficient to know that it is him—from the premortal world, through his mortal ministry, a gathering of the Priesthood of God from the beginning of this earth down to the present, in which reports will be and what they may become. Searching the revelations and made and all who have been given dispensations (talents) attuning ourselves to the living oracles in our own day will will declare their keys and ministry and make report of their prepare us for a time when further light and knowledge stewardship according to the parable. (See Matt. concerning the Adamic dispensation will be given (see D&C 25:14–30.) Judgment will be rendered unto them for this is 107:57), a time when the faithful will know “things which a gathering of the righteous, those who have held and who have passed, and hidden things which no man knew, things hold keys of authority in the Kingdom of God upon this of the earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and the earth. … This will precede the great day of destruction of end thereof—things most precious” (D&C 101:33–34). A the wicked and will be the preparation for the Millennial knowledge of the origin and destiny of man—as typified in Reign.”24 the life and labors of our father Adam—is the legacy of When the Lord Jesus returns in triumphant glory to Latter-day Saint. initiate the “end of the world, or the destruction of the wicked” (JS—M 1:4), the first resurrection, which began Notes with the resurrection of Christ, will resume. Here again Michael-Adam will play a significant role. “Before the earth 1. Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: shall pass away, Michael, mine archangel, shall sound his Bookcraft, 1966), p. 16. trump, and then shall all the dead awake, for their graves 2. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith shall be opened, and they shall come forth.” (D&C 29:26.) (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976), p. 357; cited hereafter as In discussing the nature of the keys restored to earth by Teachings. various angels, Elder Bruce R. McConkie noted that “the 3. “Eve and the Fall,” in Spencer W. Kimball et al, Woman (Salt Lake City: holy priesthood will be used in eternity as well as in time. It Deseret Book Co., 1979), p. 59. is not only the power and authority to save men here and 4. Teachings, p. 157; emphasis added. now; it is also the power by which the worlds were made 5. See also Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols., comp. and by which all things are. It also could well be that Adam, Bruce R. McConkie (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954–56), 1:75–78. who brought mortality and death into the world, was also 6. Joseph Smith, Lectures on Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., permitted to restore the power that brings immortality and 1985), 2:12. life to his descendants. Christ, of course, in the ultimate 7. Teachings, p. 12. sense holds the keys of the resurrection and of raising 8. In Conference Report, Oct. 1967, p. 121. souls in immortality, but, as we also know, it is his practice to operate through his servants, and righteous persons will, 9. Cowley and Whitney on Doctrine, comp. Forace Green (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963), p. 287. in due course, participate in calling their loved ones forth in the resurrection.”25 10. Lectures on Faith, 2:19. At the end of the earth—meaning at the end of the 11. The Gospel Kingdom, sel. G. Homer Durham (Salt Lake City: Millennium (D&C 88:101; JS—M 1:55)—the final great Bookcraft, 1987), p. 91; emphasis added. battle between good and evil, known as the “battle of the 12. See Teachings, pp. 59–60, 168, 264. great God” (D&C 88:114) or the battle of Gog and Magog,26 13. See History of the Church, 2:320; Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon will take place. And once again, the mighty Michael, the Doctrine, p. 118. eternal captain of Jehovah’s army, will come face to face 14. Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, comp. G. Homer Durham (Salt Lake with his foe, Satan. City: Bookcraft, 1946), p. 64; see also Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3:81; Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, Aug. 1985, pp. 8–9. “The devil and his armies shall be cast away into their own 15. See John Taylor, The Mediation and Atonement (Salt Lake City: place, that they shall not have power over the saints any Deseret News Co., 1882), p. 69; Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff more at all. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964), pp. 481, 545–46. “For Michael shall fight their battles, and shall overcome him who seeketh the throne of him who sitteth upon the 16. Teachings, pp. 158–59; see also D&C 107:53–57. throne, even the Lamb. 17. Teachings, p. 157. “This is the glory of God, and the sanctified; and they shall 18. Teachings., pp. 167–68. not any more see death.” (D&C 88:114–16.) 19. Teachings., p. 157. Michael’s final victory is in preparation for the 20. Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. celestialization of the earth. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–73), 3:422–23. All too often Adam’s place and role in the plan of 21. The Mortal Messiah: From Bethlehem to Calvary, 4 books (Salt Lake salvation have been misunderstood. To many in the City: Deseret Book Co., 1979–81), 4:125; emphasis added; see also religious world he is an enigma; to others, a myth. Some Conference Report, Apr. 1985, p. 10. despise him for his actions in Eden. The praise he receives 22. Larry E. Dahl, “Adam’s Role from the Fall to the End—and Beyond,” from some others takes the strange form of adoration and in The Man Adam, ed. Joseph F. McConkie and Robert L. Millet (Salt even worship. But to misunderstand Adam is to Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990), p. 121. misunderstand our own identity as well as our relationship 23. Teachings, p. 157. to the Lord and his plan. 24. The Progress of Man (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1964), pp. The gospel light has shone forth, and modern seers have 481–82; see also Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah: The made known great and marvelous things pertaining to the Second Coming of the Son of Man (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1982), pp. 578–88. past and the future (see Mosiah 8:17); people need not wander in darkness as to who they are, whose they are, 25. The Millennial Messiah, pp. 119–20; emphasis added. 26. Teachings, p. 280. s.

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