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A
First Presidency Letter Regarding the Adam-God Theory
(1912)
This
is said to have been a letter to an unnamed member of
the church
from the First Presidency dated 20 February 1912. The
original is
supposed to be held in the Church Historian's Library
in Salt Lake City,
Utah, USA. Dear Brother:
Your
question concerning Adam has not been answered before
because of
pressure of important business. We now respond briefly,
but, we hope,
plainly. You speak of "the assertion made by Brigham
Young that Jesus
was begotten of the Father in the flesh by our father
Adam, and that
Adam is the father of Jesus Christ and not the Holy
Ghost," and you say
that Elders are challenged by certain critics to prove
this.
If
you will carefully examine the sermon to which you refer,
in the
Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, you will discover that,
while President
Young denied that Jesus was "begotten of the Holy
Ghost," he did not
affirm, in so many words, that "Adam is the father
of Jesus Christ in
the flesh." He said, "Jesus, our elder brother,
was begotten in the
flesh by the same character that was in the garden of
Eden and who is
our Father in Heaven. Who is our "Father in Heaven"?
Here is what
President Young said about him; "Our Father in
heaven begat all the
spirits that ever were or ever will be upon this earth
and they were
born spirits in the eternal world. Then the Lord by
his power and
wisdom organized the mortal tabernacle of man."
Was He in the Garden of
Eden? Surely He gave commandments to Adam and Eve; He
was their Father
in Heaven; they worshipped Him and taught their children
after the fall
to worship and obey Him in the name of the Son who was
to come.
But
President Young went on to show that our father Adam,--that
is, our
earthly father,--the progenitor of the race of man,
stands at our head,
being "Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days,"
and that he was not
fashioned from earth like an adobe, but "begotten
by his Father in
Heaven." Adam is called in the Bible "the
son of God" (Luke 3:38). It
was our Father in Heaven who begat the spirit of him
who was "the
Firstborn" of all the spirits that come to this
earth, and who was, also
his Father by the Virgin Mary, making him "the
only begotten in the
flesh." Read Luke 1:26-35. Where is Jesus called
"the only begotten of
the Holy Ghost?" He is always singled out as "the
only begotten of the
Father." (John 1:14;3:16,18, &c) The Holy Ghost
came upon Mary, and her
conception was under that influence, even of the spirit
of life; our
Father in Heaven was the Father of the Son of Mary,
to whom the Savior
prayed, as did our earthly father Adam.
When
President Young asked, "who is the Father?"
he was speaking of Adam
as the father of our earthly bodies, who is at our head,
as revealed in
Doctrine and Covenants, Section 107, verses 53-56. In
that sense he is
one of the gods referred to in numerous scriptures,
and particularly by
Christ (John 10:34-36). He is the great Patriarch, the
Ancient of Days,
who will stand in his place as "a prince over us
forever," and with whom
we shall "have to do," as each family will
have to do with its head,
according to the holy patriarchal order. Our father,
Adam, perfected and
glorified as a God, will be the being who will carry
out the behests of
the great Elohim in relation to his posterity. (See
Daniel 7:9-14.)
While,
as Paul puts it, "there be gods many and Lords
many (whether in
heaven or in earth), unto us there is but one God the
Father, of whom are
all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all
things." The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worships Him, and
Him alone, who is
the Father of Jesus Christ, whom He worshipped, whom
Adam worshipped, and
who is God the Eternal Father of us all.
Your
brethren,
Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, Charles W. Penrose
First Presidency
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