Okay, enough of these posts on things that can actually have an effect on our daily lives! I need instead to delve into the mysteries, to things I can’t possibly know, and don’t need to know, you know?
I was reading 3rd Nephi recently, and finally hit the verse that I had previously assumed was mere theory within the church. It seemed like Authoritative theory, but I still thought there might be some wiggle room. Nope. This verse pretty much clears up who the God of the Old Testament was. Ok, fine, I can deal with that – it’s what I’ve been told.
But that got me thinking (oh no!) How was Jesus able to do the things he did, like creating the world and stuff, before becoming a resurrected being? Aside from Him needing to come to Earth to save us all, it doesn’t seem like He needed the ‘mortal challenge’ in order to progress. For that matter, 3rd Nephi suggests that he did the righteous smiting on them before he was resurrected. (Didn’t the darkness lift afterwards?) So, he did all of that world-changing again without a physical body?
I guess I had been led to believe that Jesus was the Firstborn of Heavenly Father, but was pretty much in the same boat as the rest of us, prior to coming to Earth. (Clearly not the case.) There was talk on another blog* about how intelligences / spirits might have been created, but it would seem that not all were created equally. Granted, we can’t all have been Saviors, but it does make me wonder how all of that happened. Perhaps one day it will all become clear. (FWIW, I can see the simple answer to this: He was a member of the Godhead, even pre-mortal.)
* I’m feel like I’m breaking some sort of Bloggernacle rule by not explicitly linking back to the referenced blog, but I really don’t remember where that was.