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- [00:00]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you want to seem wise and not a fool, it's Christie's corner.
- [00:11]
Dr. Richard Leduc
In part one of the Doctrine Covenants section 93 podcast, you went fairly deep into the problems and issues.
- [00:19]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
We were wearing hip boots. Yeah, it was, it was, there were. Waiter. We were fly fishing.
- [00:23]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, you went pretty deep into kind of the, the, the issues and problems that arose in early Christian, in the early Christian church relating to the nature of Jesus Christ. Could you kind of give a little bit of a recap?
- [00:35]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
So first and foremost, if you haven't listened to part one of this podcast, a lot of them you could kind of probably float on and just, you know, I mean, frankly, you probably tried to listen to part one of the podcast, fell asleep and then so now you're like, well, maybe part two will be better. But the problem is the only way for part two to make any sense is if you go back to part one and listen, listen to that too. So because you know, we talked about all kinds of things like, you know, the aseity of God and why suffering happens and, and all related to the amazing revelation, the doctrine covenant section 93 is so fundamentally what we talked about was the nature, the nature of Jesus and the nature of God and also the nature of, and problem of evil in traditional Christianity. And we also talked about the nature of God as far as Christianity sees him and that the, the, you know, the hundred thousand dollar word we threw out there was the aseity of God, that, that God is the only self existent being that has always existed and that that's the definition of him to, to Christians. And so we, we talked about the, you know, the problems with monotheism, the problem of, you know, whether or not Jesus is fully human or whether or not Jesus is fully God. And how that, they tried that with the, the council of, of Chalcedon where they, they, they essentially affirm both things that, that Jesus was both fully human and fully God. And when you say, well, how can you be both fully mortal and fully immortal? The response is simply that, well, that's the great mystery of, of God, that somehow in a way that's inexplicable. Jesus is both a hundred % mortality and 100% immortal. So I mean, if you, if I took a glass of orange juice and I took orange juice, I filled up a cup and I filled it halfway and then I poured the other half of that cup with milk, not only would I have a fairly disgusting concoction that I would have created. Unless I'm putting ice in it and calling it Orange Julius or something. I wouldn't have something that was 100% milk and 100% orange juice. I would have something that was 50% milk and 50% orange juice. So that's. This is not what Christians are affirming at the Council of Chalcedon. They are not saying that Jesus is part man and part God. No, he is 100% God. He is fully immortal. And as if we didn't understand the first part of what those words mean. He is 100% mortal, not part moral. It's not. Again, like I said last, he's not like Hercules, okay? It's not like, oh, his dad's a God, so he has some powers. No, he is 100% mortal and 100% God. And when you say, how can you be both? You know, an immortal can no more be mortal than a rock can be a tree kind of thing. Well, that's the great mystery of the Trinity. So if you want to, you know, that and more riveting discussion, go back, you go back to the first podcast. Actually had a friend text me and he said, hey, just listen to your latest podcast. It occurred to me while I was listening that Rip Van Winkle was a story of another Dutchman that put people to sleep. And I thought to myself, okay, okay, but, but you like the rest of it right now. He, he, he didn't. But.
- [04:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, I will say though. So the real payoff is here then. The setup is here to then show.
- [04:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
At least what we're going to tell the audience is that the payoff is now here. So please go back and listen to that because we are going to build off of it. We just didn't want you to have a three hour podcast, especially when you stop listening to, in the first three minutes to begin with. But what I want to pick up is, is the revelations, the, the revelatory answer that is given to Joseph Smith through Doctrine Covenant, Section 93. Now, to precede this just a little bit, Joseph has already received some pretty impressive things about the nature of God. So let's talk a little bit about Calvinism, because we wanted to talk, you know, I want you all to feel depressed. You know, John Calvin is probably one of the most important Protestant theologians that exist. I mean, you could obviously argue Martin Luther, you could argue, you know, Jacobus Arminius. But John Calvin's, you know, his, his Theo, his systemic theology is so, it carries so much weight that all Christians Even today have to deal with, with the, the difficulty of, of his thought. So one of the things we talked about last time was about the problem of evil, right? Because if God's all powerful, then that means God could, if he wanted to save everyone. And if God's all powerful and he creates everyone out of nothing, which is again what Christians affirm, then why did God even create people that he already knew he wasn't going to save? Jonathan Edwards tries to give an answer to this. He's a great Calvinist theologian. He explains God created us to demonstrate his glory. Okay, I think we can kind of be on board with that. That's at least, you know, the idea of glory of God, okay? He created Satan to demonstrate his goodness. So again, in traditional Christian thought, you have to say that everything that's happened, God meant to happen. Because otherwise what you're saying is that God wanted to do something and he failed at it. What he wanted to do was create a perfect world where there wasn't any mosquitoes and you know, the BYU always wins. I mean that he wanted to do that, but he just couldn't figure out how to do it. So he was all powerful, but like with a giant asterisk next to it, I'm all powerful, but I can't figure out how to do the things I want to do most. Well, of course that's preposterous. That's the reason why I'm joking around about it. And so for Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and other theologians like him, the primary starting point of every discussion about God is God is all powerful. That's the, that part of that aseity that we talked about that God is a self existent being and has always existed. And with that self existence is an all powerful being who caused everything to happen. So once you say that God is all powerful, then at the very least you have to concede that anything that happens at least happens because God chooses to not intervene. Or even more proactively, anything that happens happens because God wishes it to be so. Now there's a lot of different, you know, ways you can fall down on that. But the reality is if you ask the question, could God have stopped X? Could God have caused, you know, why? Could God have prevented Z? The answer always has to be yes, if you believe that God is all powerful. Now if you start drawing a box around God, if you start saying, well, you know God, there's some things God can't do. Well, that's not a traditional Christian viewpoint of God. The definition of God is that he's all powerful. And so you can see how someone like Jonathan Edwards is trying to deal with this. If God is all powerful, why did he create Satan? More to the point, if God is all powerful and he created us all out of nothing, and he already knew that most of the people that he created he would not save, why did he give those people immortal spirits? If he already knew that he was going to have me born in Indonesia in 600 AD and that I would never even hear the word Jesus, let alone have faith in Jesus, then why, when God created me out of nothing, because I didn't exist before, why wouldn't he just create me without an immortal spirit so that when I die, I'm just dead? Why did he create me with a spirit that he knew would suffer forever? You know, as we talked about last time, the same question with Satan and with Adam, right? I mean, why didn't God just build a better Satan, one that didn't fall, since he's creating him out of nothing, just put a different microchip in there. This is Jonathan Edwards answer. He created Satan to demonstrate his goodness, so why did he create Satan? Because you needed to see how evil something was to see how good God was. At least that's what Jonathan Edwards now of course that can kind of break down a little bit, right? Because God's all powerful, then he actually wouldn't need to create Satan to demonstrate his goodness because a power that he would have is demonstrating his goodness without Satan being created.
- [09:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But perhaps they might be able to say, well, but that's the way that he chose to create absolutely to show his goodness.
- [10:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
So why exactly how are we to know? Who are you to question the inscrutable will of God? Okay. He also goes on to say he created a world that he knew would fall and become evil to demonstrate his goodness. Once again, we like to, especially if you're a latter day Saint, we love to pass off all of the evil in the world just on the idea of agency. But if you believe that God is all powerful, then you have to believe that God already knew that the fall was going to happen. In which case you've got a couple of problems. One, why didn't God stop it? Why didn't he change it? Why didn't he intervene? Why didn't he set the different bounds of salvation to where even if Adam and Eve decided that they wanted a fruit cup that day, that it wouldn't condemn everyone to hell? Because he already knew that when he created it. So one thing that John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards and Latter Day Saints certainly have in common is we believe that God has a plan and that God started out with that plan and he created that plan and that's the point of our existence. But what that plan is and who we are in it couldn't actually be further from what our reality is.
- [11:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
One thing that might be helpful to explain is how perhaps kind of standard mainstream Christianity views the Fall from the garden and where we would be without it versus the way Latter Day Saints view it, right?
- [11:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
So for most Christians, and again, you could find all kinds of varying levels, but most Christians view Adam and Eve incredibly negatively. Why? Because it's only a Latter Day Saint belief that Adam and Eve would not have been able to have had children had they not partaken of the fruit. Christians believe that had Adam and Eve not partaken of the fruit, we'd all still be living, you know, in the penthouse of, you know, of, of Garden of Eden. And there wouldn't be any mosquitoes and there wouldn't be any death and there wouldn't be any sadness and, and there'd be no sin in the world. And so Christians see Adam and Eve as essentially having ruined the world. Now that still begs the question, if God knew when he created Adam and Eve because again, he created them out of nothing in Christian theology, if God knew when he created them, and in fact, because he's God, he actually knew before he created them. He knew when he was thinking about creating them if he knew that they wouldn't just fall, but they would irredeemably condemn every, the 14 billion people who've ever lived on this earth to almost certain hellfire because of their fall? Why didn't God a, build a better Adam and Eve who were allergic to fruit or, you know, didn't you know only like, you know, you know, white sugar and didn't, you know, didn't like it in their fructose or, or change the bounds of that fall. Could God have made it so that Adam and Eve were only responsible for their own sins in the Fall? If you say that he couldn't have. Well, that's kind of a problem if you're saying God's all powerful and so what you're left with is you have to come to the conclusion. And this is the difference, I think, between Calvinist theologians and, you know, Arminian theologians, other theologians that want to kind of remove this question from God. They want to paint a lot of, a lot of the. It's all on our heads, right? We sin, we are sinners, which certainly we are, but Calvin is not willing to just say that because yes, we're all sinners, but if you say that God didn't know that we were going to be sinners, then what in the world are you saying about God's knowledge? I created these things out of nothing, these creatures of mine, but unfortunately I had no idea they were going to fall. And so Calvin comes to the only conclusion you can actually come to if you have a belief in an all powerful God. And that is God absolutely knew as he was creating everyone that they would fall and that they would most likely all of them burn in hell forever. And you know, an Arminian theologian would say, well God might have known that, but he didn't cause that. To which a Calvinist would respond, that's kind of a distinction without a difference because he's the one who created the plan and he's the one who created the them. So why didn't he create a different plan or create a different them? The Calvinist conclusion is because he didn't want to. For Calvin, God is ultimately sovereign. He does exactly what he intends to do. It's actually the best part about being all powerful is you do exactly what you intend to do. You're not surprised by it. You aren't thrown for a loop. My goodness, I thought Richard was going to be a more righteous guy than he was. He already knew that he wasn't going to be. I was just throwing the name Richard out. I didn't, it was not me. Another, there are lots of. Richard Nixon is actually who I was talking about. But anyway, that the point is Calvin is, is believes that any attempt to try to explain away the plan that God created is, is really taking away power and glory away from God. Which is certainly what Jonathan Edwards is saying in this sermon to give you an idea of how far this logic takes you. And this is the kind of thought that would have existed in Joseph Smith's time as well. This is what he would have heard in that Presbyterian Church growing up with his mom. Again, Jonathan Edwards, quote, he created people. God created people that he knew would not be saved to demonstrate his justice. So, so one of the very hard conclusions you have to come to when you, when you come to the admission that that God is truly all powerful, meaning he actually does everything he wants to do, is that God must never have intended to save most people. Now all Protestants and frankly all Christians, but to the Catholic Church they have, you know, certain sacraments that are also required. But all Protestants believe that you have to have faith in Jesus to be saved. Well, you don't have to look around you too far in the world to realize that most people who live in the world and most people who ever lived in the world are not Protestants who have faith in Jesus. So what does that mean? At a minimum, most people who've ever lived on this earth or whoever will live on their earth, most over 50%, are going to hell because they didn't have faith in Jesus. Now, of course, for Calvin, that's not unfair, because the reality is they're sinners. We're all sinners. It's not unjust of God to send us to hell. We every. Everyone listening to this podcast, if you're still listening, you're probably not anymore, but that's just further proof of what a sinner you are, right? I mean, every single person who's. Who, who is listening to this, every person who exists has at some point known exactly what God wanted them to do and said, I don't care. This is what I want, and selfishly sinned if God sends that person to hell. Well, as far as Calvin's concerned, that's not God sending, it's you sending yourself to hell. You chose this. You chose it well. We'll talk more about Calvinism and Armenianism in another lecture. But this is the idea that is there, that exists in Joseph Smith's time. God shouldn't save anyone. We are all wicked, corrupt creations of his. Because God is good, he chooses to save some very, very, very few people. This is the whole reason why you might have heard, you know the story of Alvin's funeral, right? Joseph's brother Alvin, who is, you know, so dear to Joseph, so important to the family, such an important guy, right? Well, his mother, who belongs to the Presbyterian Church in town, that Presbyterian minister comes to give the, the sermon at Alvin's, you know, funeral. Well, this is a trap. This is a tragedy. He is a young man. He is the most important breadwinner of the whole Smith family, Joseph and Hyrum. They look up to Alvin. Alvin is their hero, essentially. And, and, and he dies, and he dies tragically, and he dies early. And he had embraced Joseph's first vision. He'd embraced the fact that Joseph had an angel appear to him. Now, Joseph hadn't been able to get the plates yet right before Alvin died, but Alvin had accepted that. And so what does this minister say, at least according to Lucy Maxmith, that Alvin is clearly in hell. Now, that's not exactly the kind of funeral sermon you want your bishop to deliver when, when Someone you love dies. Usually you don't want to say, oh, yeah, make sure you emphasize the fact that he's rotting in hell. But the reality is this is the. The mindset of that minister. The reality that minister is this. Alvin never joined a church. Alvin never chose to demonstrate he was converted to Christ by getting baptized. Alvin must not have been chosen by God to be saved, because if he had been, he would have said, you know what? I need to get baptized. I need to join the Presbyterian Church. You know, if he had been saved, he would have made manifestation of that through his actions.
- [20:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So I know this happened to me several times on my. On my mission where we would tracked into people who lost a child at, you know, early. Early on in the child's life and at that funeral, or maybe not at the funeral, but in the comforting period that they had church leaders tell them similar things. And it was one of those things that was, you know, it was a beautiful opportunity for us to be able to share. But this is still a pretty common understanding, even though there's a bend toward. I'm sure that there's a way or that God's more fair, but this is still something that's taught or common.
- [21:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
Well, I was actually listening to a Calvinist theologian just over the weekend, which. Which is actually saying it out loud sounds a lot worse than it. I mean, so I do have a life. I have a family. Okay. But at the same time, apparently I decided I was just gonna. You know, I was listening to nine or 10 sermons from a prominent Calvinist theologian. The question was asked by someone in the audience. So this was not, you know, 200 years ago, this was about five years ago that the sermon was given. And the person asked, well, what about, you know, if you have to have faith to be saved, what about children who aren't capable of manifesting that faith? And this guy, look, this guy knows his Bible backwards and forwards, and he is all about the glory of God. And even his response was, we don't really know, because to him, if it's not in the Bible, then it's not true. And he said, you know, there are some ways that some biblical passages have been interpreted to say that. That children would be saved even if they weren't old enough to manifest faith. And then he quoted, you know, from John MacArthur's books, you know, saved by. In the arms of his love or something like that, and. And said, yeah, that, you know, there's at least the tendency towards believing that those little children are saved, but that's not the same thing as, as, as having. And the reason why he was hesitant is because he's true to his faith. And that is, if it doesn't say it in the Bible, then you can't be adamant about it.
- [22:54]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, you had a similar, well, an experience at the University of Colorado, right?
- [22:58]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
Yeah, I was at the University of Colorado, which is not known as a super pro Christian school.
- [23:03]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You weren't in their seminary or.
- [23:04]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmot
Yeah, you know, there were probably more atheists than there were Christians on campus. But I mean, there was a street preacher that would come and he would set up right outside the commons area where the, where the students would go eat. And, and frankly, I was very impressed with this guy just for his courage alone, because he would come and set up his little table and, and he'd be right outside there and every person who would talk to him was just attacking him. And, you know, just. It was crazy. There was even a professor in the department I was in who stopped and for like three hours harangued and harassed this guy about how, I mean, so what, I mean, he's, he's preaching the word as he knows it, right? I went up to his table and of course I didn't tell him I was a Mormon because I didn't want him to immediately have a conversation about polygamy and whatever. So. So I just went up and he was handing out a pamphlet, and the pamphlet had a picture of a guy with his face exploding, which is, by the way, pretty good effects. If our missionaries handed out pamphlets with someone's face exploding, people would pay attention. So that's, we need to like, look into that. Just putting that up there for the first presidency. But anyway, maybe someone contact the missionary department. Anyway, his is exploding and in that explosion are the words, why good people burn in hell. That's the pamphlet he was handing out, which is again, like, that is a pretty positive pamphlet. I mean, who wouldn't want to hear the pamphlet of why good people burn in hell? But anyway, so, and we had a conversation and of course what it, what it rested on was this theology that if you don't have faith in Jesus, and of course in this life, the idea that anyone can accept Jesus after this life doesn't exist in Christianity. Okay. One of the things that as a Latter Day Saint, we take a great deal for granted is the idea that everyone's going to have an equal opportunity. We'll have a whole nother podcast about that if we aren't immediately canceled for this one. But for fundamentally, as this guy's talking to me, well, you absolutely have to have faith in Jesus. And so I kind of gamed it out for him. I said, well, but if you have to have faith in Jesus while you're alive, I mean, you know, not even 50% of the world's Christian today, and a bunch of them are Catholic. Oh, yeah. I don't know if most Catholics have faith. You know, he didn't want to accept Catholic faith in Jesus. And I said, well, and there's more Christians in the world now than there ever have been. I mean, by that rationale, if you have to have faith in Jesus in order to be saved, I would guess that somewhere around 90% of every person who's ever lived on the earth is going to go to hell. And he looked at me really angrily. He's like, 90%, and oh, I guess I overshot it. You know what I mean? He's going to come back with something lower. And how dare you accuse God of this? He said, 90%. Don't you think it's going to be a lot higher than that? I was frankly stymied. I'm not even entirely sure I know anything that is a lot higher than 90%. Certainly never got anything higher than a 90% on any paper I did. So, I mean, his worldview was God had created almost everyone for his own will and pleasure, knowing that they would all go to hell. And when I asked him, well, why would God create everyone to go to hell? And he said, it's God's pleasure. Who are you to even question the designs of God? You must not be a saved person or you wouldn't even ask that question. So you can see how that responds. So let's get into some of Joseph Smith's theology, because you just, you know, at this point, you feel like you've accidentally stumbled across the sounds of Sunday of some other religion. But the, the, the, the starting point of this, right, Remember, the point of God's creation, as far as Jonathan Edwards is concerned, is God created us to demonstrate his glory, right? But in so doing, he created people that he knew he would fall to demonstrate his goodness. He created people that he knew would not be saved, people that never had. They never had a chance to be saved. You want to talk about unfairness? This person that God created out of nothing, they didn't ask to be created. God created them. God gave them an immortal spirit. And the entire time God was doing that, he knew they not only wouldn't choose to except Jesus. They wouldn't even hear the word Jesus in Their life, they literally never had a chance. It's God's will. That would be the response. Instead, early on in Joseph Smith's ministry, he receives one of the most powerful revelations that we don't spend enough time on. We don't realize how incredible it is because we're not thinking of it in the timeline of Joseph Smith's theology. But the book of Moses in Europe, great price is astounding to me. It is so far ahead of any of Joseph Smith's other revelations that it's actually hard to figure out how Joseph received it when he did. He receives it in June of 1830. The church is just. The church has just been founded. They don't even have deacons yet. And Joseph receives. They don't have. They won't have bishops for another eight months. They don't have a quorum of the 12 apostles. And Joseph's receiving the book of Moses as this revelation. And what's in that? Again, very familiar to all of you, but think of how different it is from what I just read, right? God created us to demonstrate his glory. Worlds without number. This is verse 33, Moses 1. And worlds without number have I created. And also I created them for mine own purpose. And by the Son I created them. Which is mine only begotten. And the first of all men I've called Adam, which is many, but only an account of this earth and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power, and there are many that now stand and. And innumerable are they to unto man, but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine, and I know them. So first and foremost, the traditional Christian belief that the only place that God created his creations is here is being rejected by this. That in fact there are innumerable worlds that are peopled, and that many have come and passed away. So second verse 36. And it came to pass that Moses spake unto the Lord, saying, be merciful unto thy servant, O God. And. And tell me concerning this earth and the inhabitants thereof, and also the heavens, and then thy servant will be content. And the Lord spake into Moses, saying, the heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man, but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine. And as one earth shall pass away in the heavens thereof, even so shall another come. And there is no end to my works, neither to my words. For behold, this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Now that is A very different statement of how God gets glory. Jonathan Edwards just told us that God received glory by demonstrating. He demonstrated his already existing. He can't gain more glory because he already has all glory, but he demonstrated his glory by creating a sinful world and people that wouldn't be saved and that demonstrated his glory. Here Moses is being told by God and Joseph Smith is receiving this by revelation that it actually is God's goal, it is his work, it is his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. He didn't create man to demonstrate his glory because of how sinful they were going to be. He created man so they could have eternal life, so that he could have glory. Now, that is a pretty stark difference, as you might imagine. But we want to get to doctrine cover section 93, because that is the one that really answers the question that we postulated in the the first place. Now, again, make sure you've listened to podcast one and, you know, taken copious notes and cheated off of your neighbor, whatever you have to do to be up to speed. One of the questions we had was about when exactly would Jesus, when did Jesus gain the fullness of the Father? Right? Because was Jesus, as we talked about last time, was he a baby in the manger, but also creating worlds? Was he spitting up? Because look, if he's fully God from the time he's born, and what's the definition of God? He has all power. So was Jesus ever not God? And the councils come down and say, no, he's both fully human and fully God all the time. Meaning that you have to say that when Jesus was 12 years old, he already had all of the power. He was always God. When he was 12 months old, he already had all the power of God. If, if you say anything else, then what you're saying is there was a time that Jesus didn't have all the power of God. And that's what we're going to talk about in section 93 in this, in this revelation, as they're discussing things the way that Joseph is going to receive. This is an expansion of John chapter one in the Bible. Now, John Chapter one has probably one of the most iconic openings in all of Christian thought. Right in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's how it starts, right? The beginning of the Word, that Word, the Logos, is this reference to Jesus. So part of the reason why the early Christian church was so desperate to maintain the fact that Jesus was in fact God, to the point where it created trinitarian theology is John, chapter one, John one, verse one. In the beginning. So in the beginning, before there was anything, there was Jesus. Right? And Jesus was, was, was God and was also with God. Okay? That. That in and of itself is testifying to the divine, the divinity of Jesus. And in fact, right. Jesus testifies of his own divinity. Right. Part of the reason why in the book of John, which is the, the book that most fully declares Jesus's divinity in, in the New Testament, meaning again, divinity, meaning God, one of the reasons why Jews attempt to stone him is he says, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced in it. And they said to him, well, you aren't even 50 years old yet and you've seen Abraham. And Jesus says, before Abraham was I am. Now that sounds like Jesus just doesn't have the grammar downright. Because you think you should have said, before Abraham I was. But that is not the reference. The reference is to Moses. When the burning bush is appearing to Moses and Moses asks the burning bush, who should I tell the children of Israel? Who should I tell them you are? And he says, I am. Tell them I am sent you. So when Jesus says, before Abraham was I am, he is making not only a declaration of his, you know, prophethood, he is making a declaration that he is in fact Jehovah, that he was the God of the Old Testament, that he was I am, which of course he is. So that's fine for us. Not as fine if you're a Pharisee, but it's what we believe. So this revelation that Joseph receives DNC 93 is going to expand upon. So. So it would be helpful for you to go read John Chapter one in, in the New Testament right now. Go read John Chapter one. And I mean, maybe should we read it? We could read it. Should we read. Let's. Let's read John Chapter one. Let's. Let's pull open our Scriptures. And by that I mean open my phone and we'll read that first part of John chapter one. Okay, Here it is. John chapter one. Okay. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made. That was made in him was life. And the life was the light of men. And the light shall shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe he was not that light, but he was sent to bear witness of that light that was true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not, but as many as received him. To them he gave power to be sons of God, even them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God and the Word again, Jesus was made flesh, and he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. And the glory was at the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And I, John, sorry. And John, John, bear witness of him and cried, saying, this was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness have all we received and grace for grace. Okay, so that's the first 16 verses of John. It's beautiful. It's. It really is some of the most beautiful Christian literature that that's written. I mean, if you don't think that that's beautiful prose, then, you know, you, you're. I don't know what, what dime store novel you like reading, but that, that is, it's beautiful. But it also leads to some questions that you can see that if Jesus was with God and Jesus was God, then does that mean God and Jesus are the same being. Right. And this is kind of where you're getting this idea of a trinitarian God, certainly one of the arguments for it. But in Dr. Covenant section 93, you're going to have a different focus, but an expansion of an expansion of John chapter one in the New Testament. Now, once again, this is an amazing revelation because it, as Joseph is going to explain this is from. This is. Is going to be this expansion. But Joseph doesn't have a new, you know, Greek manuscript in, in front of him that he just. Oh, I. I made a quick trip to Ephesus, found this and came back and gave it. God is giving him this revelation which is an expansion of the words of John without actually. Without. Without actually having a different manuscript. So let me start reading with parts of this. Verily, thus saith the Lord, it shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calls on my name, and obeyeth my voice and keepeth my commandments shall see my face and know that I am and that I am true light, and lighteth every man that cometh into the world. So you can see that very similar to to John. And I am in the Father, and the Father in me. And the Father and I are one. The Father because He gave me of his fullness, the Son, because I was in the world and made flesh by my tabernacle and dwelt among the sons of men, I was in the world and received of my Father. And the works of him were plainly manifest. And John saw and bore record of the fullness of my glory. And the fullness of John's record is hereafter to be revealed. So God in this revelation is going to say, here is the rest of what John said or what he recorded. He bore record saying, I saw his glory, that he was in the beginning, before the world was. Therefore in the beginning the Word was. For he was the Word, even the messenger of salvation, the Light and the Redeemer of the world, the Spirit of truth who came into the world because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men. The worlds were made by him, men were made by him, all things were made by him, and through him, and of him. Now note, remember we just read almost exactly that from the book of Moses, right? That the same idea that Joseph's had revealed to him actually, you know, three years earlier then beginning with verse 11. And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh and dwelt among us. And here comes the great departure from Christian theology. And I, John saw that he received not of the fullness at first, but received grace for grace. And he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness. And thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fullness at first. So even though the council of Chalcedon has has said Jesus was fully God and fully human always in his existence, he was always all of it. He always was. Here this revelation is saying that when Jesus came into the world, he did not receive a fullness of the Father at first. Now the implications of that are pretty big. And John actually tells us when. The revelation tells us when Jesus did receive the fullness of the Father. And I, John, bear record, and lo, the heavens were open and the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove and sat upon him. And there came a voice out of heaven saying, this is my beloved Son. Something that would have been very familiar certainly to Joseph and I. John, bear record that he received a fullness of the glory of the Father, and he received all power, both in heaven and on earth. And the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him. So this explanation is that Jesus did not have all power until after his baptism, that after that, after he has that experience where the Holy Ghost descended, then he receives, he received all power, both in heaven and on earth. So what does that mean before that? That whatever power Jesus had, it wasn't all of the power. Now, frankly, this is an idea that is terrifying to a traditional Christian because what it means is there was a time when Jesus didn't have all of the power of God. To me, it's a beautiful thing. It actually helps me understand the atonement even more so helps me appreciate it even more, more, because what it means is that Jesus, who was Jehovah, right, Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus is the one dropping fire for Elijah. Jesus is the one parting the Red Sea so that the children of Israel can cross through. Jesus is the God they worship in the Old Testament, which means he was by definition omnipotent and omniscient and all benevolent. He had all of the power that existed and chose to become flesh and not just become flesh, meaning, oh, that means he can suffer. Part of that process is apparently passing through a veil to where even Jesus, even the Son of God, even Jehovah, who was God from the beginning, did not fully have all of the power of God when he was first born. It's interesting. It's given me a lot greater appreciation for the conversation that Nephi has in. In his vision, right? He's asked by. That. He's asked the question in First Nephi, Chapter 11, where, you know, the Spirit of the Lord is appearing to Nephi and helping interpret, interpret all these things that is that Lehi saw, and it's in verse. Well, let's start with 13. He says, and it came to pass that I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth. And in the city of Nazareth, I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open and an angel come down and stood before me. So. So now it's going to be an angel here, right? And he said unto me, nephi, what beholdest thou? And I said, in him a virgin most beautiful and fair, above all other virgins. And so then the angel says to him, knowest thou the condescension of God? That's a very interesting phrase. Usually when we use the word condescension, we use it kind of negatively and because someone's kind of being a jerk to us, right? Man, that Richard is so condescending when he talks to me. Again, not me, Richard Nixon, still Richard Nixon. That, that he's so condescending, just thinks he's so much better than me. But in this question, knowest thou the condescension of God? Or, or this idea of, of coming from a higher to a lower state, which is really what it means to, to descend with them, right? Condescension. Nephi gets asked this question by the angel, and I love it. This is my favorite part of, of first Nephi, because Nephi turns into every student I've ever had, you know, when, when they don't know the answer, right? And this is a great thing to do when you don't know the answer, right? Because the, the angel says, knowest thou the condescension of God? And Nephi's response is, I know that he loves his children. Nevertheless, I don't know the meaning of all things, so I love it. Like Nephi is asked a question, do you understand the condescension of God? And Nephi's response is to answer a completely different question. Well, I know he loves people. Thanks, Nephi. But what we wanted from you was, do you understand the condescension of God? Not, you know, it's almost as if, it's almost as if you asked, you know, Nephi, Nephi, what are the, you know, what are the, the, the, the books in the New Testament? I, I, I know that, that Malachi is in the Old Testament. Thanks, Nephi. Let's find someone else who can give us an answer. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, obviously I'm being a little trite and comical about it, but the reality is that Nephi doesn't know. He doesn't know what that means. And the angel is going to tell him. He said, and behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God after the manner of the flesh. And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the spirit. And after she'd been carried away in the spirit for a space of time, the angel spake in me, saying, look. And I looked and beheld the virgin again bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said to me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Father. So he's, he's explaining the condescension of God. Is that Jehovah who you are worshiping right now, the God of Israel is going to condescend not just to come to this filthy earth, right, but that he's actually going to pass through some type of veil and become someone without the knowledge that he has now and that he has to in at least some way grow to who he is going to be now. Look, this is, this is some serious blasphemy if you happen to be a Christian. The very fact that I'm saying that Jesus. There was a time that Jesus didn't know everything, that he didn't have all of the power. Well that's because he gave it up. He went from being an immortal, omnipotent God to becoming mortal, still the Son of God, still obviously different than the rest, still going to live a perfect life, but gave up that immortal, I mean that, that omnipotent power and gave it up and began as we see in verse 12, he received not of the fullness at first. So if you have to ask the question, was Jesus in the manger creating universes according to doctrine, covenant, section 93, I don't think so. I don't think that Jesus was pretending to be a baby. I think Jesus passed through a veil. Only that veil was incomprehensibly more stark for him because he went from being the creator of the heavens and the earth and all things that in them are, to being a baby. The condescension of God that he goes from absolute power to being a baby is, is frankly one of the aspects of Jesus's sacrifice that I know I don't focus on enough, but that eventually he's going to receive that power, that he received a fullness of the glory of the Father and he received all power both in heaven and on earth. But there was a time then that he didn't have that. And that's the, the blasphemous part of it. And so it changes, you know, the standard Christian understanding that Jesus is both fully God and fully human at all times. We, because of doctrine covered section 93, can take very literally the scriptures that say that the child grew and waxed strong, right? That, that he gained knowledge. Well, how can an omnipotent all powerful God who knows everything gain any knowledge? I can tell you they can't. Which is the reason why a Christian would see doctrine Covenant Section 93 as being blasphemous. Now that idea that Jesus came into the world and gave up what he was before so that he might somehow save us as sinners is beautiful, but it's not the only part of what it is we, we need to know about this. In fact, if you go to the very next verse, verse 18, so, so after verse 17 where it says that Jesus received all power both in heaven and on earth, verse 18 then says this, which if your Christian friend didn't think you were a blasphemer, believing in the wrong Jesus before, all they need to do is read verse 18. And it shall come to pass that if you are faithful, you shall receive the fullness of the record of John. And I give unto these sayings that you may know how to worship and know what you worship that you may come unto the Father in My name. And this is the kicker. And in due time receive of his fullness. Now that phrase that he might, you might receive of the God's fullness sounds like it could be a throwaway line in Christianity. Oh, of course you're going to receive the full fullness, God. Not given the context of what we are just talking about. We are talking about how it is that Jesus came to have all of the power of God both in heaven and on earth. He received a fullness of the glory of His Father. And you drop down to verse 18 and 19, verse 19. That ye may come to the Father in My name and in due time receive of his fullness. How in the world could you possibly do that? For if you keep My commandments. This is verse 20, you shall receive of his fullness. And again, this is, you know, where the train has left traditional Christianity track for all time. For if you keep my commandments, you shall receive of his fullness and be glorified in Me as I am in the Father. Therefore I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. This is a mind boggling, it's hard for me to comprehend reading this and I'm trying to study it, I'm writing about it, which probably just demonstrates I'm not a very good scholar, but it's such a mind expanding idea that the same way that Jesus learned grace for grace and gained the fullness of His Father, that somehow, even though I'm nothing like Jesus, even though I have not even a part of me that has any part of the holiness that Jesus had somehow in due time, which I'm guessing means literally forever in my case, but in due time, that you could receive the fullness of the Father and you shall receive grace. For grace. That is, is a stunning idea. It's coupled with another idea that's going to come a little bit later in section 93, but because we've kind of already gone a little bit long here, I think we want to leave here with this understanding of the nature of Jesus. But notice that the reason why I think this matters isn't just about the nature of Jesus. This isn't just so you can have an argument about, you know, which council in the Christian church did a better job. Because that's not what the revelation is about. The revelation is about you understanding the nature of Christ. Why do you need to understand the nature of Christ? So that you can understand your own nature. And so what we're going to talk about next time is the second part of Doctrine Covenant, Section 93. I know that you're like, I'm done with it. I don't want to hear any more section 93. But you know, it's coming for you anyway, so. So this last bit of payoff. Look, let me, let me give you the teaser, okay? If you want more blasphemy, if you want to know why it is when your Christian friend says Mormons aren't Christians, if you want that. If this first part of DNC93 isn't enough for you, when we get to the second part of DNC93, it will be enough for the Inquisition to be, you know, convened. So, so come back and listen to Part 3 of Doctrine Covenant, Section 93, and, and hopefully at least what we have here, you can feel the Holy Spirit of God testify to you that this really is a true revelation, that Moses, that the book of Moses is a true revelation to Joseph Smith talking about the actual nature of who we are. And that real nature of who you are is what the second part of DNC93 is going to talk about. So we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.