King Noah is not to be confused with the Noah who built the ark. King Noah was a wicked man ruled by his appetites and passions, who advertised and encouraged his subjects to follow him in his debaucheries. His priests were all corrupt and had twisted the scriptures so much as to have no understanding about what the Law of Moses taught or what prophets like Isaiah were teaching about the coming of Christ.
Abinadi was commanded by God to preach the gospel one last time to King Noah and his priests and warn them that if they didn’t repent, destruction was coming. And because I believe in spoilers, I’ll let you know now that after he finished his sermon, all but one of Noah’s priests pressed the king to kill Abinadi, and so Abinadi was burned to death—and much unhappiness followed these wicked people.
Abinadi’s full available sermon can be found in Mosiah 12-16. In it, he discusses the Ten Commandments, the mission of Christ, explains the prophecies of Isaiah, salvation of little children, and the effect the resurrection has on mankind. Most of it fairly straightforward stuff.
But there’s been one section of the sermon that has confused me for years, ever since I was in high school seminary. It is in the beginning of Mosiah 15, where it talks about how Christ is both the Father and the Son:
“I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and the Son—And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth. And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people…even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father.” (Mosiah 15:1-5, 7; emphasis added)
This business of Christbeing and becoming the Father and the Son was very troubling to me in light of the Latter-day Saint view of the Godhead. We don’t believe in one God that has three different personalities or phases; our belief is in three distinct persons who are one God in purpose. In Joseph Smith’s First Vision, he was visited by “two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Joseph Smith—History 1:17; italics in the original document) Just from that, we already believe that God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ, are two distinct beings.
We learn about the Godhead’s state of existence in later revelation, and learn that “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” (D&C 130:22)
They have their own individual functions in our salvation, which Paul beautifully describes in closing his epistle, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.” (2 Cor. 13:14; emphasis added) I could go into how each function is important, but that is better saved for another time.
The point I’m trying to make is that even though they are separate beings does not contradict them being one. Christ’s intercessory prayer made that very clear to me; as he prays for the Twelve and the saints, he prays, “…for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one…” (John 17: 20-23)
Christ prayed that the Twelve and the saints would be one in the same way that he and our Heavenly Father were one; not in becoming the same being, but rather being one in purpose, or being agreed or unified in the mission to bear witness and to help bring about the salvation of mankind.
It was a very clear doctrine to me. But now I read Abinadi’s sermon, and now Christ is being called both the Father and the Son. Something was not making sense with my own doctrine.
Fortunately, I came across a statement from the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve made in 1916. This was reprinted in the April 2002 Ensign, under “The Father and the Son.” Actually, the best thing I could suggest is to read this article, as it answers this question better than I could. It’s pretty easy to find on www.lds.org.
The summary is that while God the Father is the literal father of our spirits and the Father of both Christ’s spirit and physical body, Christ also bears the title of Father as well as Son. And in Abinadi’s sermon, the important thing to remember is that when he talks about God, he is referring strictly to Christ.
Let’s look at verse 2 in Mosiah 15: “…because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God…” Okay, that one is self-explanatory. God conceived Christ, therefore he must be the Son. Here’s where it gets fun: “…having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—”
In the 1916 statement, a term is introduced called “divine investiture.” The example used in the statement is the angel from Revelations. When the holy messenger appears, the Apostle John bows and begins to worship, but the angel forbids him to do so as he is merely his fellow-servant. But then the angel speaks to John as if he were Christ, telling John, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” (Rev. 22:13)
The angel was divinely invested, or given the right, to represent Christ before John. In much the same way, Christ has been given his own divine investiture, or right, to represent our Heavenly Father and speak in the Father’s own words. It’s yet another way showing how they are one, or unified, in all that they do.
(Of course, because I can’t leave any stone unturned, I have to take a small tangent in what this verse teaches about Christ. Christ has subjected the flesh to the Father’s will. The easy explanation is that he was obedient entirely to his Father, which is true enough. But remember, every reference Abinadi makes about God is specifically referring to Christ, and this one can teach us much about ourselves.
The “flesh” is also referred to as the “natural man,” or our mortal desires and appetites. In King Benjamin’s sermon, he says, “…the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord…” (Mosiah 3:19)
Our fleshly or natural desires are to feed the physical, mental, and emotional appetites that the body hungers for. We are born in a fallen condition and so was Christ. The condescension of God was that Christ was born into a fallen state, with a mortal body that was subject to death and the same appetites that we deal with. If it weren’t, I can’t imagine that Satan would have even bothered to tempt him on those several occasions. A great difference between us and Christ is that where we have to put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement, Christ needed no atonement. If you replace one word in the Abinadi verse, it can read like so,“having subjected the flesh to the will of [Christ], being the Father and the Son.”
Christ used his own agency to command, like the God he is. He was not mastered by the flesh as we so often are; he was the master.)
Moving onto verse 3, we see that Christ is “The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God…”
What is the power of God? The Priesthood. Latter-day Saints make a large deal about priesthood, because it is only by God’s power that anything has any eternal permanence or force. We call it the Melchizedek priesthood because Melchizedek was such a righteous high priest within the priesthood order, but we know that “before his day it was called the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God.” (D&C 107:3; italics in original)
The Priesthood belongs to Christ, and it was by his Priesthood that he was conceived. Christ can rightfully be called the Father because it was and is his power for all eternity.
“…and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and the Son—”
Because he was born, he had to be the Son. This does not require great explanation. However, I hope this helps make clear how where before, Abinadi talked of Christ being the Father and the Son, in this verse, it’s shown how the priesthood also let Christ become the Father and the Son.
Or maybe I irreparably confused you. That does happen a bit.
The point is, it should be clear that “they are one God” because Abinadi has been talking about the same person the entire time; he’s just been referring to Christ by two distinct titles. It also should make clear how in verse 7, “the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father”shows how the flesh of Christ was completely swallowed by his undeviating purpose to save all mankind. Christ, as always, is the master.
Another way that Christ is the Father is shown in verse 4, that Christ is “the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.” Jesus Christ is Jehovah, who created heaven and earth in the Genesis account and the other revealed scriptures we have of the Creation. He is the Father of the world in which we live and the one in which we will go to after this life.
This wraps up the doctrine that confused me. My trouble had been in understanding how Christ could be both Father and Son, and these little discoveries helped me understand and draw a little closer to him.
But there is always one more thing to learn. In this case, it’s another way that Christ claims the title of Father, and is frankly, the most marvelous to me. Abinadi explains this a little later in his sermon:
“And now I say unto you, who shall declare his generation? Behold, I say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed? Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.” (Mosiah 15:10-11)
Those who accept the Atonement of Christ, they who have faith in him and repent, become his seed. In short, Christ is the Father of the righteous.
There’s an interesting principle of adoption that seems to be in place here and it only seems fair. As our Heavenly Father is the father of our spirits, and our mortal fathers would be the fathers of our physical bodies, those who reach out for the Atonement accept Christ as their father as well. Just thinking of our baptismal covenants, one of the promises we make is to take Christ’s name upon ourselves; yet another way that we become one with him. Certainly binding ourselves to Christ through this covenant would mean entering his family of the righteous.
Christ himself said,“In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe in my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.” (Ether 3:14; emphasis added.)
