Category: Articles of Faith

The Promised Blessings of Virtue

Our ward has challenged each family to achieve the Virtue Value award.

The first written requirement is to write the promised blessings of being sexually clean and pure. Here is my response:

What are the promised blessings of a virtuous life?

  • Such a life can be summoned up with the constant presence, influence, and sanctification of the Holy Ghost.
  • It will allow me to have the influence of the Light of Christ in my mind and in my heart. This is the same power and influence that created the world.

The Gift of the Holy Ghost

On the day of Pentecost, Peter admonished all those within ear shot to “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 3:28)

The gift is an endowment of divine grace and goodness. An endowment is a gift donated by a benefactor for the use of others on conditions specified by the giver.

There is a difference between the Holy Ghost and the gift of the Holy Ghost (History of the Church, 4:555.) The Holy Ghost is a personage of Spirit (D&C 130:22) while the gift of the Holy Ghost is the right to receive the companionship and association of the Spirit.

Melchizedek Power vs. Man’s Force

The Power of the Melchizedek Priesthood is unlike anything found within the world of man. Man uses force to accomplish his secular and base desires. God uses power.

Power allows all people their agency; force removes agency.

Power allows all people to say no; force forbids dissent.

Power edifies, satisfies, glorifies, and brightens; force tears down, is insatiable, isolates, and darkens.

God swore an oath unto Enoch that “everyone ordained after this order (Melchizedek) and calling should have POWER by faith to…”

  • Break mountains
  • Divide the seas
  • Dry up waters
  • Turn them out of their course

Faith vs. Knowledge – con’t

Which comes first, faith or knowledge?

Is faith a vague uncertain hope in something that, with proper attention grows into knowledge? Or is faith something that grows based on a foundation of knowledge?

Faith, as I understand it, carries two levels of commitment and two levels of knowledge. The first level is that of action. You exercise your faith that you may receive an answer, direction, confirmation, clarity, or greater knowledge. In order to exercise said faith, it must be based on something.

Which comes first: Knowledge or Faith?

Is faith an action that sprouts knowledge? Does the action come first before knowledge is present or created?

Or is faith based upon truth and existing knowledge? Is faith therefore, something that grows out of and comes because of a prior knowledge of the truth?

Answer: Faith is the child of knowledge! It is reserved for those only who first have knowledge; there neither is nor can be any faith until there is knowledge. No one can have faith in a God of whom he knows nothing. No one can have faith unto life and salvation in a false god; no idol ever had power to raise the dead or stop the sun. (McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, pg. 166.)

True Doctrine of God

Accepting the true doctrine of the Fall is also accepting Jesus as the Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father, and a separate, glorified and eternal Being as the Second God of the godhead. Having faith in Jesus Christ means you know His true identity (John 17:3).

Believing in a Christ that is of one substance with the Father may bring about many blessings and be a strength to the soul, but it is not worshipping God as commanded in Exodus 20:3

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Adam = mortality; Christ = immortality

Therefore, as Adam brought about mortality, Christ brought about immortality and for those who accept Him, eternal life. But, if Adam had not partaken of the fruit, there would be no need for Jesus Christ, and Lucifer would never have had to display his incredible temper and prideful, rebellious personality.

The fall is the child of the creation and the atonement is the child of the fall (McConkie, A New Witness for the Article of Faith, pg. 81). Salvation was made available in and through the creation, the fall, and the atonement. These three are each part of one divine plan.

I and my Father are One

Perhaps the primary example of scripture in support of the one substanced god without body, parts, and passions is John 10:30.

“I and my Father are one.”

At the cost of critical thinking, which is to say, never to question the accepted incomprehensible dogma of centuries, this scripture seems to overlook the potential connection to the word purpose. Is it possible Christ meant one in purpose?

  • John 17:20-21
    • That they may all be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee…
      • Are we to assume that Jesus wants the Quorum of the Twelve to absorb into one entity with the Father and the Holy Ghost and become 15?

The Fall, the Atonement, and Mercy

Just as God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are one in purpose but three distinct beings, so the pillars of the gospel share a like similitude. Although we view the atonement as the center and core of our religion, without the fall, there is no atonement.

Adam’s fall brought about temporal and spiritual death and from this death all must be ransomed. The ransoming act must be carried out by a person without sin and He must be known to all creations.  (This is the primary source of God’s power; see D&C 29:36).

A Trinity of Purpose, Beings, and Pillars

The three greatest events ever to occur are:

  1. The Creation
  2. The Fall
  3. The Atonement

They are inseparably woven together in to a tapestry exactly as the Godhead is woven into a numeric count of one.

To most of Christianity, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are mysteriously connected into a single essence or substance. This is often called the Trinity Doctrine.

The history of the Catholic Church seems to be swept under the rug and the argument between Arias and Athanasius all but dismissed (James L. Barker, Apostasy From the Divine Church, pp. 238-271).

Exalting Faith

The Exalting Power of Faith

There is another level of faith that is not just an increase in valiancy but it is a magnitude of transcendent power even unto exaltation.

Alma explains that this level faith can know the mysteries of God. (Alma 26:22) What are the mysteries of God? This is deep doctrine. Not to be confused with fringe doctrine, deep doctrine consists of the restored gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith and the prophets, seers, and revelators since his time.

The Two Levels of Faith

Faith: a complete awareness of a power not discernable by the five senses of the body.

There are two primary levels of faith according to my understanding today.

The Basic Power of Faith

This level of faith starts the process to exaltation. We use this level of faith to obtain a testimony of truth (Lectures On Faith, p. 33). It’s the lowest common denominator discussed in church and at General Conference.

Faith is not a perfect knowledge. (Alma 32:21)

Zion: The New Jerusalem

10th Article of Faith

“That Zion shall be built upon this the American continent…”

Hugh Nibley: “When I was in high school everybody was being very smart and emancipated and we always cheered the news that some scholar had discovered the original story of Samson or the Flood or the Garden of Eden in some ancient nonbiblical writing or tradition.  It never occurred to anybody that these parallels might confirm rather than confound the scripture—for us the explanation was always perfectly obvious: the bible was just a clumsy compilation of old borrowed superstitions.