A brief summary explaining the King Follet Discourse and Sermon in the Grove and the meaning of "the father of the Father of Jesus":
This document will be based on my previous documents on Jehovah and Christ being identical twins as the "Twin Jehovahs" that Michael Heiser spoke of. A picture's worth a 1000 words, so it has been helpful to provide the following clip art by an LDS author as it will help us as we proceed by imagining Jesus and the Father-Jehovah as a duplicate genome, as "two glorious personages who exactly [resemble] each other in features, and likeness" (Wentworth Letter), as they are the same duplicate genetic being or genome:
(Source)
Jehovah and Jesus as Identical Genomes:
(Modified image from source)
In answering Joseph Smith's query when was there ever a son without a father, and his saying that the father of Jesus had a father in the King Follet Discourse, I will resolve this controversy by pointing out the three main references to divinity as a "father" in LDS Scripture, as basically 3 types of Fathers. The first "father" being explained in the doctrine of Lecture on Faith #2, that states there is the only one supreme being (the Deity) who is called the "Father of lights," which basically means the Sun-like Father as the Eternal First Cause of the shining lights (or stars) of God who are the angels and saints. The second "father" being Jehovah as a noomatic personage formed in the image of the future earth-born Jesus of Nazareth; and the third "father" being Jesus as the first born among many Brethren (spiritual siblings/Christians) who are the noomatic children of Jesus as Jesus is their father/progenitor (as the Only Begotten/Monogene); who fatherly generates (implants) the divine seed (gene/DNA) into Christians so they can partake of the divine nature, as 4 Nephi 1:3 puts it, be "made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift." Thus, Christ fathers a new species (a new humanity/new creation).
Let's further break down the meaning of these 3 Types of Fathers in LDS Scripture and Joseph Smith's 1844 Sermons.
Father type #1: The Deity (Father of noomatic stars):
Note that Lecture 2's "Father of lights" is the Supreme Being and Source of the Sons of God as essentially "stars"; and when Christians receive the divine DNA and divine bodily gene-code of Jehovah and the luminous fullness and glory/splendor (the luminous nooma of the Deity), they become "lights" as star-like Sons of God. For example, consider these verses:
1 Thessalonians 5:5 (EXB):
[L For] You are all people who belong to the light [L children/sons of the light] …
John 12:36 (EXB):
Believe [Put your trust] in the light while you still have it so that you will become children of light.” When Jesus had said this, he left and hid himself from them.
Philippians 2:15 (NIV):
so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”[Deut. 32:5] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky …
1 Corinthians 15:41-54 (EXB Emphasis added; words in single brackets are from the original translation):
41 The sun has one kind of beauty [splendor; glory], the moon has another beauty [splendor; glory], and the stars have another. And each star is different in its beauty [splendor; glory].
42 It is the same with the dead who are raised to life. The body that is “planted” will ruin and decay [L It is sown/buried in corruption], but it is raised to a life that cannot be destroyed [imperishable; L in incorruption]. 43 … [the body] is raised in glory [[splendor]]. When the body is “planted,” it is weak [L It is sown/buried in weakness], but when it is raised, it is powerful [L it is raised in power]. 44 The body that is “planted” is a physical body [L It is sown/buried a natural/physical/soulish body]. When it is raised, it is [L It is raised] a spiritual [[noomatic]] body.
... There is a physical [natural; soulish] body, and there is also a spiritual body. ... 48 People who belong to the earth [or are of dust] are like the first man [[adam]] of earth [dust]. But those people who belong to heaven are like the man of heaven [[Christ]]. 49 Just as we were made like [L have borne the image of] the man of earth, so we will also be made like [bear the image of] the man of heaven.
… 52 … we will be changed [1 Thess. 4:13–17]. 53 [L For] This body that can be destroyed [is perishable/corruptible] must clothe itself with something that can never be destroyed [the imperishable/incorruptible]. And this body that dies [L mortal] must clothe itself with something that can never die [immortality].
This "something" reclothing the spirit in a deceased body, that Paul speaks of above, is explained in the links provided in the verses above, which is a pneumatic (noomatic) substance that the stars in the sky themselves are made of, as well as all the Hosts of Heavenly. Thus the New Testament speaks of Christians shimmering and shining in their ongoing process of metamorphosizing into a star-like body known as theosis or deification in Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Father type #2: Jehovah as a noomatic personage:
The Fifth Lecture explains that the Father (Jehovah) is a personage of glory (star-like splendor), and thus it is from his noomatic genomic body of splendor that Jesus is concieved ("fathered/seeded") in Mary's womb with the divine DNA, and the first to fully undergo Noomatic Gene Therapy at his ressurrection. Jehovahs personage (body of nooma) in turn is formed by Himself as the Deity, the Father of lights (or the Father of "star-like" shining bodies). So that Jehovah is the First Gene (Divine DNA) and Jesus is the Only Monogene, being a duplicate genome of this Divine Light (Energia). This is why 3 Nephi 19:25 reads (emphasis added):
And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance [face] did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them, and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof.
In other words, Jesus shined with a Sun-like energy which transmitted a portion of the divine fluid substance (nooma) onto them; so that they too did glow like a white light bulb experiencing a portion of the divine substance: that begins to transform human bodies into deified star-like luminous bodies.
As we can see the "Father of lights" (of Lecture 2) is basically illuminating Christians through the Light of Christ; so that they become star-like splendorous bodies in a process of deification. If you think about it, a star has a kind of "skin" we can see and that is what we percieve to be shining. Thus could it be that this is what Joseph Smith meant when he dictated in 3 Nephi above, that the resurrected Christ smiled upon them and his countenance (face) shined upon them "and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus." In other words, after receiving this divine radiance as a "white light" they too shined with "whiteness." Thus could it be saying that their skin was shining like "white light," like a white light bulb? I think so. The verse does not just say their garments were shining white but that "they were as white" as Jesus' shining skin and clothing. Thus it was the skin of their body that was shining as white and bright as Jesus. I think this is what the metaphor is in Lehi's dream of the tree of life with white fruit, with Jesus being the True Vine (as depicted here); with shining white fruit representing skins that receive the Divine Light and shine white like a "white light bulb"; as one receives a literal fluid energy (nooma) illuminating them like electricity lighting a light bulb. This would then make sense of the "skin of blackness" which would be a metaphor for a "skin of dimming" effect as the Spirit of the Lord (the Light of Christ) withdrew from the Lamanites. For more details see my document Peeling Away Skins of Blindness & Putting on Skins of Brightness.
It is very interesting that the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition has a similar understanding of receiving the energy of the Trinity as a white light. As the Eastern Orthodox, Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky, puts it his article The Shining Light (with emphasis added):
“And the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended [katelaven] it not” (KJV John 1:5)
... We know too well what darkness means. We live with it daily. It’s a constant attack against all that is good, holy, decent and precious. Jesus said: “I am the Light of the world” (John 9:5). Now we know a bit more of the God who told Moses: “I am,” leaving Who He is a mystery. Now we learn that the “I am” enters the world as Light. That Light shines in the darkness. ... Baptized into Christ and wrapped in a garment of white, in time we spot that precious garment with sinfulness. ...
Could a "skin" of white ("white" meaning pure) in the Book of Mormon mean the same thing as a Christ enwrapped "garment of white"? I think so.
As this Eastern Orthodox Christian article, The uncreated light: The energy of God, explains:
Saint Gregory Palamas often makes references to the event of the Lord’s Transfiguration. “And His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light”. That wasn’t simply naturally created light, as is the light of the sun. It was the uncreated light; the energy of God, the energy that comes from God’s being and is transmitted to man.
As a Rick Yoder puts it:
Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them,”Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” These words from St. Matthew were the Gospel reading at Mass last night. Yesterday was the second weekend of Lent, and the Church directs our eyes, alongside those of the holy apostles, to the face of Our Lord in His Transfiguration. And in the Eastern Churches, today is St. Gregory Palamas Sunday. Palamas is most famous for his articulation of the Essence-Energies distinction as part of a broader polemic against the Byzantine Scholastic attacks on Hesychasm ... One of Palamas’ key Scriptural examples of God’s energies is the “uncreated light” of Christ’s glory in the Transfiguration. St. Gregory is celebrated to this day by the Eastern Orthodox ... ... The Light of Tabor is, in a Palamite reading, the eternal Glory of God made manifest in, with, and through Christ’s created humanity. The Transfiguration is therefore an archetypal moment for every mystic—not just the Hesychasts ...
Is this understanding, or something very similar or akin to it, why the LDS The Lectures on Faith speak of the one Eternal Deity as the "Father of lights"; and in the Fifth Lecture there is constant talk of the Father as a personage of glory (splendor); and Christ is the glory of the Father, which glory then dwells in Christians? I think so.
Could it be that like the Eastern Orthodox Christian theologian Palamas, that Joseph Smith had independently discovered similar insights as Palamas -- and thus Joseph composed The Book of Mormon, his revelations, and The Lectures on Faith -- which all teach ideas very similar to Palamas' theology? I think so. I discuss these similarities in my two blog series' on the true Mormon teaching on Deification and the origional LDS Godhead.
Father type #3: Jesus as the Father and Son
Jesus is the bearer of the divine image of the Father (in the flesh). Thus He is called the "Son" because of his flesh (see Mosiah 15: 1-5), and as a Son (flesh body) he is the first flesh body to transform from flesh to a body of Sun-like splendor (glory); so that as the resurrected-Son he then is also the Father in that he can father other "sons" (humans) into becoming resurrected-Sons like Himself.
Jesus is also the Father's Only Begotten (Unique Monogene). So as a duplicate genome of the Father, he Fathers divine children by noomatically implanting (or "fatherly" seeding) the divine DNA, of Jehova's "personage of spirit (nooma)," into Christians that are baptized and received the Holy Spirit (sacred nooma) so that they become born anew (from above) with the divine DNA and are thus the children of Christ. This is why in the gospel of John, Jesus breathes on the disciples the Sacred Nooma which is a metaphor for seeding them with (implanting into them) his Father's divine DNA ; and thus Jesus is the "Father" of divinized bodies that spiritually shine like stars. Because the apostle Paul was implanting the divine "word" through his letters and speeches he also speaks of himself as a "father" in that he was helping to "seed" the divine DNA, thus Paul wrote: “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15 RSV). Thus we can see that the word "father" in Scripture has the meaning of acting as a progenitor of implanted soil to produce the divine species.
So to summarize using my illustration below, going from left to right, the Deity of Lecture 2:2 is Father #1 (the Father of lights (star-like bodies). Jehovah, as a personage of spirit (nooma) is Father #2; and Father #3 is Jesus of Nazareth as a "personage of tabernacle" with the same Spirit (Mind) of Jehovah:
Jesus is a divine Father as the implanter of the divine seed/gene as a Life-giving Energia, and the donor of immortal life who injects the divine DNA and noomatic fullness (Divine Life in abundance). Christ is also the Father because He is the Father- Jehovah in that He is his exact genomic duplicate (as the Monogene of Jehovah). Thus ontologically Jesus is identical to Father-Jehovah, though He has a separate and distinct personality and personage as the Logos.
So Jesus is the Father as He is identical to the Father-Jehovah as Jehovah's duplicate genome and they are both constituted by the same splendorous noomatic-matter (that forms both their personages); which is why in John 14:8-10, Jesus says that those who have seen Me has seen the Father and the Father (His exact genome and nooma) is in Him (Jesus); and it says Jesus is in the Father because the Father's personage was formed in the image of the future earth-born Jesus before the earth was formed (which I will discuss in Part 4). Because Jesus and Father-Jehovah are essentially the same being as an identical genome, this is why Christians pray to Christ and worship Him as the Father in the Book of Mormon.
Born again Christians (that is those "born from above" with Christ's noomatic seed/gene) are essentially Fathered by Christ who seeded them with the divine Image. This is why the Book of Mormon speaks of Christians as the seed of Christ and the children of Christ.
Back to the blog series for Part 3.
