Moses 1; Abraham 3
“This Is My Work and My Glory”
January 5 - January 11
scripture
quote
A Path to Perfection
<p>Thanks to our Heavenly Father, we had already become spirit beings. Now He was offering us a path to complete or perfect that being. The addition of the physical element is essential to the fulness of being and glory that God Himself enjoys. If, while with God in the premortal spirit world, we would agree to participate in His plan—or in other words “keep [our] first estate”—we would “be added upon” with a physical body as we came to dwell on the earth that He created for us.</p> <p>If, then in the course of our mortal experience, we chose to “do all things whatsoever the Lord [our] God [should] command [us],” we would have kept our “second estate.” This means that by our choices we would demonstrate to God (and to ourselves) our commitment and capacity to live His celestial law while outside His presence and in a physical body with all its powers, appetites, and passions. Could we bridle the flesh so that it became the instrument rather than the master of the spirit? Could we be trusted both in time and eternity with godly powers, including power to create life? Would we individually overcome evil? Those who did would “have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever”—a very significant aspect of that glory being a resurrected, immortal, and glorified physical body. No wonder we “shouted for joy” at these magnificent possibilities and promises.</p>
D. Todd Christofferson, “Why Marriage, Why Family,” April 2015 General Conference
commentaries
Abraham 3:22–23
<p>Abraham is shown the premortal intelligences that were “organized” into the premortal divine council. These intelligences or spirits are described as “noble and great ones” and are decreed by God to become “rulers” in mortality because they are good. Abraham is identified as one of these noble and great spirits. This evokes depictions of the divine council of God and His attending divine beings (called, variously, gods, the sons of god[s], angels, holy ones, and so on) in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts. Furthermore, it subtly plays on (and subverts) ideas in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian religion that kings were divinely foreordained by the gods to be rulers. Instead, Abraham’s vision reveals that he and other righteous spirits were foreordained by the Lord to be rulers. This delegitimizes the rule of Abraham’s rival Pharaoh, who, while still being righteous, at Abraham 1:26–27 tries to “fain claim” to priesthood to which he does not have a right.</p>
Pearl of Great Price Study Edition by Stephen O. Smoot
Abraham 3:24–28
<p>Abraham is shown a vision of what transpired in the divine council just before the unfolding of Creation (compare Moses 4:1–4). This passage is supremely important for the modern Latter-day Saint doctrine of the premortal existence of humanity since it is one the most explicit on this subject in all scripture. <em>Creation from matter</em>. Unlike traditional Jewish and Christian teaching, the text at Abraham 3:24 affirms creation from preexisting matter, not creation <em>ex nihilo</em>, or from nothing. In creation myths from Abraham’s day, Creation was often envisioned as an act of divine fashioning of chaotic elements (typically a primordial cosmic ocean). This, indeed, is how Genesis 1:1–3 envisions Creation. <em>The purpose of mortality</em>. At Abraham 3:25 an important purpose is given for why the earth was created and populated with the premortal spirits: to see if they would obey the commands of the Lord God, the supreme intelligence. From other scripture, it is clear that this test of obedience is part of the Lord’s work to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of humankind (see Moses 1:39). <em>The first estate</em>. The language of Abraham 3:26 is appropriated from Jude 1:6, which speaks of angels who did not keep their “first estate” (more literally, their “own position [of authority]”; <em>eautou archē</em>) but instead were destined for damnation. The point made in the text here is that those intelligences who excelled in their “first estate” (premortal, disembodied state) by adhering to the Lord’s commandments would have “glory” (eternal life and exaltation) added upon them if they successfully traversed their “second estate” (probationary mortality). It is, in effect, a concise formulation of the plan of salvation. <em>The Son of Man</em>. In biblical Hebrew, the phrase “son of man” (<em>ben ʾadam</em>) connotes “mortal, human.” It is used prominently in the book of Ezekiel when God addresses the prophet and also in Moses 1:12 when Satan denigrates Moses. In later apocalyptic works, most notably Daniel (especially 7:13–14), the Son of Man (Aramaic: <em>bar ʾenash</em>) is an eschatological figure who assumes rulership over the earth at the end of days. Believed by His disciples to be this very eschatological figure (compare Revelation 1:13), Jesus is identified as the Son of Man in numerous instances throughout the canonical Gospels. In the book of Moses (6:57; 7:35), one of the Adamic names for God the Father is revealed to be Man of Holiness. The identity of the premortal Jesus as “one like unto the Son of Man” at Abraham 3:27 might be understood simultaneously in these contexts: He is the Firstborn of the Man of Holiness (compare Doctrine and Covenants 78:20; 93:21–22; 95:17), one who condescended to become a mortal (compare 1 Nephi 11:14–36), and the foreordained millennial King (compare Revelation 19:15–16). <em>The fall of Lucifer.</em> At 3:27–28 the fall of Lucifer is briefly narrated (compare Moses 4:1–4; 2 Nephi 2:17–18). Upset that he was not selected to be the Father’s redemptive emissary, Lucifer (here left unnamed, merely identified as “another” or “the second”) becomes angry and draws many of the premortal intelligences away with him. The language clearly portrays some sense of rebellion or open mutiny against the Father’s plan (compare Doctrine and Covenants 76:25–27). Biblical writings (see Genesis 6:1–4; Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28:1–10; 28:11–19; Job 38; Daniel 11–12; Psalm 82) later echoes of a much earlier Near Eastern mythic archetype of conflict in the divine council that results in the fall or overthrow of a rebellious deity.</p>
Pearl of Great Price Study Edition by Stephen O. Smoot
