From Improvement Era, Nov. 1909, 75-81; capitalization,
punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling standardized.
“God created man
in his own image” (Gen.
1:27).
First
Presidency, “The Origin of Man,” Ensign, Feb. 2002, 26
In the
early 1900s, questions concerning the Creation of the earth and the theories of evolution became the subject of much public discussion. In the midst of these
controversies, the
First Presidency issued the
following in 1909, which expresses the Church’s doctrinal position on these
matters. A reprinting of
this important First Presidency statement will be helpful as members of the Church study the Old Testament
this year.
Inquiries arise from time to time respecting the attitude of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints upon questions which,
though not vital from a doctrinal standpoint, are closely connected with the fundamental
principles of
salvation. The
latest inquiry of
this kind that has reached us is in relation to the origin of man. It is believed that a statement of the position held
by the Church
upon this subject will be timely and productive of good.
In presenting the
statement that follows we are not conscious of putting forth anything essentially new;
neither is it our desire so to do. Truth is what we wish to present, and
truth—eternal truth—is fundamentally old. A restatement of the original attitude of the Church relative to this matter is all
that will be attempted here. To tell the truth as God has revealed it, and
commend it to the
acceptance of
those who need to conform their opinions thereto, is the sole purpose of this presentation.
“God created man
in his own image, in the
image of God
created he him; male and female created he them.” In these plain and pointed
words the
inspired author of
the book of Genesis made
known to the
world the
truth concerning the
origin of the human family.
Moses, the
prophet-historian—“learned,” as we are told, “in all the wisdom of the Egyptians”—when making this important
announcement was not voicing a mere opinion, a theory derived from his
researches into the
occult lore of
that ancient people. He was speaking as the mouthpiece of God, and his solemn declaration was for
all time and for all people. No subsequent revelator of the truth has contradicted the great leader and lawgiver of Israel. All
who have since spoken by divine authority upon this theme have confirmed his
simple and sublime proclamation. Nor could it be otherwise. Truth has but one
source, and all revelations from heaven are harmonious with each other. The omnipotent
Creator, the
maker of
heaven and earth, had shown unto Moses everything pertaining to this planet,
including the
facts relating to man’s
origin, and the
authoritative pronouncement of that mighty prophet and seer to the house of Israel, and through Israel to the whole world,
is couched in the
simple clause: “God created man in his own image” (Gen.
1:27; see Moses
1:27-41).
The creation was
twofold—first spiritual, secondly temporal. This truth, also, Moses plainly
taught—much more plainly than it has come down to us in the imperfect translations of the Bible that are now in use. Therein the fact of a spiritual creation,
antedating the
temporal creation,
is strongly implied, but the
proof of it
is not so clear and conclusive as in other records held by the Latter-day Saints to be of equal
authority with the
Jewish scriptures. The
partial obscurity of
the latter
upon the
point in question is owing, no doubt, to the loss of those “plain and precious” parts of sacred writ,
which, as the
Book of
Mormon informs us, have been taken away from the Bible during its passage down the centuries
(see 1 Ne. 13:24-29). Some of these missing
parts the
Prophet Joseph Smith undertook to restore when he revised those scriptures by the spirit of revelation, the result being
that more complete account of the
Creation
which is found in the
book of
Moses, previously cited. Note the following passages:
“And now, behold, I say unto you, that these are the generations of the heaven and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God,
made the
heaven and the
earth,
“And every plant of
the field
before it was in the
earth, and every herb of
the field
before it grew. For I, the
Lord God, created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were
naturally upon the
face of the earth. For I,
the Lord God,
had not caused it to rain upon the face of the
earth. And I, the
Lord God, had created all the
children of men; and not yet
a man to till
the ground;
for in heaven created I them, and there was not yet flesh upon the earth,
neither in the
water, neither in the
air;
“But, I, the
Lord God, spake, and there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
“And I, the
Lord God, formed man
from the dust
of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were
before created; but spiritually were they created and made according to my
word” (Moses 3:4-7; see also Moses 1 and Moses 2,
and compare with Gen. 1
and Gen. 2).
These two points being established, namely, the creation of man in the image of God, and the twofold character of the Creation, let us now inquire: What was the form of man, in the spirit and
in the body,
as originally created? In a general way the answer is given in the words chosen as the text of this treatise. “God created man in his own
image.” It is more explicitly rendered in the Book of Mormon thus: “All men were created in the beginning after mine own image” (Ether 3:15). … If, therefore, we can
ascertain the
form of the “Father of spirits,” “The God of the spirits of all flesh,”
we shall be able to discover the form of the
original man.
Jesus Christ, the
Son of God,
is “the express
image” of His
Father’s person (Heb.
1:3). He walked the earth as a human being, as a perfect man, and said,
in answer to a question put to Him: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). This alone ought to
solve the
problem to the
satisfaction of
every thoughtful, reverent mind. The conclusion is irresistible, that if the Son of God be the express
image (that is, likeness) of
His Father’s person, then His Father is in the form of a man; for that was the form of the Son of God, not only during His mortal life,
but before His mortal birth, and after His Resurrection. It was in this form
that the
Father and the
Son, as two personages, appeared to Joseph Smith, when, as a boy of 14 years, he
received his first vision. Then if God made man—the first man—in His own
image and likeness, He must have made him like unto Christ, and consequently
like unto men
of Christ’s
time and of the present day.
That man was
made in the
image of
Christ is positively stated in the book of Moses: “And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which
was with me from the
beginning, Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness; and it was so. …
“And I, God, created man
in mine own image, in the
image of mine
Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them” (Moses 2:26-27).
The Father
of Jesus is
our Father also. Jesus Himself taught this truth when He instructed His
disciples how to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven,” etc. Jesus, however,
is the
firstborn among all the
sons of God—the first
begotten in the
spirit, and the
only begotten in the
flesh. He is our elder brother, and we, like Him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are
literally the
sons and daughters of
Deity.
“God created man
in His own image.” This is just as true of the spirit as it is of the body, which is only the clothing of the spirit, its complement—the two together
constituting the
soul. The
spirit of man is in the form of man, and the spirits of all creatures
are in the
likeness of
their bodies. This was plainly taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith (see D&C 77:2).
Here is further evidence of the
fact. More than 700 years before Moses was shown the things pertaining to this earth,
another great prophet, known to us as the brother of Jared, was similarly favored by the Lord. He was
even permitted to behold the
spirit-body of
the
foreordained Savior, prior to His incarnation; and so like the body of a man was gazing upon a being of flesh and
blood. He first saw the
finger and then the
entire body of
the Lord—all
in the
spirit. The
Book of
Mormon says of
this wonderful manifestation:
“And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these words, behold, the Lord
stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was
taken from off the
eyes of the brother of Jared, and he
saw the
finger of the Lord; and it
was as the
finger of a man, like unto
flesh and blood; and the
brother of
Jared fell down before the
Lord, for he was struck with fear.
“And the
Lord saw that the
brother of
Jared had fallen to the
earth; and the
Lord said to him: Arise, why hast thou fallen?
“And he saith unto the
Lord: I saw the
finger of the Lord, and I
feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood.
“And the
Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh
and blood; and never has man
come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye
could not have seen my finger. Sawest thou more than this?
“And he answered: Nay; Lord, show thyself unto me.
“And the
Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak?
“And he answered, Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and
canst not lie.
“And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said:
Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back
into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you.
“Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am
Jesus Christ. I am the
Father and the
Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall
believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.
“And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in
me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even
all men were
created in the
beginning after mine own image.
“Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto
thee to be in the
spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh” (Ether
3:6-16).
What more is needed to convince us that man, both in spirit and in body, is the image and
likeness of
God and that God Himself is in the form of a man?
When the
divine Being whose spirit-body the brother of Jared beheld took upon Him flesh and blood, He appeared as
a man, having
“body, parts and passions,” like other men, though vastly superior to all others,
because He was God, even the
Son of God, the Word made
flesh: in Him “dwelt the
fulness of the Godhead
bodily.” And why should He not appear as a man? That was the form of His spirit, and it must needs have an
appropriate covering, a suitable tabernacle. He came into the world as He had promised to come (see 3 Ne. 1:13), taking an infant
tabernacle and developing it gradually to the fulness of His spirit stature. He came as man had been
coming for ages and as man
has continued to come ever since. Jesus, however, as shown, was the Only
Begotten of
God in the
flesh.
Adam, our first progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a preexistent spirit, and like Christ
he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the
preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful
flood of
light upon the
otherwise mysterious problem of man’s
origin. It shows that man,
as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity
in the
eternal mansions of
the Father,
prior to coming upon the
earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that
all men
existed in the
spirit before any man
existed in the
flesh and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and
become souls in like manner.
It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original
human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord
declared that Adam was “the
first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in
duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that
all men were
created in the
beginning after the
image of God;
whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly
Father.
True it is that the
body of man enters upon
its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a
certain stage by the
spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into
a man. There
is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less
than a man,
or less than the
human germ or embryo that becomes a man.
Man, by
searching, cannot find out God. Never, unaided, will he discover the truth about the beginning of human life. The Lord must
reveal Himself or remain unrevealed; and the same is true of the facts relating to the origin of Adam’s race—God alone can reveal them.
Some of these
facts, however, are already known, and what has been made known it is our duty
to receive and retain.
The Church
of Jesus
Christ of
Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern,
proclaims man
to be the
direct and lineal offspring of Deity. God Himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned, and supreme. By
His almighty power He organized the earth and all that it contains, from spirit and element,
which exist coeternally with Himself. He formed every plant that grows and
every animal that breathes, each after its own kind, spiritually and
temporally—“that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal, and that which
is temporal in the
likeness of
that which is spiritual.” He made the tadpole and the ape, the lion and the elephant, but He did not make them in
His own image, nor endow them with godlike reason and intelligence.
Nevertheless, the
whole animal creation
will be perfected and perpetuated in the Hereafter, each class in its “distinct
order or sphere,” and will enjoy “eternal felicity.” That fact has been made
plain in this dispensation (see D&C
77:3).
Man is the child of God, formed
in the divine
image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable
in due time of
becoming a man,
so the
undeveloped offspring of
celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into
a God.
Joseph F. Smith
John R. Winder
Anthon H. Lund
First Presidency of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints
November 1909
Gospel topics: Creation, plan of salvation,
divine nature
[illustrations]
Background: The
Creation of Light, by
Gustave Doré; bottom right: The Grand Council, by Robert Barrett; anatomy
artwork © The
Visual Language Library
[illustration] Christ’s
Image, by Heinrich Hofmann
© 2003 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All
rights reserved.