God the Father of both our Spirits and our Bodies

Crossing the Mississippi on the Ice by CCA Christensen.

By Bro. Jacob Vidrine

The essential truth conveyed in the Adam-God Doctrine is that God is not only the father of our spirits, but also our bodies. This was taught over and over again over the pulpit in early Utah...

“Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created in this flesh himself, by partaking of the coarse material that was organized and composed this earth, until His system was charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children were organized from the coarse materials of this earth.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses vol. 4 <8 February 1857> page 218, emphasis added)

“Now, brethren, you have got a spirit in you, and that spirit was created and organized—was born and begotten by our Father and our God before we ever took these bodies; and these bodies were formed by him, and through him, and of him, just as much as the spirit was; for I will tell you, he commenced and brought forth spirits; and then, when he completed that work, he commenced and brought forth tabernacles for those spirits to dwell in. I came through him, both spirit and body.” (Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses vol. 6 <8 November 1857> page 31, emphasis added)

“He [President Brigham Young] unmistakably declares man’s origins to be altogether of a celestial character — that not only is his spirit of heavenly descent, but his bodily organization too — that the latter is not taken from the lower animals, but from the original celestial body of the great Father of humanity.” (George Q. Cannon, Millennial Star vol. 23 <12 October 1861> page 654, emphasis added)

The reality that this doctrine originated with Joseph Smith can be demonstrated by this statement by Benjamin F. Johnson, a close friend of the Prophet:

“He [Joseph Smith] taught us that God was the great head of human procreation — was really and truly the Father of both our spirits and our bodies.” (Benjamin F. Johnson letter to George S. Gibbs, 1903, LDS Archives)

Benjamin F. Johnson alluded that this doctrine was taught in the Council of Fifty when he said one of the purposes of the Council was so “man will be taught to know his origin and to govern himself.” While the Council of Fifty Minutes recorded in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s lifetime were unusually brief, the minutes appear to briefly capture Joseph Smith teaching this on April 5, 1844, when he taught the Council  that the word “Ahman” — a title for God the Father in an earlier revelation, the “first God” — it  also “signifies the first man”:

“The chairman [Joseph Smith] explained the meaning of the word ‘Ahman’ which signifies the first man, or first God [of the Trinity]; and ‘Ahman Christ’ signifies the first man’s son.” (Joseph Smith Papers: Council of Fifty Minutes <5 April 1844> page 81)

Less than a year after the Prophet’s death apostle John Taylor noted that they understood that “when we trace our descent like the branch of the tree” we find that “the root of it” is our Father in Heaven” and thus mankind are “related to Gods”:

“When we are all united as the tribe of Ephraim, we shall have an invulnerable bulwark that the powers of hell cannot subvert. We can see the order of the Father taking His place and all being in subjection to him, and when we trace our descent like the branch of the tree, we shall trace the root of it to our Father in Heaven. And we shall be related to Gods, and shall find our union in temporal and spiritual things. We have Fathers — one who is in Heaven and others on earth.” (John Taylor, Minutes of a Family Meeting in Nauvoo, 8 January 1845, Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine vol. 11 page 115)

God also the Literal Father of Spirits

There are some in the Restoration that want to deny the doctrine of Spirit Procreation because Joseph Smith taught in the King Follett Sermon  that our Spirits are co-eternal with God and have always existed, and cannot be created or destroyed. They postulate that this teaching flatly contradicts the teaching of “Spirit Procreation”. I would contend that our Intelligences or our Inner Spirit was not created and always existed, but that we underwent a process of Spiritual Metamorphosis where we agreed to join God’s family and be spiritually begotten wherein our Intelligence received an Outer Spirit or Spirit Body. And in a similar way we afterwards clothe our Spiritual Body with a Physical Body to receive a fullness of Joy (D&C 93:33–34).

There are also some that believe that our Intelligences are merely organized “Spirit Matter” and that our Personal Identity did not exist until our Spirits were procreated. However Joseph Smith made it clear from other statements that our inner Spirit, Soul, or Intelligence had a personal existence and identity before we came together in Council to receive spirit bodies and tabernacles from God: 

“God is good, and all his acts are for the benefit of inferior intelligences. God saw that those intelligences [without tabernacles] had not power to defend themselves against those that had a tabernacle therefore the Lord called them together in council and agreed to form them tabernacles.” (Words of Joseph Smith <28 March 1841> pages 67–68, spelling, punctuation, and grammar corrected)

“From before the foundation of the earth in the Grand Council, the spirits of all men were subject to oppression, and the express purpose of God in giving them tabernacles was to arm them against the powers of darkness.” (Words of Joseph Smith <19 January 1841> page 62, spelling, punctuation, and grammar corrected)

While Spirit procreation was not directly mentioned in the King Follett Discourse, Joseph Smith on at least three earlier occasions briefly taught or mentioned the doctrine. The most commonly recognized occasion was on July 16, 1843, in his first public sermon teaching Eternal Marriage: 

“The earthly is the image of the Heavenly shows that is by the multiplication of Lives that the eternal worlds are created and occupied[;] that which is born of the flesh is flesh[,] that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” (Words of Joseph Smith <16 July 1843> page 232, emphasis added)

Two months earlier, on May 16, 1843 Joseph Smith also alluded to this teaching when he privately taught that those who are eternally married would “increase and have children in the celestial glory”:

“Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity while in this probation by the power and authority of the Holy priesthood they will cease to increase when they die — they will not have any children in the resurrection. But those who are married by the power and authority of the priesthood in this life and continue without committing the sin against the Holy Ghost will continue to increase and have children in the celestial glory.” (Joseph Smith, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton <16 May 1843> page 102)

And on an even earlier occasion, two years earlier Joseph taught that our Intelligences were eternal but that God after calling them together in council to agree to form them tabernacles would “Gender the Spirit and Tabernacle together”:

“The spirit or the inteligence of men are self Existant principles before the foundation this Earth… God is Good & all his acts is for the benifit of infereir inteligences—God saw that those intelegences had Not power to Defend themselves against those that had a tabernicle therefore the Lord Calls them togather in Counsel & agrees to form them tabernicles so that he might Gender the Spirit & the tabernicle together so as to create sympathy for their fellowman—for it is a Natureal thing with those spirits that has the most power to bore down on those of Lesser power so we see the Devil is without a tabernacle.” (Words of Joseph Smith <28 March 1841> page 68, emphasis added)

Webster’s 1829 dictionary defines Gender as “To beget” or “To copulate; to breed”, so this statement is a reference to spirit bodies being begotten by God. 

Additionally D&C 132 appears to allude to Spirit Procreation when it references the Exalted having “a continuation of the seeds forever and ever” (D&C 132:19) and that wives who are faithful and sealed to receive “exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men.”(D&C 132:63)

Why was Spirit Birth kept a secret teaching?

While we have three different occasions where Joseph Smith briefly alluded to Spirit Birth, there were many other more public discourses where he left out the teach, leading one to wonder why the Prophet did so.

An in-depth article exploring the issue of Spirit Birth entitled “‘A Continuation of the Seeds’: Joseph Smith and Spirit Birth” by LDS Church apologist Brian Hales was published in the Fall 2012 issue of the Journal of Mormon History providing these and other compelling evidence that Spirit Birth was taught by Joseph Smith. However, Hales was left with a conundrum that Joseph Smith apparently was reticent about teaching Spirit Birth in detail and only alluded to it on a few occasions:

“It seems that the wording used by both Joseph Smith and Abraham supports a conscious effort to avoid revealing that the relationship between God and the premortal spirits could be that of a literal parent and child. Accordingly, these accounts and scriptures might support the position that spirit birth is a false teaching or that it did not originate with Joseph Smith. However, it is also possible that spirits birth is a true principle that was known to the Prophet (and possibly also Abraham), but that both men were taking pains to avoid making such a declaration. 

…If so, the question arises: Why would God withhold knowledge of spirit birth from previous followers and even prophets, possibly for thousands of years?” (Brian Hales, “‘A Continuation of the Seeds’: Joseph Smith and Spirit Birth,” Journal of Mormon History vol. 38 no. 4 <Fall 2012> pages 126–127)

Brian Hales then provided several speculative reasons for Joseph’s hesitancy to publicly teach spirit birth that appear unsatisfactory for the critical thinker. The most logical reason to me why the Prophet would have hesitated is likely because he taught God’s fatherhood of our Spirits as well as his fatherhood of our bodies together — it seems extremely probable that in the Prophet’s mind the two doctrines were extremely connected. The Prophet likely was waiting for the proper time to reveal to the Saints that God is the literal father of humanity, both our spirits and our bodies, as Benjamin F. Johnson recalled:

“He [Joseph Smith] taught us that God was the great head of human procreation — was really and truly the Father of both our spirits and our bodies.” (Benjamin F. Johnson letter to George S. Gibbs, 1903, LDS Archives, emphasis added)

Fortunately for us, even though the Prophet Joseph sadly did not live to fully reveal this truth to the Saints, his successor Brigham Young was called of God to do so, and on April 9, 1852 fully revealed this doctrine to the Saints and to all the World:

“I will tell you how it is. Our Father in Heaven begat all the spirits that ever were, or ever will be, upon this earth; and they were born spirits in the eternal world. Then the Lord by His power and wisdom organized the mortal tabernacle of man. We were made first spiritual, and afterwards temporal. 

Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later. 

They came here, organized the raw material, and arranged in their order the herbs of the field, the trees, the apple, the peach, the plum, the pear, and every other fruit that is desirable and good for man; the seed was brought from another sphere, and planted in this earth. The thistle, the thorn, the brier, and the obnoxious weed did not appear until after the earth was cursed. 

When Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, their bodies became mortal from its effects, and therefore their offspring were mortal. When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel, and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve; from the fruits of the earth, the first earthly tabernacles were originated by the Father, and so on in succession.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses vol. 1 <9 April 1852> pages 50–51)

You can reach Bro. Vidrine at JacobVidrine1@gmail.com. His website is OneEternalRound.org.

You can reach us at fundamentalistmag@gmail.com.