Being the Father and the Son

This week’s Come, Follow Me lesson says this about the verses in Mosiah 15: “These passages are sometimes confusing because it can seem that Abinadi is teaching that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the same Being, yet we know that they are separate Beings. What did Abinadi mean?” Part of what can be confusing is understanding when the text refers to the Savior and when it refers to our Father in Heaven. Abinadi’s focus was on teaching them about Christ, and so nearly all references, even those speaking of “the Father,” he was referring to Christ. Here is the way that I understand these first five verses:

·        “God himself shall come down among the children of men” (v1). This of course refers to the Savior coming down among the children of men.

·        “And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son” (v2). Christ is the “Son of God” of course, but He is also the “Father and the Son” as Abinadi explained in the next verse.

·        “The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son” (v3). Here I believe all these references are to the Savior except for “by the power of God” since it was through the power of Elohim that He was brought to earth with a body. And because that, a part of the Father was in Him, and thus He could rightly be called the Father. But He was also mortal and subject to the temptations of the flesh, thus possessing both the divine and the human side as He walked the earth.

·        “And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth” (v4). I believe the “they” here refers to the mortal and divine nature of the Savior, which of course constitute just one Being. Despite the fact that it sounds like a description of our Father in Heaven, Abinadi was clearly saying that Christ is the “Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.” Amulek made this clear to Zeezrom who asked, “Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father?” Amulek replied, “Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are” (Alma 11:38-39). This title seems to be a reflection of the fact Christ was the Creator of the earth and the heavens above it. This is what King Benjamin taught, “He shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (Mosiah 3:8).

·        “And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation” (v5). Here I believe that again the reference to the “Son” and the “Father” were really references to Christ’s divine and mortal nature, and Abinadi taught that Christ never succumbed to the desires of the flesh but rather lived according to the divinity in Him. In this context the phrase “having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father” in verse 2 also could refer to how Christ subjected His will to the divinity (“the Father”) in Himself. Abinadi emphasized this again, “Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father” (v7). He had a divine and earthly will in Him that He could follow, and He always chose to follow that part of Him that came from His Father.

Perhaps one of the messages then of these verses is that we too much choose whether or not we will follow the “natural man” in us or the divine nature that we too have inherited in our spirits from our Father in Heaven. Christ always chose to follow His divine nature, never succumbing to the temptations of the flesh. We must strive to do the same in the choses we make each day as we seek to become like Him.