The Gift of the Firstborn

In the most recent general conference, Elder Kearon spoke about receiving and giving gifts. After sharing an experience of his father giving him a treasured gift as a young boy and discussing the parts of gift giving, he spoke about spiritual gifts from God. As we would expect, he spoke first about the great gift of the Father spoken of by John in this well-known verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Elder Kearon put it this way: “But we could receive nothing without the greatest of all the Father’s gifts, His beloved Lamb, His Son, Jesus Christ. All of our Father’s gifts flow from and are activated by the Saviour’s willing offering in Gethsemane and on the cross and His triumphant Resurrection. Jesus Christ, our merciful Redeemer, is the supreme gift from our Father of lights. ‘In the gift of his Son hath God prepared [for us] a more excellent way.’” I thought that Elder Kearon would then focus on this gift of the Savior’s atonement and resurrection throughout the rest of his talk, but what he spoke of next was unexpected for me.

            Elder Kearon then referenced a different gift from the Father, one that I typically would not think of as a gift at all. He said this, “I would like to talk about one all-encompassing gift of eternal truth that underpins our ability to receive all else our Father desires to endow us with—a vital gift of knowledge that, when fully accepted and received deep in the soul, contextualises the joys and hardships of life and our unanswered questions: It is that we really are God’s children. That truth is breathtaking! Stunning! And it is not figurative.” So, the gift that he wants us to receive is knowledge of a truth about our divine parentage. He continued, “I invite you to receive, either for the first time or to a greater extent than ever before, the magnificent realisation that you truly are God’s beloved child. You must undo the bow, tear off the wrapping paper, open the box, and actively receive with grateful humility a true, pure understanding of this foundational truth. The Holy Spirit can bear witness to your heart that you are indeed a child of the Most High.” And, according to Elder Kearon, there is “nothing” that we must do to receive this gift. He added, “It is a gift from the Giver. It is simply a fact. Just let it in. You are His child. You are beloved of Him. Do not complicate it. Do not block the receiving of this gift with thoughts that you are somehow undeserving.” Sometime in the very distant past, in the eternities before our mortal experience, God organized us into spirits to become His children. We existed before that in some form (intelligence) we do not now understand, but we know that He created us at that point as His children and took an eternal interest in our progression. That is the gift for which Elder Kearon is inviting us to give thanks for and fully receive as truth in our mortal journey.

            Elder Kearon also connected this gift of knowing we are children of our Heavenly Father with the gift of His Son. He said, “You are a child of God…. Re-receive this gift, or perhaps truly receive it for the very first time, and let it transform every aspect of your life. This is the more excellent way God has prepared for you through the gift of His Son.” He also added, “The reality is none of us is ‘deserving’—all the Father’s gifts are received only through the merits, mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, but how His generous heart longs for each of His children to receive them!” He further taught, “The price for the ultimate purpose of this gift has already been paid by the Saviour.” As I pondered this, I wondered what the connection is between God’s choice to be our Heavenly Father—creating our spirits—with the Savior’s atonement which came much later in our eternal progression. We know that the Savior is the Firstborn of the Father, meaning that He was the first spirit that God created. Perhaps the Father knew even then that as He became the spirit Father of Jehovah that this firstborn would need to be sacrificed to save all the subsequent spirits that He would create. Perhaps these two things—the Father’s choice to be our Father and the sacrifice of His mortal Son and Firstborn in the spirit—are indeed intricately connected. The Savior declared, “And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:21). Perhaps that Firstborn status was the beginning of the ultimate gift that the Father and Son would together give us to bring us eternal life.