What He Seeth the Father Do
The Savior taught the people of Nephi about His gospel in these words: “Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me” (3 Nephi 27:13). His whole purpose in coming to the earth was to do the will of His Father. He explained this from another angle in mortality: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise…. I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:19, 30). Jesus came to do the will of the Father, and He learned that will by what He “seeth the Father do.” To me that suggests that the Savior had a knowledge of His Father’s existence when He too was mortal, and everything Jesus did was patterned after what He saw that...