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 the Father had done. This suggest that everything we learn about the Savior’s life also teaches us about the Father. When Philip said to Him, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” Jesus responded, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:8-9). He was not saying that He and the Father were the same person, but rather that to have seen what Jesus did was to have seen what the Father would do. We cannot come to know the Son without also knowing the Father because, as Jesus taught elsewhere, “And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

The Prophet Joseph spoke of this in a bold way in the King Follett Sermon. He said this: “It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did; and I will show it from the Bible. I wish I was in a suitable place to tell it, and that I had the trump of an archangel, so that I could tell the story in such a manner that persecution would cease forever. What did Jesus say? (Mark it, Elder Rigdon!) The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it you do not believe the Bible.” This is one of the cross references to this statement: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17-18). He also explained to the Nephites, “And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me” (3 Nephi 27:14). Jesus laid down His life for all mankind because that is not only what the Father commanded Him to do, but because it is what He seeth the Father do.

And so, just as Jesus patterned His life after what He saw His Father do, we are also to pattern our lives after what we know that Jesus did. Of course we will not do this perfectly as Jesus did, but nonetheless our mission on earth is to seek to do what the Savior would do in every situation. He put it this way to His disciples in the Book of Mormon: “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27). He also told them, “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48). We are to become like the Father and the Son, and to be like One is to be like the Other. Each day of our lives then we can strive to do as He would do through obedience and sacrifice, service and consecration, compassion and love. We will of course fall short, but our aim should be to do what we “see” the Son do just as He did exactly what He saw the Father do. The Savior summed it up this way for us: “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do” (3 Nephi 18:24).