“They Are One God”

Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet

Without question, Elohim and Jehovah—though separate as personages—are one: one in mind, one in purpose, one in glory. Indeed, they are infinitely more one than they are separate. This has properly been referred to as the greatest teaching device ever devised in all eternity (see Promised Messiah, p. 131). The whole plan of salvation centers in our learning to be one with Christ as he is one with the Father. The doctrine of oneness is the doctrine of salvation!

“And They Are One God”

President Joseph Fielding Smith aids our understanding with the following explanation: “All revelation since the fall has come through Jesus Christ, who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. In all of the scriptures, where God is mentioned and where he has appeared, it was Jehovah.... The Father has never dealt with man directly and personally since the fall, and he has never appeared except to introduce and bear record of the Son,” (Doctrines of Salvation 1:27; see also Man: His Origin and Destiny, p. 304; Answers to Gospel Questions 3:58.)

Thus the God who ministered to the prophets after the fall of Adam-whether to Enoch or Noah or Abraham or Moses-was Jehovah, who would become the Savior, Jesus Christ. An illustration of Christ’s appearance to an Old Testament prophet-speaking by divine investiture of authority, in the name of the Father-is found in an experience of Moses on an unnamed mountain: “My works are without end,” Jehovah spoke for Elohim, “and also my words, for they never cease.” And then he continued: “And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth” (Moses 1:4, 6).

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2

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