Brigham Young teaches that our God looks like our earthly father, but is exalted; he begat our spirits in the premortal existence.

Date
1857
Type
Speech / Court Transcript
Source
Brigham Young
LDS
Hearsay
Scribed Verbatim
Reference

Brigham Young, "The People of God Disciplined By Trials—Atonement By the Shedding of Blood—Our Heavenly Father—A Privilege Given to All the Married Sisters in Utah," Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: S.W. Richards, 1857), 4:54

Scribe/Publisher
F. D. and S. W. Richards
People
Brigham Young
Audience
Reading Public, Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
PDF
Transcription

If we could see our heavenly Father, we should see a being similar to our earthly parent, with this difference, our Father in heaven is exalted and glorified. He has received His thrones, His principalities and powers, and He sits as a governor, as a monarch, and overrules kingdoms, thrones, and dominions that have been bequeathed to Him, and such as we anticipate receiving. While He was in the flesh, as we are, He was as we are. But it is now written of Him that our God is as a consuming fire, that He dwells in everlasting burnings, and this is why sin cannot be where He is.

There are principles that will endure through all eternity, and no fire can obliterate them from existence. They are those principles that are pure, and fire is made typical use of to show the glory and purity of the gods, and of all perfect beings. God is the Father of our spirits; He begat them, and has sent them here to receive tabernacles, and to prove whether we will honour them. If we do, then our tabernacles will be exalted; but if we do not, we shall be destroyed; one of the two—dissolution or life. The second death will decompose all tabernacles over whom it gains the ascendancy; and this is the effect of the second death, the tabernacles go back to their native element.

We are of the earth, earthy; and our Father is heavenly and pure. But we will be glorified and purified, if we obey our brethren and the teachings which are given.

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