Mormon Quotes

Heavenly Father

Brigham Young
When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he (Christ) took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in Heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel, and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:50
Brigham Young
Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven. Now, let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:51
Brigham Young
I have a request to make of my family [and] that is that they, especially old people omit calling me their Father. Call me Brother Brigham‑‑I shall feel better when you do for I do not consider that I am worthy of that appellation‑‑ Father in the Priesthood implies the great head, the term would be proper to Father Adam. Jesus had reference to the same thing when he told his disciples not to call any man Father on earth for their Father was in heaven.
Brigham Young, Journal of Wilford Woodruff, February 16, 1847
Brigham Young
The birth of the Savior was as natural as the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood‑‑was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:115
Brigham Young
While brother Joseph was referring to the provinces of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is purely philosophical. The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood — was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:115
Brigham Young
Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken ‑ He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non‑professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later!
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:51
Brigham Young
Our Father begot all the spirits that were before any tabernacle was made. When our Father came into the Garden He came with his Celestial body and brought one of his wives with him and ate of the fruit of the Garden until He could beget a Tabernacle. And Adam is Michael God and all the God that we have anything to do with. They ate of this fruit and formed the first Tabernacle that was formed. And when the Virgin Mary was begotten with Child it was by the Father and in no other way only as we were begotten. I will tell you the truth as it is in God. The world don't know that Jesus Christ our Elder Brother was begotten by our Father in Heaven. Handle it as you please, it will either seal the damnation or salvation of man. He was begotten by the Father and not by the Holy Ghost.
Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff's Journal, April 9, 1852
Brigham Young
Some have thought it strange what I have said concerning Adam, but the period will come when this people of [the] faithful will be willing to adopt Joseph Smith as their Prophet, Seer, Revelator and God, but not the father of their spirits for that was our Father Adam.
Brigham Young, Journal of Wilford Woodruff, December 11, 1869
Brigham Young
Some may think what I have said concerning Adam strange, but the period will come when the people will be willing to adopt Joseph Smith as their Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and God! but not the Father of their spirits, for that was our Father Adam.
Brigham Young, Journal History, p. 131, December 11, 1869
Brigham Young
I believe the Father came down from heaven, as the Apostles said he did, and begat the Saviour of the world; for he is the ONLY‑begotten of the Father, which could not be if the Father did not actually beget him in person.... I believe the Father came down in His tabernacle and begat Jesus Christ.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:238
Brigham Young
I believe the Father came down from heaven, as the Apostles said he did, and begat the Saviour of the world; for he is the ONLY‑begotten of the Father, which could not be if the Father did not actually beget him in person.... I believe the Father came down in His tabernacle and begat Jesus Christ.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:238
Joseph Smith
What did Jesus do? Why I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 347-348.
Joseph Smith
When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he (Christ) took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in Heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel, and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.
Joseph Smith, Answers, vol. 5, p. 121
Joseph Smith
If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven... What many people call sin is not sin; I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down.
Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 4:445-446
Wilford Woodruff
Who begat the Son of God? Infidels say that Jesus was a bastard, but let me tell you the truth concerning that matter. Our Father begat all the spirits that were, before any tabernacles were made. When our Father came into the garden, He came with His celestial body and brought one of His wives with Him and ate of the fruit of the garden until He could beget a tabernacle, and Adam is Michael or God and all the God that we have anything to do with. They eat of this fruit and formed the first tabernacle that was formed. And when the Virgin Mary was begotten with child, it was by the Father and in no other way, in no other way, only as we were begotten. I will tell you the truth as it is in God. The world don't know that Jesus Christ our elder brother was begotten by our Father in Heaven. Handle it as you please, it will either seal the damnation or salvation of man. He was begotten by the Father and not by the Holy Ghost.
Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff's Journal, April 9, 1852
Wilford Woodruff
Who begat the Son of God? Infidels say that Jesus was a bastard, but let me tell you the truth concerning that matter. Our Father begat all the spirits that were, before any tabernacles were made. When our Father came into the garden, He came with His celestial body and brought one of His wives with Him and ate of the fruit of the garden until He could beget a tabernacle, and Adam is Michael or God and all the God that we have anything to do with. They eat of this fruit and formed the first tabernacle that was formed. And when the Virgin Mary was begotten with child, it was by the Father and in no other way, in no other way, only as we were begotten. I will tell you the truth as it is in God. The world don't know that Jesus Christ our elder brother was begotten by our Father in Heaven. Handle it as you please, it will either seal the damnation or salvation of man. He was begotten by the Father and not by the Holy Ghost.
Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff's Journal, April 9, 1852
Joseph F. Smith
We are told in the scriptures that Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God in the flesh....how are children begotten? I answer, just as Jesus was begotten of his Father. The Christian denominations believe that Christ was begotten not of God, but of the spirit that overshadowed his mother. This is nonsense. Why will they not believe the Father when He says that Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son? Why will they try to explain this truth away and make mystery of it?
Joseph F. Smith, Box Elder Times, Sep. 22, 1914
George Albert Smith
We are told that Michael and his angels fought, and we understand that we stood with Christ our Lord, on the platform, "Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever." I cannot conceive our Father consigning his children to a condition such as that of the negro race, if they had been valiant in the spirit world in that war in heaven.
George Albert Smith, Conference Reports, CR April 1939, Second Day‑Morning Meeting
Joseph Fielding Smith
Christ Not Begotten of Holy Ghost... Christ was begotten of God. He was not born without the aid of Man, and that Man was God!
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 1, p. 18, 1954
Ezra Taft Benson
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that some Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost.
Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 7
Bruce R. McConkie
Heresy six: There are those who believe or say they believe that Adam is our father and our god, that he is the father of our spirits and our bodies, and that he is the one we worship. The devil keeps this heresy alive as a means of obtaining converts to cultism. It is contrary to the whole plan of salvation set forth in the scriptures, and anyone who has read the Book of Moses, and anyone who has received the temple endowment, has no excuse whatever for being led astray by it. Those who are so ensnared reject the living prophet and close their ears to the apostles of their day. 'We will follow those who went before,' they say. And having so determined, they soon are ready to enter polygamous relationships that destroy their souls. We worship the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Ghost; and Adam is their foremost servant, by whom the peopling of our planet was commenced.
Bruce R. McConkie, Fireside address at BYU
Bruce R. McConkie
Christ was Begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 547, 1966
Bruce R. McConkie
And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God, and that designation means what it says.
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 792, 1966
Bruce R. McConkie
There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events...
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 742
Orson Pratt
God, the Father of our spirits, became the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.... The fleshy body of Jesus required a Mother as well as a Father. Therefore, the Father and Mother of Jesus, according to the flesh, must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife; hence the Virgin Mary must have, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father.... He had a lawful right to overshadow the Virgin Mary in the capacity of a husband, and beget a Son, although she was espoused to another; for the law which He gave to govern men and women, was not intended to govern Himself, or to prescribe rules for his own conduct.
Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 158
Boyd K. Packer
Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, God is our Heavenly Father.
Boyd K. Packer, General Conference 2010, Cleansing the Inner Vessel
Eliza Roxcy Snow
Adam is the great Archangel of this creation. He is Michael. He is the Ancient of Days. He is the father of our elder brother, Jesus Christ‑‑the father of him who shall also come as Messiah to reign. He is the father of the spirits as well as the tabernacles of the sons and daughters of man‑Adam!
Eliza Roxcy Snow, Women of Mormondom, p. 179
Eliza Roxcy Snow
Brightest among these spirits, and nearest in the circle to our Father and Mother in heaven (the Father being Adam), were Seth, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus Christ ‑‑ "These are the sons and daughters of Adam‑the Ancient of Days‑the Father and God of the whole human family. These are the sons and daughters of Michael, who is Adam, the father of the spirits of all our race. These are the sons and daughters of Eve, the Mother of a world.
Eliza Roxcy Snow, Women of Mormondom, p. 19
Eliza Roxcy Snow
When Brigham Young proclaimed to the nations that Adam was our Father and God, and Eve, his partner, the Mother of a world‑both in a mortal and celestial sense ‑‑ he made the most important revelation ever oracled to the race since the days of Adam himself. This grand patriarchal revelation is the very key‑stone of the 'New Creation' of the heavens and the earth. It gives new meaning to the whole system of theology.
Eliza Roxcy Snow, Women of Mormondom, p. 196
Heber C. Kimball
When we escape from this earth, (do) we suppose we are going to heaven? Do you suppose you are going to the earth that Adam came from? that Eloheim came from? where Jehovah the Lord came from? No. When you have learned to become obedient to the Father that dwells upon this earth, to the Father and God of this earth, and obedient to the messengers He sends‑‑‑when you have done all that, remember you are not going to leave this earth. You will never leave it until you become qualified, and capable, and capacitated to become a father of an earth yourselves.
Heber C. Kimball, On November 14, 1852, President Heber C. Kimball gave an address in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The reference is J.D. 1:356
Heber C. Kimball
The Lord told me that Jesus Christ was the son of Adam.
Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Heber C. Kimball, v. 20, p. 17
Heber C. Kimball
I have learned by experience that there is but one God that pertains to this people, and He is the God that pertains to this earth ? the first man. That first man sent his own Son to redeem the world, to redeem his brethren; his life was taken, his blood shed, that our sins might be remitted.
Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 4:1
Heber C. Kimball
In relation to the way in which I look upon the works of God and his creatures, I will say that I was naturally begotten; so was my father, and also my Saviour Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, he is the first begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was nothing unnatural about it.
Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 8:211
First Presidency
Thus, God the Father became the literal father of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born of a mortal mother and an immortal father.
First Presidency, Gospel Principles, p. 57, 1988
First Presidency
[Jesus Christ] was willing to make payment because of his great love for mankind, and he was able to make payment because he lived a sinless life and because he was actually, literally, biologically the Son of God in the flesh.
First Presidency, Messages for Exaltation, For the Sunday Schools of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints, Gospel Doctrine Class, pp. 378‑379, 1967
Abraham H. Cannon
He [George Q. Cannon] believes that Jesus Christ is Jehovah, and that Adam is His father and our God: that under certain unknown conditions the benefits of the Savior's atonement extend to our entire solar system.... He asked me what I understood concerning Mary conceiving the Savior; and as I found no answer, he asked what was to prevent Father Adam from visiting and overshadowing the mother of Jesus. Then I said: 'he must have been a resurrected Being.' 'Yes,' he said, 'and though Christ is said to have been the first fruits of them that slept, yet the Savior said he did nothing but what He had seen His Father do, for He had power to lay down his life and take it up again. Adam, though made of dust, was made, as President Young said, of the dust of another planet than this.' I was very much instructed by the conversation and this days services.
Abraham H. Cannon, Journal of Abraham H. Cannon, June 23, 1889
Samuel H. Rodgers
[During] Conference President Brigham Young said that our spirits ware begotten before that Adam came to the Earth and that Adam helped to make the Earth, that he had a Celestial boddy when he came to the Earth and that he brought his wife or one of his wives with him, and that Eave was allso a Celestial being, that they eat of the fruit of the ground until they begat children from the Earth, he said that Adam was the onley God that we would have, and that Christ was not begotten of the Holy Gost, but of the Father Adam, that Christ, was our elder brother. The argument that he used to shoe that Christ was not begotten by the holy gost, was a caution to the Elders that when they should go to preach the Gospel, to be careful how they laid their hands on the sisters, for the reseption of the holy Gost, lest the holy Gost should get them with Child and that it would be laid to them.
Samuel H. Rodgers, Journal of Samuel H. Rodgers, v. 1, p. 179; BYU Special Collections
Rodney Turner
Women are queens and priestesses but not gods. The Godhead, the 'Presidency of Heaven,' is a presidency of three male deities, similar to a stake presidency whose members each have wives who are responsible for domestic religious education but not ecclesiastical functions.
Rodney Turner, BYU religion professor, Sunstone Panel Discussion, September 7, 1991
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