Meditation on Adam-God


The concept of proxy is extremely important to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because, it is by proxy that Jesus took upon Himself our sins.

Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:19 that Jesus "went and preached unto the spirits in prison." However, in Doctrine and Covenants 138:29-30 we learn that the Savior "went not in person" but "appointed messengers." 

Literally, then, Peter is saying that the messengers are Jesus. However, this only makes sense when we realize they are acting as a proxy for Jesus.

This concept may help us understand why God said to Moses, "I have made thee a god to Pharaoh" - Exodus 7:1. 

Now consider these words of Brigham Young, carefully (words appearing in brackets are mine):

"The Lord fills the immensity of space ... The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Lord, and issues forth from Himself, and may properly be called God's minister to execute His will in immensity [i.e. he is speaking of the Holy Ghost as a proxy for the Lord] ... Adam ... is [As Proxy?] our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do ... the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, and in organizing element, perfectly represented in the Deity, as Father, Son and Holy Ghost ... I have given you a few leading items upon this subject, but a great deal more remains to be told." - Brigham Young, April 9, 1852. 

In light of what Brigham Young said in the above quote, I draw the following comparison:

Holy Ghost = Spiritual Proxy

Michael = Physical Proxy

In other words, we pray and receive answers through the Holy Ghost but we say Heavenly Father answered, even though we also teach that that answer comes through the Holy Ghost. Thus the Holy Ghost serves as spiritual proxy for God the Father. Meanwhile, the Biblical name Michael means "Who is like God," thus indicating that Michael serves as a proxy. For instance, Michael physically created the earth, but we can correctly say that Elohim created it, because Michael was serving as proxy - just as we can correctly say that Elohim answers our prayers, even when He uses the Holy Ghost to answer. 


The issue of Adam-God involves additional nuances, which I discuss below.

 - At one point, Brigham Young implied Elohim is our Grandfather. I believe what he was saying is that Elohim is not our earthly father, but since He created Adam, Elohim could be considered our Grandfather in The Second Estate, while being our direct Heavenly Father and our Primary Father eternally, since He is the Father of our First Estate. In the Second Estate, we are physically removed from Heavenly Father, in order for us to experience a mortal probation, and thus Adam, as our earthly father, serves as a proxy for Him during mortality. I believe if we keep our Second Estate, we will receive Celestial bodies and be begotten of Christ (i.e. Resurrected), as it is through Christ's Atonement that we can be joint-heirs with Him in the period following our Second Estate, and receive the fullness of God the Father (Elohim). Until then, Adam is the stand-in, similar to how we stand-in for others during proxy work in Temples (including actors who administer the ordinances, by proxy).

 - Brigham Young went on to say that we must accept this teaching in order to be able to progress eternally, which makes sense because we make the same covenants Adam made, and "Eternal Life" means "the life of God." To reject the teaching that Adam can be exalted is to reject the teaching that we can be exalted. 

 - Understanding Michael ("who is like God") as acting as proxy for Elohim may help us understand why Brigham Young would say he is the only God "with whom we have to do." If we were to assume that Brigham Young was saying that Adam is literally as himself, personally, our God  and the only God with whom we have to do, we would have to accuse Brigham Young of saying that we have "nothing to do" with Jesus or the Holy Ghost, which makes no sense and contradicts all Church doctrine. Instead, he appears to have been saying that any Godly act done by any God is done by the authority and permission and power of Elohim, making anything they do an act of proxy for Elohim. Remember, Jesus always gave glory to the Father. 

 - There is a big difference between saying that Adam is acting in behalf of God, versus saying that God is acting in behalf of Adam. Brigham Young said, "I want to tell you, each and every one of you, that you are well acquainted with God our heavenly Father, or the great Eloheim. You are all well acquainted with Him, for there is not a soul of you but what has lived in His house and dwelt with Him year after year; and yet you are seeking to become acquainted with Him, when the fact is, you have merely forgotten what you did know. There is not a person here to-day but what is a son or daughter of that Being. In the spirit world their spirits were first begotten and brought forth, and they lived there with their parents for ages before they came here. This, perhaps, is hard for many to believe, but it is the greatest nonsense in the world not to believe it. If you do not believe it, cease to call Him Father, and when you pray, pray to some other character." 

 - We know that Adam is our father, and that him being our father does not take anything away from Elohim being our father. Some statements from Brigham Young can be confusing because Adam is appointed as the Patriarch of the human family in the context of the Second Estate. But Brigham Young makes clear that Elohim and Jehovah are both over Michael, while at the same time Brigham Young clearly has great love for Michael, too, and wants to stress his role as our Father in the Second Estate, and not view him merely as a Prophet. It can "feel" like Brigham Young is displacing Elohim with Adam, because Brigham Young uses similar language, like "father," and makes references to being a family before coming to earth, but Brigham Young does not include the hosts of Heaven who rebelled as being part of the children of Adam, thus indicating that it was after the War in Heaven and after we kept our First Estate that we became children of Adam and began preparing together for earth life. A careful reading shows that Brigham Young is not suggesting anyone ought to worship Adam.

 - The only real question is, what are the details of when exactly Adam became our father, and how. Brigham Young seems to say on a couple occasions that Adam became our father while we were still in heaven. That would seem consistent with the account in Moses of a spiritual creation of the earth. Then what about Adam being a father of our spirits? It is important to remember that the Second Estate had a spiritual creation before it had a physical creation, and the spiritual creation of the Second Estate took place long after we had already been begotten as spirit children of Elohim in the period we know as our First Estate. In Moses 2:27, God created man, both male and female. In verse 28, God commands them to multiply. Then, in 3:5, God tells us that "there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air." This is because, "In heaven created I them." It is not until Moses 3:7 that man is given flesh. This could mean we lived on the earth in its spiritual, pre-physical form, with us having spiritual forms of our mortal bodies, which did not replace our first estate spiritual bodies which we received as children of Elohim. 

 - As to how we might have been begotten of Adam and Eve during the spiritual phase of the earth's creation, we need not make assumptions concerning the process. Remember, we are begotten of Jesus Christ through baptism. Jesus tells us that "all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn" (D&C 93:22). Nicodemus wondered what Jesus meant when Jesus said to be "born again." Nicodemus asked if a man can "enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born" - the question may have made sense to Nicodemus because he didn't understand the scope of the issue. In the same way, if anyone asked Brigham Young if he was saying anyone should worship Adam, his answer would likely be "of course not" - and he would explain the details just as Jesus explained to Nicodemus that baptism is a birth, which Nicodemus had not previously considered. He thought birth had only one meaning. 

Similar to Nicodemus making the mistake of interpreting the hard-to-understand teachings of Jesus, about the "born again" concept, through a tangible rather than spiritual lens, we should not make the mistake of interpreting Brigham Young's hard-to-understand teachings about Adam through a physical rather than spiritual lens. 

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