Yes, we believe that both God and angels have visited the earth.  All Christians, if they stopped to think about it, believe the same thing.   Some of the most well-known examples are

1) When God visited Moses in the burning bush (Exodus ch. 3),

2) When an angel told Mary that she would be the mother of Christ (Luke ch. 1), and

3) Angels visiting shephards in the fields announcing that Christ had been born (Luke ch. 2).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unique in that we believe that God still speaks to men today.  In the early 1800′s, a young boy named Joseph Smith was concerned about which church he should join.  After much study, he finally realized that there was no way he could figure it out.  One night he read a verse in the book of James, which stood out to him (James 1:5).  He realized that the only way he could find out what to do would be to pray and ask God for direction.  In response to his sincere prayer, God the Father and Jesus Christ visited him and told him that none of the churches were true.  They told him that they were calling him as the next prophet to restore the true church to the earth again. (To see a short video representation of this story, click here.)

We believe that God has called prophets and apostles again to the earth.  Just as God visited Moses and gave him directions on how to lead His people, He has a prophet on the earth today who can receive guidance on what we should be doing now – President Thomas S. Monson.  Just earlier this month, we had the opportunity to listen to the prophet and apostles in a General Conference of the Church.  I love watching conference.  As I watch and listen, things stick out to me and I write them down, so I can work on them.  I know that God speaks to prophets today, because I receive help and guidance with my life as I listen to their messages.

Wow that’s a big topic; perhaps too big for us mortals to deal with. The creation stories of many cultures begin with the gods already in place. The Jewish/Christian story is one such example Geneses 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The Greeks with their highly developed mythology explored the question of where their gods originated; Edith Hamilton in her book Mythology begins by stating: “The Greeks did not believe that the gods created the universe. It was the other way about: the universe created the gods. Before there were gods heaven and earth had been formed. They were the first parents. The Titans were their children, and the gods were their grandchildren. Yet that still leaves the mystery of how the heaven and earth were formed and who might have had a hand in that process.

Every good story needs a beginning. A puzzle I used to present to my high school history students was: “What should the starting date of United State’s History be?” I would get dates  as recent as 1776 and as old as 30,000 BC. Another thing to consider is that for a story to make sense we have to be able to understand it. So the story in the scriptures begins with God in place and creating the world, and there isn’t much detail about the physics of the whole exercise.

Mormons believe in prophets and continuing revelation. From my study it appears that every age or so one of the main prophets gets the “Big Revelation”. They get to take a glimpse of the whole story and sometimes it can help us gain a better understanding of the eternal perspective. One of these revelations was given to Moses and is recorded in the Book of Moses found in the Pearl of Great Price. Allow me to capture the essence of the conversation as it was later revealed to Joseph Smith which is in Chapter 1.

God introduces himself to Moses and tells him that he is eternal and that his works and his words are endless and that no man can behold all his works or his glory and remain in the flesh. The Lord did however show Moses this world and all the children of men which were created. After a brief interlude the vision is again opened up to Moses and Moses begins to question how all these things could be. God then gives him the short answer to the question saying that all these things were created “by the word of my power, which is his Only Begotten Son.” He then says that, “worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose”. Essentially telling Moses that the vision of the earth on which we dwell is all he’s going to go into and that the bigger picture is just too much for Moses to comprehend.

So for our purposes all we need to consider is that God the Father exists and is eternal, that he has created the earth and the people of the earth through the power of the Son. We also know why He did it: “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Of course our curious minds want to know more details and some hints are available both in the scriptures and through modern revelation, but it isn’t terribly important to our salvation, which we probably should be more focused on. We are asked to live by faith, which means trusting God before we have all the details.

So that is what Mormons believe…

…as for what they speculate: that belongs on a different website.

Today in church, the young children went up to the front and sang some songs about fathers that they have been practicing for the last couple of weeks.  It was fun to hear and see them sing.  I also watched with great interest as my oldest son, who is 3 years old, sang along.

I haven’t been a dad very long and I’m still learning a lot.  Some things I’ve learned so far are just little things, like how to get marker out of the carpet or how to make the tastiest Mac and Cheese, but some of the things I’ve learned are on more of a deeper level.  Maybe fatherhood and ageing has given me a different perspective.

As I watch my two toddlers, I often think about our Heavenly Father watching over us.  I think of the love that He has for us.  When my son works on a puzzle, gets stuck and asks for help, I’m willing to help him out with it.  I also think about God being eager to help us if we come to him with our problems.  The scripture in Matthew 7:9-11 fits well:

“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask of him?”

My wife shared with me an experience she had when she took our son to get his immunization shots.  Our son has always been really trusting.  Even when he’d cry as a baby, he’d just call out and then wait for us to take care of him.  He just wasn’t a big crier.  Well, as the shots were administered, a look of pain and shock overcame his face.  He looked up with an expression of “how could you let this happened to me?”  My wife admitted she started crying too.  She felt so bad for him and wanted to somehow tell him that the shots were to help him.  It would only hurt for a little while.  Later, she realized that Heavenly Father must feel the same way when we go through our trials in life.  They may be painful or seem really hard at the time, but they really help us learn and become stronger people.

What are some insights that you have gained that demonstrate our relation, as children, to our Heavenly Father?

Other Related Articles:
The Living Christ
The Sons and Daughters of God
What Do Mormons Believe about the Atonement of Jesus Christ?
Jesus the Christ
What do Mormons Believe? — Faith
Is Jesus the only son of God?
The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
How Do You Pray?

This is a fitting first statement of our beliefs, that we believe in God. We believe that They are each separate and distinct beings from one another but that they fulfill Their work with unity of purpose.

God is our Heavenly Father and is the Father of our spirits and in this sense, Jesus is our Elder Brother. Jesus is, however, the only Son of God in the flesh. Both God, the Father, and the Son, have physical bodies. The Holy Ghost does not have a body so that He can be present with every person on Earth. His role is to testify of Christ and of the Father and to guide and comfort us in our lives.

See also:

Do Mormons believe in the Trinity?

Why do you believe in God?

Jesus the Christ

Is Jesus the only Son of God?

“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels” (Rev. 3:5).

“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (Rev. 21:7).

There are numerous other references to those great people who were clothed in white, who praised God and who were blessed by Him.  What stuck out to me, however, was the statement, “and he shall be my son.”  In a previous article titled, “Is Jesus the only son of God?” on this site, the nature of our relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ was explained.  Our opportunity to become sons and daughters of God was listed as the third point.  This is the entire reason behind our beliefs and the purpose of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  As the apostle John wrote, “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).  To become a son of God, in this sense, is to be like our Savior.  This is our ultimate goal for this life and all that we do ought to progress us further in pursuing that goal.

That goal, however, is impossible to achieve alone. In and of ourselves, we do not merit anything remotely approaching a return to our Father in Heaven or to be called sons of God. In spite of everything we could ever do, our mistakes and imperfections prevent us from ever returning to our God. He did not send us out from His presence for the purpose of losing us though. His perfect plan accounted for our weakness by including the infinite sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It is through Christ’s suffering in Gesthemene and His death on the cross that He became our advocate to the Father.  Without Christ, we would have to accept all the consequences of our actions, that includes being forever separated from God.  Christ paid the price of justice on our behalf, making us debtors to Him and no longer to sin.  Sin would condemn us forever, but Christ has set His own conditions that allow us to obtain mercy.  Those conditions that He gave us are simple enough. He wants us to give Him our will, the only thing we really have of ourselves to give Him. He asked us to believe in His name, love Him, keep His commandments, enter into covenants, and to repent.

To fulfill those requirements He has given us, it first requires faith on our part.  Faith in His name and in His word causes us to follow His teachings, repenting when necessary.  Repentance leads to baptism which prepares an individual to receive the Holy Ghost.  The Holy Ghost provides the guidance we need to further emulate Christ, particularly in serving our fellow man.

When baptized, an individual makes certain covenants or agreements with the Lord.  We agree to take His name upon ourselves and to always remember Him.  Taking His name upon us is a major step in becoming a son or daughter of God.  It means to act in His behalf and do as He would do.  If we are true and faithful to His name throughout our lives, we will become like He is.  We will be like our Father, just as we are commanded to be (Matt 5:48).

This is a great truth that has sustained me in this life.  We have infinite potential!  Even the lowest, meanest person on earth is spiritually a son of God and can become like Him.  We should all take strength in this knowledge and be faithful to it.  The greatest blessings of Heaven and Earth are available to the faithful.

Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.  For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed? -Abinadi (Mosiah 15:11-12)

It was published in 1829 by Joseph Smith, but he did not claim authorship; his claims were a bit more extraordinary.  He said an angel led him to the buried book, written on metal sheets the color of gold.  The text was a form of hieroglyphics, and he was able to translate it into English over the course of a few months using “the gift and power of God” residing in a pair of special interpretive stones, the Urim and Thummim.  When the translation was finished, the angel came and collected the gold plates and then the manuscript was taken to the printer.

Joseph kept the gold plates hidden from the public at the Lord’s command; many find the story that the angel Moroni took them back to be suspiciously convenient.  Since the plates are not available today for examination, skeptics have contended that there were no plates to begin with.

Does his story hold water?

Some dismiss the question too easily before examining any evidence.  The story’s supernatural elements (an angel and a pair of interpreting stones) provide convenient rationale to attribute it to fiction.  Even those who believe in the power of God may feel more comfortable disregarding the story because it doesn’t jive with their current conception of God or simply because it is something of which they’ve never heard.  In essence they say, “Surely something so powerful and interesting, if true, would have been brought to my attention already.”

Joseph’s story is, admittedly, somewhat fantastical.  It stretches one’s worldview.  Fortunately, the Lord provided aid to the incredulous:  eyewitnesses.

Were there actual gold plates?

In the summer of 1829 in Manchester, New York, just after completing the translation, Joseph met with eight close associates and (with the Lord’s permission) showed them the gold plates.  They were permitted to see, feel, and hold the record and examine closely the inscriptions on each leaf.  They each signed the following testimonial, published with the Book of Mormon ever since (my emphasis):

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

Christian Whitmer
Jacob Whitmer
Peter Whitmer, Jun
John Whitmer
Hiram Page
Joseph Smith, Sen
Hyrum Smith
Samuel H. Smith

This was not some idle piece of writing for them.  It implicated them.  They were interviewed, accused, and mocked.  From that day on, they each stood firm in their eyewitness testimony of these plates.  Five of the eight remained in good standing with the Church, enduring mobs, extermination orders, and repeated forced expulsion from their homes.  Jacob Whitmer and Hiram Page stopped practicing, but still believed; and John Whitmer was excommunicated in a later Church incident, but not one of them (not even John who had ample reason and opportunity to expose the prophet) rescinded his testimony.  If there were no plates, the reason for their steadfastness becomes a mystery.

Others had experiences that confirm the existence of the plates.  For instance, Joseph’s wife Emma described the following concerning the period of translation:

The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.

These testimonies, among others, corroborate the young prophet’s story of the gold plates.  It is strong evidence that they existed.

Was there an actual angel?

A few days prior to the eight witnesses’ encounter with the plates, three of Joseph’s closest friends were given a more miraculous manifestation.  The gold plates were revealed at the hands of the angel Moroni and the voice of the Lord declared the record to be true.  Their testimony accompanies each copy of the Book of Mormon as well:

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

Oliver Cowdery
David Whitmer
Martin Harris

As you can see, these witnesses had a different type of encounter with the gold plates.  They saw an angel and heard the voice of God.  They were commanded to “bear record of it,” or tell people about it.

Now, just the testimony of these three alone would be solid ground for a case in a court of law, but there is another even juicier part of this tale.  Several years later, all three of these men struggled with Joseph Smith’s leadership and were excommunicated from the Church.  For some time they were among Joseph’s strongest critics, yet every time they were interviewed (and there were hundreds of interviews, usually with very skeptical interrogators), they would each enthusiastically stand by their commitment to bear record of the plates and the angel who revealed them.

Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris eventually made amends with the Church leadership and returned to full fellowship.  David Whitmer remained separate from the Church, but committed to believing in the Book of Mormon and the angel Moroni.  Every one of them testified of the plates on their death beds.

Is Joseph’s story true?

That is a question you must decide for yourself.  Eight eyewitnesses claimed to have seen and hefted the plates and committed their testimony to writing.  Emma felt them through a cloth on the table.  Three eyewitnesses had them presented by an angel and lived up to the command to testify.  Even when they most wanted to see the prophet fail and could have recanted and exposed him, they didn’t.  Even at death’s door, with nothing left to gain, they stood by their words.  And these are just a few examples among many more.

These things may be enough to convince you or not; I don’t know.  I only hope to illustrate that there are good, rational reasons to believe Joseph Smith’s story.

The witnesses weren’t what made me believe it, but learning about them helped solidify my belief.  Really what convinced me was reading the book that came from these gold plates.  Near the end of the book, Moroni (the angel) writes, “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”  Read it yourself and take the chance to ask God in prayer if it is true.

The power of God is not a fairy tale.  When He brings forth scripture, He provides witnesses; when He calls a prophet, He gives reason to believe.  His actions make tangible marks on the world.  When you pray to Him, He will give distinct answers to your heart and mind.

You’ll often hear phrases like, “I know that God lives,” and “I know Jesus died for my sins,” and “I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.”  Sometimes visitors come away from these meetings non-plussed by our uber-confident ‘knowledge’ of things.  It got me thinking.

Whenever someone says they know something, they are saying they have high confidence that their belief coincides with objective truth.  We do this all the time.  You say, “I just know the dentist is going to lecture me on flossing” because 1) he’s done it before and 2) you still haven’t been flossing.  Your previous experience and the evidence of your behavior lead you to this prediction.  There are many ways we gather knowledge; I’ll list a few here for illustration:

• Personal experience (five physical senses,  sense of balance, pain, hunger, etc.)
• Emotion and intuition (love, fear, instinct, etc.)
• Experiences of others (advice, anecdotes, biographies, etc.)
• Logical and mathematical proofs (a priori)
• Found evidence (archeology, historical documents, paleontology, forensics, etc.)
• Robust scientific experimentation that controls for all variables (physics, chemistry, etc.)
• Scientific experimentation/observation that controls for variables where possible (sociology, political science, economics, etc.)

We all tend to have some level of confidence in these methods, some more than others, depending on many factors, but each of these can lead a person to say “I know…” if the learning method is compelling enough.  Even so, many would argue that none of the methods I listed above are capable of producing reliable knowledge of things as transcendent as God.  Archeological digs might lend credence to a religious belief, but surely not firm knowledge.  These critics have a point, so I would add one more item to the list:

• Revelation from God

God speaks to His children in various ways.  He gave Joseph prophetic dreams that came true; He spoke to Moses from a burning bush (and also face-to-face).  He sent an angel to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus.  Joseph Smith saw and listened to the Father and the Son in a grove of trees.

To Joseph of Egypt, Moses, Mary, Smith and many others, those experiences were indisputable.  They had every right to declare, “I know” instead of “I believe,” and they did.

For most of us, though, the glorious visions and visitations of heavenly beings haven’t yet happened.  For us, God has promised another form of revelation: a personal witness of spiritual truths through the power of the Holy Spirit.  He is available to bear witness of the Father and the Son.  ”By the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5).  This witness may be less dramatic or conspicuous than an angelic visitor, but its convincing power may be even more sure than a vision (see Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 2:151; 1 Nephi 17:45-46).  Because of His subtlety, it may take many prompts for you to hear the Holy Ghost and again many more before you trust them enough to say “I know.”  But it can happen.  This is how I know God lives and that Jesus is the Christ.

You can know, too.  Like other modes of learning, it won’t necessarily come in an afternoon of mild curiosity, but it will with dedicated seeking, knocking, and asking over the course of weeks and months and years.  Begin now and you will taste the deliciousness that is the knowledge of God.

While preparing for a class, I came across this talk given by Hugh B. Brown, a member of the First Presidency of our church, who passed away some years ago.  It details a conversation that he had with a member of the British House of Commons and a former justice of the supreme court of Britain regarding our belief in the reality of modern-day prophets.

I will never understand why people reject the doctrine of God still being able to call prophets.  He has always done so and will continue to do so.  I firmly declare that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that there is a prophet today who speaks for God.  Prophets are essential to us knowing who God and Jesus Christ are—their characters and their teachings that will bring salvation.  You too can know of this truth if you will sincerely ask God in prayer with faith to act.

“[This man] called me on the phone one day and asked if I would meet him at his office and explain some phases of my faith. He said, “There is going to be a war [World War II], and you will have to return to America, and we may not meet again.”

When I went to his office, he said he had been intrigued by some things I had told about my church. He asked me if I would prepare a brief on Mormonism and discuss it with him as I would discuss a legal problem. He said, “You have told me that you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that you believe that God the Father and Jesus of Nazareth appeared to him in vision.

“I cannot understand,” he said, “how a barrister and solicitor from Canada, a man trained in logic and evidence and unemotional cold fact, could accept such absurd statements. What you tell me about Joseph Smith seems fantastic, but I wish you would take three days at least to prepare a brief and permit me to examine it and question you on it.”

I suggested that, as I had been working on such a brief for more than 50 years, we proceed at once to have an examination for discovery, which is briefly a meeting of the opposing sides in a lawsuit where the plaintiff and defendant, with their attorneys, meet to examine each other’s claims and see whether they can find some area of agreement and thus save the time of the court later on.

I began by asking, “May I proceed, sir, on the assumption that you are a Christian?”

“I am.”

“I assume that you believe in the Bible—the Old and New Testaments?”

“I do!”

“Do you believe in prayer?”

“I do!”

“You say that my belief that God spoke to a man in this age is fantastic and absurd?”

“To me it is.”

“Do you believe that God ever did speak to anyone?”

“Certainly, all through the Bible we have evidence of that.”

“Did he speak to Adam?”

“Yes.”

“To Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, and to others of the prophets?”

“I believe he spoke to each of them.”

“Do you believe that contact between God and man ceased when Jesus appeared on the earth?”

“Certainly not. Such communication reached its climax, its apex at that time.”

“Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God?”

“He was.”

“Do you believe, sir, that after the resurrection of Christ, God ever spoke to any man?”

He thought for a moment and then said, “I remember one Saul of Tarsus who was going down to Damascus to persecute the saints and who had a vision, was stricken blind, in fact, and heard a voice.”

“Whose voice did he hear?”

“Well,” he said, “the voice said `I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’”

“Do you believe that actually took place?”

“I do.”

“Then, my Lord”—that is the way we address judges in the British commonwealth—”my Lord, I am submitting to you in all seriousness that it was standard procedure in Bible times for God to talk to men.”

“I think I will admit that, but it stopped shortly after the first century of the Christian era.”

“Why do you think it stopped?”

“I can’t say.”

“You think that God hasn’t spoken since then?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“May I suggest some possible reasons why he has not spoken. Perhaps it is because he cannot. He has lost the power.”

He said, “Of course that would be blasphemous.”

“Well, then, if you don’t accept that, perhaps he doesn’t speak to men because he doesn’t love us anymore. He is no longer interested in the affairs of men.”

“No,” he said, “God loves all men, and he is no respecter of persons.”

“Well, then, if you don’t accept that he loves us, then the only other possible answer as I see it is that we don’t need him. We have made such rapid strides in education and science that we don’t need God any more.”

And then he said, and his voice trembled as he thought of impending war, “Mr. Brown, there never was a time in the history of the world when the voice of God was needed as it is needed now. Perhaps you can tell me why he doesn’t speak.”

My answer was, “He does speak, he has spoken; but men need faith to hear him.”

(President Hugh B. Brown, Conference Report, October 1967, Third Day—Morning Meeting 118.)

Short answer: Yes and No.

Long answer: You might think this question would have a straightforward answer, but turns out it doesn’t.  Entire ecumenical councils have been convened to address the relationship between Jesus and the Father.  It’s a sticky question, and this is why:

The Bible uses the term “Only Begotten” four times in reference to Jesus (the Book of Mormon and other LDS scriptures tack on a whopping forty more).  So it seems pretty straightforward; he must be the only one. At the same time, however, there are many other scriptures that seem to indicate there are more children of God—namely us.  Those scriptures refer to the human race as either being the children of God already (Acts 17:29: “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God…”) or having the potential to become the children of God (John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God”).  Furthermore, sometimes Jesus refers to the Father only as “my Father” (Luke 2:49), and sometimes as “your Father” (Matt 5:48), and sometimes both (John 20:17).

So which is it?  Is Jesus the only son of God, or are we all sons and daughters of God?  And if we’re not now, is it possible for us to become so?

I don’t pretend to understand how the majority of Christianity answers those questions, especially since the early creeds seem confusing on what exactly the relationship between the Father and the Son is.  Luckily you just want to know what Mormons believe and that is, by comparison, pretty straightforward.

1. All of us (including Jesus) are spirit children of God.

To suggest that Jesus is always and ever was the only son of God is to ignore a whole lot of scripture in the Bible.  In one sense, we are all children of God. God is the Father of our spirits.  This is why Paul calls us all “the offspring of God.”  We have that piece of divinity inside us.  Jesus is special because he was, as the author of Hebrews calls him, “the Firstbegotten.”  The same author calls His church the “church of the Firstborn.”  Just the use of the words Firstbegotten and Firstborn imply that there are others. Not only that, we were all with God and Jesus before the world was.  (See the posts on the pre-mortal life of man for a better explanation).  In short: all of us are children of God, but Jesus is the first.

2.  Jesus is the only begotten of the Father in the flesh.

If we all are children of God, why are the scriptures so adamant that he is the “Only Begotten Son”?  To beget someone is to father them.  Everyone born on earth has been begotten by an earthly, mortal father.  That is, everyone but Jesus.  Jesus was born to a virgin.  His father is God.  We don’t pretend to know the details of all that, but Jesus is the only one for whom that is true, and that’s why He is called the Only Begotten.

3.  We become the sons and daughters of God in a different sense by accepting the gospel.

If we are all already the children of God, what is all this scriptural talk of becoming the children of God?  Turns out sometimes salvation is spoken of as becoming the sons/daughters of God, or of Christ. When Jesus came to earth and atoned for our sins, he opened the way to be saved.  He gave us power to become the sons of God, as John said.  Maybe it’s confusing to describe it that way, but hey, it wasn’t my idea.  Besides, it’s a good way to describe the spiritual change that happens when we accept Jesus Christ.  I think the Book of Mormon king Benjamin described it best to his people, who had just accepted Jesus Christ with a covenant to follow Him:

“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.”  (Mosiah 5:7)

So we see that if there were only one sense in which a person could be a child of God, the Bible would remain ambiguous on the question.  But if they are referring to different relationships, we get a coherent picture of our relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ. In one sense everyone is a child of God, in another sense only Jesus is, and in a third sense, we start out not children and then have the option to become children of God.

An important footnote: Do Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?

One of the more shocking things you’ll hear about Mormonism is that we believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Now that we’ve outlined our relationships to God, we can address that claim in the proper context.  It’s true that they are brothers in the first sense that I described above, but saying it out of that context is intentionally misleading, because almost everyone is thinking in the second sense.  When you’re coming from the position that Jesus is the only son of God, putting Satan up there with him not only seems like a blatant contradiction of the “Only Begotten” scriptures, but also makes it seem like we consider them to be equals.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  Jesus Christ, the Greatest of all, who personifies goodness and grace, and Satan, the father of lies, who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven, are not equals. They are brothers in the sense that we are all brothers and sisters, spiritual offspring of the same Father.  Aside from that, they couldn’t be more different.