Dlowellbrown

I meant no disrespect to any person or system of belief. The LDS church traditionally holds the view that the members of the Trinity are actually three separate beings. This is the understanding and thought process I was using when I made my earlier comment.

Source please?Found a quote from Joseph Smith this morning, it supports the thought that even in exaltation, Jesus remains subordinate to His Father. I am still wrapping my head around it, but I wanted to share for the sake of this discussion, even though it contradicts my personal, previously held thoughts on the subject. "The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power--to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious--in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again.... ... 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. So that Jesus treads in the tracks of His Father, and inherits what God did before; and God is thus glorified and exalted in the salvation and exaltation of all His children." (History of the Church 6:305,306)

By power I mean that Christ can do anything the Father can do. You are correct that all things were created by Christ, at least physically. God the father created all things spiritually before they were created physically. God the father organized the spirit that became Jesus. So even if we want to say that Christ created all things, we would at the same time need to acknowledge that Christ was created by God the father.

God and Christ are equal in power, knowledge, dominion and all other things. That being said, the Godhead are three separate beings. God the Father, creator of all. Jesus , savior of all things that God created. Holy Ghost, revelator of all truth to all things God created. Knowing God and knowing Christ is effectively the same thing because Christ has all that the Father has. Does God have more Glory than Jesus? No. Jesus glorifies God, but God gives all that He has to Jesus and anyone else who becomes exalted. Those who are exalted will eternally glorify God, but as heirs of all that He has will also receive glory even as they give it.

"Jesus Christ holds all the keys of the priesthood pertaining to His Church. He has conferred upon each of His Apostles all the keys that pertain to the kingdom of God on earth. The senior living Apostle, the President of the Church, is the only person on earth authorized to exercise all priesthood keys." Link John held all the keys, just as any apostle does today. However, any apostle today can only exercise keys as authorized by the prophet. Assuming the same rule applied for the ancient apostles, John would have been unable to bestow keys without the authorization of Peter. D & C 42:11 "11 Again I say unto you, that it shall not be given to any one to go forth to preach my gospel, or to build up my church, except he be ordained by some one who has authority, and it is known to the church that he has authority and has been regularly ordained by the heads of the church." Maybe this verse doesn't directly apply, but I believe that it does. If so, it does say the ordination needs to be done by the "heads of the church". I'm sure this has something to do with the law of witnesses. Lastly, I am searching for the conference talk that I believe was given concerning the ordaining of the church president. I seem to remember that the talk I am thinking of explains that while each of the apostles hold all of the priesthood keys, only by meeting together and ordaining the new prophet are those keys activated in him, so a one on one passing of those keys does not work.

I realize the blood of Christ had to be spilled for the atonement to be complete. What about the prophets who sealed their testimonies with their blood? Joseph Smith, Abinadi, Peter, etc. is their a need for their blood to be shed? Does the shedding of their blood increase the efficacy of their testimony?

My apologies if someone already pointed this out. Joseph Smith taught in the King Follett discourse, "All sins shall be forgiven, except the sin against the Holy Ghost; for Jesus will save all except the sons of perdition. What must a man do to commit the unpardonable sin? He must receive the Holy Ghost, have the heavens opened unto him, and know God, and then sin against him. After a man has sinned against the Holy Ghost, there is no repentance for him. He has go to say that the sun does not shine while he sees it; he has got to deny Jesus Christ when the heavens have been opened unto him, and deny the plan of salvation with his eyes open to the truth of it; and from that time he begins to be an enemy...." I can only speak for my own speculation, but i think that the number of people who have received the kind of knowledge referred to here and then denied it is probably very small.

The purifying power of Gethsemane by Mcconkie

I love the gospel! It makes me so happy to read, study and gain increments of understanding from the scriptures. I am so thankful to have the gospel of Christ in my family. I enjoy writing about the gospel as well, and love discussing adoption with anyone who wants to ask.