Spirit children of God


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I'm not sure I understand LDS beliefs, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, either in the question or the presuppositions that led to it.

We are all "spirit children" of God in the spiritual 'realm'. However, I understand that LDS believe God has a physical body, so #1- can someone explain that? Do we have physical bodies in the spirit world, too?

#2- if we are all literal children of God, does that mean we are marrying and parenting our literal brothers and sisters in this world? If not, please set me straight.

#3-if yes, are we brothers and sisters again when we return to the spirit world, or are we still husbands and wives? Which is what I thought the "sealing" for eternity was about.

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Guest LiterateParakeet

I'm not sure I understand LDS beliefs, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, either in the question or the presuppositions that led to it.

We are all "spirit children" of God in the spiritual 'realm'. However, I understand that LDS believe God has a physical body, so #1- can someone explain that? Do we have physical bodies in the spirit world, too?

#2- if we are all literal children of God, does that mean we are marrying and parenting our literal brothers and sisters in this world? If not, please set me straight.

#3-if yes, are we brothers and sisters again when we return to the spirit world, or are we still husbands and wives? Which is what I thought the "sealing" for eternity was about.

Hello fatima! Welcome to the board!

I might not be the best person to answer your question, but I am going to give it a shot anyway. If I mess things up, I'm sure someone else will come along and correct me. :D

I believe we were "intelligiences" first. (I have no real idea what that means so don't ask, LOL) Then God approached us and offered us an opportunity to become like him. We accepted. Some how, we became spirit children...I don't know what that entails. It doesn't matter to me. Progressing from intelligience to spirit, however that happened was the first step. As spirit children we lived with Heavenly Father and Mother as brothers and sisters.

Yes, I do believe we marry and parent our spiritual brothers and sisters. This has helped me be a better parent because I don't think of my children as being "inferior" due to their age, but I remember that their spirit was a peer. And that perhaps we made plans before we came to earth to be a family unit here and help one another through.

If we are sealed, then we will continue as husbands/wives and families after this life. Those who do not have the opportunity in this life will be given the opportunity. Personally, I adore Mother Teresa and Fr. Thomas Keating. I believe they will be blessed for their work and ministry in this life and not held back from any blessings...including marraige, though they did not chose that in this life because of their beliefs. I believe the Lord cares very much about what is in our hearts.

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Hello fatima! Welcome to the board!

I might not be the best person to answer your question, but I am going to give it a shot anyway. If I mess things up, I'm sure someone else will come along and correct me. :D

I believe we were "intelligiences" first. (I have no real idea what that means so don't ask, LOL) Then God approached us and offered us an opportunity to become like him. We accepted. Some how, we became spirit children...I don't know what that entails. It doesn't matter to me. Progressing from intelligience to spirit, however that happened was the first step. As spirit children we lived with Heavenly Father and Mother as brothers and sisters.

Yes, I do believe we marry and parent our spiritual brothers and sisters. This has helped me be a better parent because I don't think of my children as being "inferior" due to their age, but I remember that their spirit was a peer. And that perhaps we made plans before we came to earth to be a family unit here and help one another through.

If we are sealed, then we will continue as husbands/wives and families after this life. Those who do not have the opportunity in this life will be given the opportunity. Personally, I adore Mother Teresa and Fr. Thomas Keating. I believe they will be blessed for their work and ministry in this life and not held back from any blessings...including marraige, though they did not chose that in this life because of their beliefs. I believe the Lord cares very much about what is in our hearts.

Your last statement, I could not agree more! I am firmly a Catholic, without a doubt in my mind. However, I am curious about other theologies. The LDS have a respect from me many other faiths do not, simply because of the humility in recognizing they do NOT know it all. As we believe the Holy Father is protected from error in matters of faith and morals, you also believe about your president/prophet. (I don't know if those two terms are interchangable) Obedience is a great virtue, IMO.

So, follow up...based on what you are saying (and I understand that you said you may not know the answer) LDS do not believe that we had bodies in the spiritual realm? I guess this is confusing me. Were we matter that God formed into intelligences? Again, I thought LDS taught that we are literal, and by that I mean biological/physical, children of God. If He has a body, then I assumed LDS would say that His Children would have a body.

Can you help separate my understanding of "spiritual brothers and sisters" from literal? Parsing that out in my mind isn't working.

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I'm not sure I understand LDS beliefs, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, either in the question or the presuppositions that led to it.

We are all "spirit children" of God in the spiritual 'realm'. However, I understand that LDS believe God has a physical body, so #1- can someone explain that? Do we have physical bodies in the spirit world, too?

#2- if we are all literal children of God, does that mean we are marrying and parenting our literal brothers and sisters in this world? If not, please set me straight.

#3-if yes, are we brothers and sisters again when we return to the spirit world, or are we still husbands and wives? Which is what I thought the "sealing" for eternity was about.

If you really would like to gain a better understanding of LDS doctrines, please review and study our gospel principles as provided by our Church.

First question, are we all the "spirit children" of God? Yes. Evidence for this answer is provided by President Thomas S. Monson

The Lord has declared that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man.”3 Thus it is the spirit which is the offspring of God. The writer of Hebrews refers to Him as “the Father of spirits.”4 The spirits of all men are literally His “begotten sons and daughters.”5

Are we literally marrying and parenting our spiritual brothers and sisters? Yes.

However, our understanding of brother and sister as in comparison to an earthly brother and sister, body of flesh, blood and bones, may not have the same connotation. In other words, those of us who marry a spiritual brother and sister is not the same idea, etymology, of the word incest, which is what this question from some people leads to.

God however does not have a "physical body" as you are describing it. God actually has a glorified spiritual body, of flesh and bone, similar to the body our Lord, Jesus Christ, appeared to his disciples with, Luke 24: 39

How our Heavenly Father has a glorified body of flesh and bone, is unknown. No one can explain this. We know how our Savior has a body of flesh and bone, because this is revealed in scripture.

Edited by Anddenex
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Guest LiterateParakeet

I guess this is confusing me. Were we matter that God formed into intelligences? Again, I thought LDS taught that we are literal, and by that I mean biological/physical, children of God. If He has a body, then I assumed LDS would say that His Children would have a body.

Can you help separate my understanding of "spiritual brothers and sisters" from literal? Parsing that out in my mind isn't working.

Fatima, excellent questions. I really don't know...perhaps soon someone else will come along and help us out. ;) I have always imagined it as that we were intelligiences, and God formed us into Spirits and somehow by that process we became literally his children...but now that you ask, I realize that isn't really clear. I feel certain that God has a body, and that we did not receive bodies until we were born here on the earth...how that connects to being literal children of God is where I am not clear. I'm sorry I can't give you a better answer than that, but as I said, someone else might know.

I don't really don't know much about Catholism, but I have recently become familar with Fr. Thomas Keating and his teachings on Centering Prayer are very valuable to me. :)

Edited to add: I wasn't ignoring you Anddenex, we posted at the same time. Thanks for your input!

Edited by LiterateParakeet
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I'm not sure I understand LDS beliefs, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, either in the question or the presuppositions that led to it.

We are all "spirit children" of God in the spiritual 'realm'. However, I understand that LDS believe God has a physical body, so #1- can someone explain that? Do we have physical bodies in the spirit world, too?

#2- if we are all literal children of God, does that mean we are marrying and parenting our literal brothers and sisters in this world? If not, please set me straight.

#3-if yes, are we brothers and sisters again when we return to the spirit world, or are we still husbands and wives? Which is what I thought the "sealing" for eternity was about.

LiterateParakeet talked about Intelligences... We don't know alot about them... We know they were co-eternal and co-existent with God the Father... we know they were not on any level equal to God the Father, we know their was variation among them and we know at some fundamental level they are/were us.

God the Father seeing these Intelligences and knowing of their ability to progress and become more like him set up a plan that would allow each Intelligence progress and increase as far and as much as it was willing to.

As part of this process set up by God the Father, these Intelligences were given spiritual bodies. (aka became spirits) Thus we became his spirit children and all of us became spiritual brothers and sisters.

We don't really have an understanding of how that all worked... we do have a greater understanding of the next step. The next step is the physical bodies. Our current bodies are but pale imitation of his, but as part of this experience to become more like him we are given the opportunity to help our other spiritual brothers and sisters get their physical bodies. For reasons that I think should be clear this would intensify the existing relationships from brother and sister to parent and child. And between the spiritual brother and sister who are working together to give them bodies and help these sprrits grow and learn in physical bodies, into Husband and Wife. Which is why as Anddenex stated we need to be very careful not to apply purely biological meanings and reactions of the relationships, when looking at it from an eternal perspective.

Then comes the resurrection. Then comes putting away of this flawed flesh into the glorified immortal body like God the Father has.

And those who followed the commands and worked hard to build, intensify and enlarge various relationship will then have them made eternal

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As we believe the Holy Father is protected from error in matters of faith and morals, you also believe about your president/prophet. (I don't know if those two terms are interchangeable)

If by "Holy Father" you are referring to the Pope, my own understanding is that Catholics believe that the Pope is protected from error.

For LDS, the President of the Church or the Prophet (yes, they are interchangeable), our doctrine does not say that they are perfect... but LDS members may act and may speak of them as though they are as a part of our unique faith-based culture. Culture and doctrine should not be interchangeable, but many times they are.

Just pointing out a subtle difference. :)

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Good evening fatima. I hope you are doing well! =)

I'm not sure I understand LDS beliefs, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, either in the question or the presuppositions that led to it.

We are all "spirit children" of God in the spiritual 'realm'. However, I understand that LDS believe God has a physical body, so #1- can someone explain that? Do we have physical bodies in the spirit world, too?

#2- if we are all literal children of God, does that mean we are marrying and parenting our literal brothers and sisters in this world? If not, please set me straight.

#3-if yes, are we brothers and sisters again when we return to the spirit world, or are we still husbands and wives? Which is what I thought the "sealing" for eternity was about.

1. God made our spirits in pre-mortality. We did not have physical bodies like Heavenly Father in pre-mortality. We no more know the mechanism of how God made our spirit bodies then we know the mechanism of how God was able to bring a corpse back to life.

2. We are all literally spirit brothers and spirit sisters. When we marry and bring forth offspring, we are marrying our literal spirit brother or our literal spirit sister and our offspring literally are our spirit brother or spirit sister as well.

3. Just as my sons and my daughters will always be my sons and my daughters, they will also always be my brothers and my sisters.

I was testifying about this subject to my children earlier today.

I was teaching them that as a parent, I do not own them and they are not really my children, in the sense that they are mine. God has given me stewardship over them. But, I should always respect them as true individuals, my brothers and my sisters, who I have covenanted to do everything in my power to help them return back to Heavenly Father. I reminded them that the bonds, the associations, and the love that we build here on earth with each other in our family will last in to the eternities. We will forever share this bond of family.

I also taught my children that I am their father as well and that I will always be their father and they will always be my sons and my daughters. My mortal body and the mortal body of my wife helped to create the mortal body that houses the spirits of my children. I am a father and will forever be one.

Regards,

Finrock

Edited by Finrock
Clarification, grammar.
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We are both physical and spirit, joined together. The body is mortal, the spirit is not. We don't know how god formed our spirit. We will be resurrected and reunited with our body once again after death. But our intelligence (our mind) is in our spirit, not our body, and we don't lose that upon death.

Here are some Bible verses that speak of our pre-Earth existence.

Man, a Spirit Child of Heavenly Father

God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. 16:22

Ye are the children of the Lord your God, Deut. 14:1

there is a spirit in man, Job 32:8

breath of the Almighty hath given me life, Job 33:4

Ye are gods … children of the most High, Ps. 82:6

the spirit shall return unto God who gave it, Eccl. 12:7

he that giveth breath … and spirit to them that walk, Isa. 42:5

Ye are the sons of the living God, Hosea 1:10

Have we not all one father, Mal. 2:10

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, Matt. 5:48 (3 Ne. 12:40).

Our Father which art in heaven, Matt. 6:9 (3 Ne. 13:9).

we are the offspring of God, Acts 17:29

Spirit itself beareth witness … we are the children of God, Rom. 8:16

One God and Father of all, Eph. 4:6

be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, Heb. 12:9

Man, Antemortal Existence of

God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. 16:22 (Num. 27:16).

all the sons of God shouted for joy, Job 38:7

the spirit shall return unto God who gave it, Eccl. 12:7

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, Jer. 1:5

Lord … formeth the spirit of man within him, Zech. 12:1

who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind, John 9:2

poets have said, For we are also his offspring, Acts 17:28

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, Rom. 8:29

chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1:4

subjection unto the Father of spirits, Heb. 12:9

angels which kept not their first estate, Jude 1:6

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, Rev. 12:7

The best evidence I have seen is a study of the First Estate and Second Estate described in the Bible.

The First Estate is our pre-Earth life, and our Second Estate is Earth life. Both are/were tests. 1/3 failed the first test, and we are being tested now to see if we will keep God's commandments.

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Luke 20:27-38

27 Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him,

28 Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.

29 There were therefore seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and died without children.

30 And the second took her to wife, and he died childless.

31 And the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died.

32 Last of all the woman died also.

33 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife.

34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:

35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:

36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.

37 Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

38 For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

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