August 1916: The Father and The Son
In August of 1916 The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clarified the relationship between our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ via an official statement, "The Father and The Son", specifically speaking, the First Presidency clarified what our Latter-day usage of the sacred name-titles they bear would be:
Scriptures embodying the ordinary signification--literally that of Parent--are too numerous and specific to require citation. The purport of these scriptures is to the effect that God the Eternal Father, whom we designate by the exalted name-title "Elohim", is the literal Parent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and of the spirits of the human race...Jesus Christ is the Son of Elohim both as spiritual and bodily offspring; that is to say, Elohim is literally the Father of the spirit of Jesus Christ and also of the body in which Jesus Christ performed His mission in the flesh...That Jesus Christ, whom we also know as Jehovah, was the executive of the Father, Elohim, in the work of creation...
Thus the relationship, if it had not already been made very clear in the Restoration (and indeed it had been), now the doctrine was explicitly laid out, namely, that we Latter-day Saints refer to The Father by His exalted name-title in Hebrew, "Elohim", and Jesus Christ, His Only-Begotten in the flesh, was also "Jehovah", His First-Born in the spirit.
Two By Two
The issue of Hebrew usage is very interesting because both titles, Elohim and Jehovah, are applied to both The Father and The Son. Why? Because The Son, by doing the will of His Father in Heaven perfectly, was exactly like His Father, and His Father therefore gave Him all that He had. The same promise of eternal life and exaltation is held out to all people.
To see the name-title Elohim used in Hebrew for both The Father and The Son one may consider Genesis 1:6-7:
And Elohim said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And Elohim made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
These passages are so familiar we may not catch what is there. In verse six Elohim commanded that there be a firmament. Then in verse seven Elohim proceeded to make the firmament. I put it to the reader that The Father, Elohim, did not command Himself to make the firmament, nor did He obey Himself. He commanded His Son to make the firmament (the creation in its entirety as well, though the firmament is but a single instance), and as The Son was doing the will of The Father for The Father's objectives, The Son bore The Father's Title, "Elohim".
Consider Genesis 41:32:
And for that the dream was repeated unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the word [or "thing"] is decreed by The Elohim and The Elohim is hastening to do it.
Well, well, well, what do we have here? We again see Elohim, here with the definite article, The Elohim, 'The God', the Presiding Elohim. In this passage the prophet Joseph describes how The Elohim had decreed the periods of plenty and famine twice to Pharaoh by dream, and then, perhaps more interesting still, Joseph describes The Elohim hurrying to do it, or rather, that The Elohim is on the point or verge of executing the decree. Again, The Son does the will of The Father, and therefore The Father bestowed His title on Him.
And the same is seen with the title, Jehovah, 'Existent', as in Genesis 18:17,19:
And Jehovah said, Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do justice and judgment; that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.
These two verses are powerful. We see Jehovah speaking in the first person, "I"--"Shall I hide"--and as Jehovah continues in the first person--"I know"--Jehovah then speaks of Jehovah in the third person, "they shall keep the way of Jehovah"...that "Jehovah may bring"...that which "He hath spoken". The Jehovah who is addressing Abraham directly is Jehovah, The Son of Elohim. It then appears that the Jehovah that Jehovah The Son referred to was Jehovah His Father. Elohim bears the title "Jehovah" and placed it on His Son because His Son did His will in all things.
Pattern One
Though the usage of the name-titles Elohim and Jehovah could seem confusing let us consider the earliest usages. In the first instance of Deity acting and making addresses The Father is called Elohim and The Son is called Jehovah:
(Genesis 1:1) In a beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.
(Genesis 1:26) And Elohim said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...
(Genesis 1:28) And Elohim blessed them, and Elohim said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it...
(Genesis 3:22) And Jehovah Elohim said, Behold, the Adam is become as one of us...
(Genesis 3:23) Therefore Jehovah Elohim sent the Adam forth from the garden...
(Genesis 4:6) And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen?What we see in the earliest usage is that The Father was called "Elohim" first, then later "Jehovah Elohim" (translated to English as "The Lord God"). It was Elohim, The Father, who laid out the plan for creation, Elohim presided, and initially, before Adam and Eve fell, it was Elohim, The Father, Himself who addressed Adam and Eve, "The Adam", directly, face to face, without any intermediary. After the fall of Adam it was "Jehovah" who addressed mankind directly. So in the earliest usage "Elohim" is The Father and "Jehovah" is The Son, in their direct communications with mankind. It is worth noting, though, that along with Jehovah as an Intermediary, The Father does again address mankind directly, which is a topic for another post.
Greece the Transmission
In the centuries immediately preceding Jehovah's birth as Jesus Christ, that is, Elohim's Son's birth as Jesus Christ, and in the centuries that followed, Holy Writ came to be translated to Greek and in some instances penned in Greek autographs. Eventually Greek speakers settled upon a pattern of translating the name Jehovah as "o Kyrios" 'The Lord' or even solely as "Kyrios" '(the) Lord'. Greek speakers rendered the name-title Elohim as "o Theos" 'The God'.
The New Testament was compiled in the fourth century AD, and when it was first bound into tomes the various Christian churches that had been forged into a union named The Roman Catholic Church under Emperor Constantine could not agree on contents of the New Testament canon. The 27 books we now have in The New Testament were eventually agreed upon, but there were other sacred books that were not universally accepted. It appears that the initial solution was to allow different Christian centers (cities) to have their regionally accepted books included in the back of the sacred volume. In this way New Testaments differed by contents from Christian center to Christian center. (It is worth noting that this variation continues to this day with the Armenian, Ethiopic and possibly the Georgian New Testaments being larger in content and, until fairly recently, the Aramaic/Syriac New Testament being shorter, which would be a topic for another blog post.) By the start of the fifth century AD in the west at least those extra books were removed from the canon. Here is an excerpt from The Epistle of Barnabas, a book purported to have been written by the Apostle Barnabas, which epistle was preserved in arguably the oldest surviving New Testament volume, The Sinaiticus: Epistle of Barnabas: 5:5-9:
(5) And furthermore, my brethren: if The Lord submitted to suffer for our souls, even though He is The Lord of the whole world, to whom The God said at the foundation of the world, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness," how is it, then, that He submitted to suffer at the hand of men? Learn! (6) The prophets, receiving grace from Him, prophesied about Him. But He Himself submitted, in order that He might destroy death and demonstrate the reality of the resurrection of the dead, because it was necessary that He be manifested in the flesh. (7) Also, He submitted in order that He might redeem the promise to the fathers and--while preparing the new people for Himself--prove, while He was still on earth, that after He has brought about the resurrection He will execute judgment. (8) Furthermore, by teaching Israel and performing extraordinary wonders and signs, He preached and loved them intensely. (9) And when He chose His own Apostles who were destined to preach His gospel (who were sinful beyond all measure in order that He might demonstrate that "He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners), then He revealed Himself to be God's Son.
In this citation (as throughout the work) Jesus Christ is referred to as "The Lord", God's Son; Jesus' Father is called "The God". The underlying Hebrew for this usage would be calling Jesus Christ "Jehovah", Elohim's Son, and calling Jesus' Father "The Elohim", The God who directed Jehovah in the work of creation and The God who sent Jehovah to suffer for the sins of the world.
What to Make of This?
The question I posed at the outset was "what is one to make of this?" Of what specifically? Of the fact that anciently, in the Hebrew records, The Father bore the name-titles "Elohim" and "Jehovah" and that The Father bestowed both on His Son, but that in particular The Father did bear the name-title "Elohim" and His Son bore the name-title "Jehovah". I mean to say, is it not interesting that in the earliest accounts written in Hebrew The Father is called Elohim and His Son is called Jehovah, that this usage becomes extremely clear and succinct in the early Apostolic era, the time while Christ's Church was still founded on the basis of living Apostles, and then that some 1700 years later when living prophets and Apostles are once again on the earth through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the very same clarity of title usage, The Father as Elohim and Jesus as Jehovah, suddenly reappears? How is it that the earliest usage was restored in the first-century Apostolic era, and then after 1700 years of loss the same initial usage is yet again restored via the First Presidency statement, "The Father and The Son"? The reader is left to ponder that for him or herself. To me the answer is obvious: Whenever God calls Apostles and Prophets God reveals His true identity, titles, and relationship to His Son to His living oracles. This is why the relationship was clear under Moses, the clarity was restored under the first-century Apostles, and then the clarity was again restored under Joseph Smith culminating in 1916's "The Father and The Son" (by Joseph Smith's successor-Prophets and Apostles). Certainly the reader is free to make of this what he or she will, but the citations speak for themselves, and they are actually really quite textual.
Have a great day!
