God the Father

Mormons teach that God is very literally their Father in Heaven. He created their spirits and we all lived with Him before we were born, giving Him a personal knowledge of us. When we learn about God here on earth, we are really remembering what we already knew.

When Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus at the age of fourteen, he learned two important truths about God that had been forgotten over the years. The first was that God had a body like ours, but perfected and glorified. We learn in Genesis that we were created in the image of God, and so, clearly, He has to have a body that looks like ours. We aren’t shapeless blobs of matter.

The second principle he learned was that God and Jesus were not the same person. The Bible tells us they are one in purpose and doctrine, completely unified in their work. However, the Savior left no doubt that they were not the same person. This definition is made clear in John:

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17)

It tells us that we are to be one in the same way God and Jesus are to be one. Clearly, we’re not all to merge into one person, but to be unified in living the gospel and doing God’s work.

But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. (John 14:31)

It would be quite odd for a humble Savior to announce that He loved himself. Clearly he is referring to someone else in this scripture.

30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. (John 5:30, King James version of the Bible.)

Here, Jesus tells us that He doesn’t seek His own will, but His Father’s will. If they were the same person, this would not make sense. Jesus takes His instructions from His Father, not from Himself.

We read often in the New Testament about Jesus praying to His Father. He, like us, had to pray to talk to His Father while He lived on earth, because they were not the same person.

What type of God do the Mormons worship? Mormons know God to be a kind and loving Father, who watches over them and sends help through the Holy Ghost. He is an active participant in their lives. Because these are the complicated final days of the earth, He loves us enough to send prophets to guide us safely to the Second Coming, knowing the world has changed dramatically since the Bible was written, and there are new challenges and choices not even imagined in those days. He wants to help us make sense of a complicated and morally challenging world.