The Light and Life of the World.

The Light and Life of the world.

 

            In 3 Nephi 11; 11, the Savior says, “And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.”

            How is the Savior the Light and Life of the world? Is he literally or figuratively? How did he do it? I hope with this article you will be closer to being able to answer these questions in order to deepen your testimony of Jesus Christ.

            I believe Christ is literally the Light and Life of the world. In D&C 88: 6-13 speaking of the savior it says,

“He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made; As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made; And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand. And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.”

Notice in the verses about the sun and moon how it treats them the same. As if they receive their light the same way. And how it says the light of the sun and moon is the same light that proceeds forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space. So what if the sun is powered and gives light the same way the moon does….

I think these scriptures are saying the sun is reflective of light and power the same way the moon does. This thought is backed up in the Pearl of Great Price. In Facsimile #2 the explanation of figure 5 it says,

“Is called in Egyptian Enish-go-on-dosh; this is one of the governing planets also, and is said by the Egyptians to be the Sun, and to borrow its light from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash, which is the grand Key, or, in other words, the governing power, which governs fifteen other fixed planets or stars, as also Floeese or the Moon, the Earth and the Sun in their annual revolutions. This planet receives its power through the medium of Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers 22 and 23, receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob.”

So it’s saying again, Enish-go-on-dosh(the sun), Borrows it’s light from Kolob. Like the Moon, and both of them seem to be our end of a succession of governing powers, starting with Kolob. Kolob being the star which governs them all which is the star closest to God, where Kolob gets it’s light (from God).

So what about the science that says there is fusion in the sun’s core which is burning and sending out all the power and light we get. Well scientists are starting to question that finally. First of all, no scientist has been able to re-create the fusion that supposedly happens in the sun. Or we would have endless amounts of electricity available to us. Though back in the eighties some people believed they had. Second there are some obvious holes in their theories of the sun’s head radiating out from the center. For example, scientists have been scratching their heads since they discovered the “corona” of the sun. The corona is kind of like the atmosphere of the sun. It’s the outside part that borders on the surface. It can be visible in a solar eclipse. Scientists have discovered that the temperature of the corona can reach up to 2000000 Kelvin. Where the surface of the sun is somewhere closer to 5770 Kelvin. So how is the atmosphere of the sun hotter then the surface if the heat comes from the core? It doesn’t! And a lot of people are trying to figure it out. I’m sure they’ll come up with good ideas but the truth is the light of the sun comes from the presence of God where it moves out eventually reaching our sun and us. There are some scientists who have figured this out. Here’s a video that explains it in their terms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihVaL-FHUyk

The next question in my mind is, “Why can’t we see a greater light in the sky then that is reflecting it’s light off the sun.”

We know that there is a lot to our universe that we can’t see that exists and effects us in every way, every day. For example, air. It’s something we can’t see. that we feel the effects of constantly, that we can’t live without. Similarly, Gods glory and light is everywhere. It fills the “immensity of space” but we don’t see it because we are living in a telestial sphere. Paul would say we see through a “glass darkly”. We’ve come through the veil which filters out the light. So we see the light that has been reduced to a level that we can see. Maybe the sun acts as a reducer to the light to bring it down to our level. I’m not an authority, but I’ve been curious about dark matter. They describe it as this unseen power in the universe that explains why everything in the universe isn’t falling apart. What if the dark matter and energy is really so light that it’s beyond our spectrum and technology to see? What if it’s the very light of Christ that proceeds from his presence too fill the immensity of space to give us life and light?

The thing that I appreciate the most is that if these things are true then Christ is literally the Light of the world. Without that Light we would have no life. All of our energy comes from it whether it be solar power, fossil fuels, or wood,  it all originated from the sun! Which means it all came from God! Whether you are laying in the heat and light of the sun or sitting by a fire or enjoying your central heating or cooling, it all came from the same place.

So how did He do it? Christ is the Light and Life of the world because in the Garden of Gethsemane he took upon him all of the darkness, sin, death, and decay that there ever was, and ever will be, and ever could be. He was bruised, broken, and torn for us so much that he bled from every pore. Only he could do it being the Son of God, therefore having power over death. Because he overcame the darkness he is the Everlasting Light and Life of everyone. Thank God!

Evolution

Mormon Scientist

 

I recently read the book “Mormon Scientist” by Henry Eyring about his grandfather Dr. Henry Eyring. My initial purpose in reading was because I had heard Dr. Eyring was a believer in evolution, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and a very prominent scientist. I had heard many stories about Dr. Eyring from the talks and devotionals given by his son, Henry B. Eyring. I was interested in hearing what evidence Dr. Eyring gave to support his belief in evolution, and how he reconciled it with his beliefs in the Gospel.

As it turns out, evolution is not discussed much in the book. There is little evidence in the book that he believed in evolution. It did give some examples of how he responded to people who wrote him asking for advice on the topic but his responses were often to people who were ardently against evolution. He responded in ways to control contention. I enjoyed one response he gave when he said, “I believe whichever way it(The Creation) turns out to have actually been(accomplished).” So he may have believed, but he was open to be wrong.

            I enjoyed the book, but this article is not a review or a critique of “Mormon Scientist” I would like to put forward my belief of how the creation of our human family was accomplished. I believe it is important to understand in order to comprehend our purpose and potential.

The idea that we evolved from monkeys and further back from a single-celled organism is false. Not because of any interpretation of archeological finds, or that the idea of evolution threatens the possibility of God. But because as Paul the apostle said it, “we are the offspring of God.”

I am saying that we are descendants of Adam and Eve. In the scriptures in multiple places it gives genealogy. One of those places is in Luke 3, which says, “Which was the ^ason of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of ^bAdam, ^cwhich was the ^dson of God.” In Moses it says the same thing, “And this is the genealogy of the sons of Adam, who was the ^ason of God, with whom God, himself, conversed.” Now, I know it could be said that Adam was symbolically the son of God because God did create Adam in whatever way he did so we say he was Gods son. That God couldn’t come and create life the way you and I do, like it would be blasphemous or something. But read in Acts 17; 28,29 “For in him we ^alive, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his ^boffspring. Forasmuch then as we are the ^aoffspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto ^bgold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s ^cdevice.” These verses are saying we shouldn’t think of God as something so sacred that he can’t be thought of and discussed as doing things in ways that would be impossible for us to understand. We can and should understand the things of God. In Abraham 1; 3, it give further insight into the creation of Adam. Speaking of the priesthood, Abraham wrote, “It was ^aconferred upon me from the fathers; it came down from the fathers, from the beginning of time, yea, even from the beginning, or before the foundation of the earth, down to the present time, even the right of the ^bfirstborn, or the first man, who is ^cAdam, or first father, through the fathers unto me.” Notice how Abraham calls Adam the firstborn? Abraham knew how Adam was created. The same way you and I were created, except by Heavenly Parents.   

As Latter-Day Saints, this isn’t too much of a stretch. We have the understanding that we have the potential to become like God. To inherit all that God has. Including the attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. We often call upon our understanding of the pre-existence to explain this potential, that we are the spirit children of God, and that gives us the seeds of Godhood.  But knowing that we are the descendants of God physically gives us so much more understanding, hope and appreciation for the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. The seed of Godhood don’t just come from our spirit, it comes from our physical lineage too.

This could seem to be a contraction to the scriptures that say Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten of the Father. But we have to take that title of the Savior in context. Christ was the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh, the flesh meaning the carnal flesh, the flesh that is corruptible and decays and dies. We know Christ inherited these traits from his mother. Adam, being born of two perfect, immortal Parents physically, had a perfect, immortal body. Which changed to a mortal body when Adam partook of the fruit of the tree of life. (See BD; Fall of Adam)

Knowing these things, we can see the danger in believing we descended from anything other then God. Believing in Macroevolution denies us the peace and wonder we feel when we understand that we are Children of God. Satan doesn’t want us to understand our potential or our roots because he wants us to be miserable like him. So he has infused this lie into our society, which many people even inside the church believe. Discover your potential, know that you are a Child of God!

The Illusion of Time

Truth, Time, and Space

 

    As I've grown in life, continuing my secular education and spiritual education in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I didn't understood why science and religion had to be a paradox. I've learned that it isn't a paradox as long as you are dealing with one thing. Truth.

    Truth as I understand it, is thing as they are, as they always were and always will be. So something that is true is something that has been the same forever will continue to be forever. It says in Doctrine and Covenants 93 Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be." Also in Doctrine and Covenants 88 "truth abideth and hath no end; and if it be in you it shall abound."

    We also learn from the scriptures that truth is light in Doctrine and Covenants 84 "45 For the aword of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is blight, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ."

    Now looking at the converse of truth. Recently I was watching a movie by Ben Stein called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed", I felt I learned a lot from the movie and would recommend it to everybody. Near the end Ben Stein says something to the effect that no lie can live or last forever. This truth hit me hard. I felt that line was the culmination of the whole documentary. Throughout the week I kept thinking and pondering the implications of it.

    Previously I had learned some interesting things about time. For example, we measure time by the rotation of the Earth on its axis, which is one day. And we measure it by the Earth's orbit around the Sun, which is one year. Now what would happen to our perception of time if we were standing in the center of the Sun? It would be totally different then the perception of time to someone on Earth. Also, we comprehend time from the amount of time we remember. We only remember what we've experienced. As we remember more time, it seems to flow faster. So as we get older, minutes, weeks, years all seem to go faster. I remember being young and thinking how long an hour is. Now an hour goes by so fast. Now imagine that you remember what happened before you were here on Earth. And you didn't have a beginning to remember from like you do here on Earth. So you remember everything to infinity in the past. Not only everything in the past but, imagine you remember infinitely into the future. Now think about how long an hour would seem to you. It would be infinitely small! In other words, suddenly there would be no time. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ we understand that God knows everything. So he would see everything in the past and future. God is not bound by the illusion of time. We are trying to be like him. When we go through the veil we will be able to remember our past and see our future and therefore also not be bound by time.

    These things are the foundation of the things I learned the next week. I've been learning about Einstein's theories on Relativity. I was musing on it one night and sharing what I had learned, when I started showing a video on youtube about it. Watching it might help you understand so here it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ

    The Basics of the video say that light is a constant. It does not change. For example:

Say there are two space ships, A and B. Space ship A has two super high-powered headlights. If A turned on his headlights the light would travel away from him at the speed of light. Say the headlights are off. Space ship B takes off and is going half the speed of light away from A. Then say A turns on his headlights pointing right past B. You would think that the light would pass B at half the speed of light but it doesn't. It passes at the speed of light. Now say space ship B turns around and starts heading back to A at half the speed of light. You might think the light would then be passing B at one and a half times the speed of light but it doesn't. I would still just pass B at the speed of light. Einstein said the reason this can happen is that space and time change. Time for space ship B would slow in relation to A as B is speeding through space. So light is constant and time and space are not.

    The reason for this that I realized is that light is truth. It doesn't change for anyone in any circumstance. And time and space are not true or constant. In other words time and space are a lie.

    Einstein said it in other words. In March 1955, when his lifelong friend Michele Besso died, he wrote a letter consoling Besso’s family: “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” I got this quote from an article in Discover Magazine about how time may not exist.

    I don't think that secular science caught on to all of what Einstein was saying about Relativity. I found an article at Space.com about a guy who is saying some things about space and time that go along this same line. Peter Lynds from New Zealand says, "There isn't a precise instant underlying an object's motion, And as its position is constantly changing over time -- and as such, never determined -- it also doesn't have a determined position at any time." In the same article it says "One implication of Lynds' work is a really hard to wrap a mind around. If he's right that there are no instants in time related to physical processes, then there is no such thing as a flow of time, because such a flow inherently requires progression through definite instants -- exactly what Lynds forbid" I think what Lynds is finding is true. We're not at a definite place in the universe and we're not in a specific time, because time and space are not a reality.

    You might ask, "If there is no time or space then how does light travel constantly at 186,000 miles per second? If time and space weren't real then light could travel at any speed." The answer is light has to travel at a constant speed even in an illusion because it is true. And if there is no time and space the light is not traveling.

    This understanding about time suddenly explains a lot of things about the gospel. Like, how long has time been an issue for people on Earth? We know that in the Terrestrial existence of the Garden of Eden there was no decay or death. Time wasn't a part of life there. When Adam transgressed he was suddenly in the power of the Adversary, who is the father of all lies. I think at the instant he fell to a telestial sphere he came into this illusion of time. Death and entropy came into the world. This ties with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says in layman's terms that all things tend to degrade over time. Now take time out of the equation and things no longer degrade. I suggest that part of the resurrection is that we no longer believe the lie of time. Therefore we don't degrade and will live forever. It's interesting to note that Adam became subject to the illusion because of a transgression. So if we're going to live forever after the resurrection, united body and spirit, then we can't sin or transgress.

    This may also explain why Adam and his children lived for so long. Adam may have been in the illusion but I doubt if he believed the lie.

    Being in the illusion of time is also an important part of our development. One purpose of mortal life is to receive a physical body. God works in specific ways when he creates life, and we had to be born and grow to full stature. I can't imagine how he would do that except in time. A part of our doctrine is that Adam and Eve needed to fall to "multiply and replenish the earth." It was part of Gods plan. Not only do we need time to be born and grow but to learn to control our physical bodies. Part of the purpose is to put our bodies in subjection to our spirits, because the natural man is and enemy to God. We need time to accomplish this.

    I believe many prophets have known this and there is evidence everywhere. Brigham Young said speaking of spirits in the spirit world, "They move with ease and like lightning. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or this, that, or the other place—and I presume we will be permitted if we desire—there we are, looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains."

    Understanding time and light might also explain what happened to John the Beloved, The three Nephites, Elijah, and the People of Enoch. Transfiguration is described as a complete change of form or appearance in to a more beautiful or spiritual state. These people had received so much truth and light that they came out of the illusion. These people seem to have been changed by a combination of their choices to accept the light and truth and the word of God, to a point that they were no longer subject to decay. Along the same lines people who live during the millennium will live in a terrestrial state. Similar to the Garden of Eden where there is no longer death. Doctrine and Covenants 63; 20 says, "Nevertheless, he that endureth in faith and doeth my will, the same shall overcome, and shall receive an inheritance upon the earth when the day of transfiguration shall come." The day of transfiguration is referring to the millennium. We also learn that people will live and be changed in the twinkling of an eye to their perfect immortal body. Maybe this knowledge of time and light is coming out because people living during the millennium need to and will know this. And now we are preparing for that day. 

We can build on this even further to understand the scriptures and miracles in the scriptures. If time is an illusion and time is measured by the amount of space that we travel, then space is an illusion too! If you don't have to worry about how long it will take to get somewhere then suddenly you can get there instantly. There are no limits on where you can be. This explains how God can be everywhere at one time and still have a body of flesh and bone. It also explains how he can hear our prayers. It partially explains how he can know everything because he already had infinity to learn it. 

Even further, if there is no space then there is no gravity. Gravity is defined as the force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass. This attraction is happening in space. If there is no space to be attracted to something in then suddenly gravity isn't a force anymore. This explains how angels are often seen standing in the air. Also how Christ could walk on water. He wasn't disobeying any laws. He simply understood that it wasn't a law. 

In Isaiah 11:9 it says in the last days the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. I hope and pray that my work will help inspire desire for more of that knowledge.

LDS Deep Doctrine

Welcome to LDS Deep Doctrine, where I share my doctrinal insights.

                  This is not a Church sponsored website. These are my views and do not reflect the views of anyone but myself. I am not an authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Or any church for that matter.

My purpose is to facilitate the flow of ideas. I believe that the truth can set us free. If we are to become more like our Father in Heaven we need to learn. Eventually learn everything. Joseph Smith Junior said, ”Thy mind, O Man, if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation must stretch as high as the utmost heaven, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss. Thou must commune with God.”

I have felt impressed I believe by the Spirit of the Lord, to share some of my scriptural insights, And often how thy mesh with what might be considered secular science. As Latter-day Saints, we should seek all truth and recognize that science does not threaten true religion.

I am not a gospel scholar. I don’t have a degree from any college or university. I am a lay member of the church. I try and read my scriptures everyday. I also read and learn about many other subjects purely out of curiosity. The Gospel knowledge I have is from my activity and study in the Church. And the secular knowledge I have is from school and my personal study. Take it for what it is.

Please read with the Spirit of Discernment. It will lead you to know the truth of what is written. If you find a subject or article that is not faith-building please feel free to send me your thoughts at gospelsciencefusion@gmail.com

More posts are coming. Enjoy!