Continuing from a previous post: * The First Christians. . . Joseph Smith merely restated the astounding essence of Christ’s original message: “God found Himself in the midst of spirits and glory.” And “He saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest, who were less in intelligence, could have a privilege to advance like Himself and exalt with Him.”5 To follow Christ is to follow His footsteps in becoming what He is: a joint heir of God, as Paul called us (Romans 8:17)
John, the most intimate of Christ’s disciples and friends, and perhaps the most reliable of His chroniclers, understood history’s invasion by God in just such terms. In his first epistle, he expresses with poignant simplicity the essence of the Good News: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him.” (1 John 3:2 [New Rev. Standard Version]). The original message was one of appalling wonder and sublime simplicity: “[Jesus] declares to His Father, in language not easily mistaken, that he wanted his disciples, even all of them, to be as himself and the Father.”6 And that never-varying ambition extends to every member of every nation, kindred, and tongue, who will come and “partake of the waters of life freely” (Doctrine and covenants 10:66).
We may have a hard time feeling the shock of that astonishing idea: God walks among us as a minister and mentor and fellow traveler. He breaks bread with his friends, weeps over the death of a friend, dines with sinners, and washes the feet of His apostles. God the Son then tells us that we, daughters and sons, may be “glorified together” with Him (Romans 8:17).
It was this same John, according to tradition, who heard the Lord Proclaim, “See, I am making all things new” (Revelations 21:5). All things. A new identity foreshadows a new destiny. We who saw ourselves only “in a mirror, dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12) are suddenly God’s progeny, in preparation of the coheirs with Christ’s progeny, in preparation to be coheirs with Christ. If the literal imitatio Dei (imitation of God) is the first great principle, then the second principle now emerges. A universal Parent meant a universal sisterhood and brotherhood among all people. ~Fiona and Terryl Givens, All Things New (Meridian, Idaho: Faith Matters Publishing, 2020).13-14
