GOD IS AN ETERNAL, GLORIFIED, RESURRECTED MAN

Upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man...this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God.

There can be set forth a host of scriptures which verify that God is a glorified, eternal being. None of these scriptures, however, openly declare that Heavenly Father is a resurrected Man. In fact, the closest the scriptures come to such a disclosure is in the D& C(130: 22), which states, "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also."

Some may speculate that the reason the scriptures are silent on this matter is because God is not a resurrected Man. They may even assert that were God a resurrected Man, He would have made this important truth known unto us by the mouth of his holy prophets. (It is likely that those who make these assertions also ascribe to the belief that God is an omnipresent spirit essence, who has no body, parts, or passions. As such, their view of the scriptures, and their perspective on the nature of God, would naturally be biased by such a belief.

However, it is my belief that there has been ample evidence presented confirming that God is a Man; and there is also ample evidence which could be presented to indicate that He is a resurrected Man; and that the seeming silence of scriptures on this matter may only be because there are some things best left to faith: God has not openly declared His resurrected nature because He desires mankind to discover it on their own.

I had outlined a series of rational constructs which linked various biblical passages in such a way as to validate the belief in the resurrected nature of God. But, after pondering the question of why the scriptures made no open declaration of this truth, I concluded that if God felt it not necessary to make this disclosure, or if He felt it important not to make an open disclosure, who am I to take on this cause! I realized that it is not my place to make revelation of things that have not already been clearly revealed by God.

Besides, there occurred to me the thought that for those who may earnestly and honestly seek after this truth, they will have the truthfulness of it manifest to them; and that it would only be through such Ernest and honest pursuit of this truth that mankind would be willing to accept, and able to comprehend it.

Accordingly, I have abandoned my original intent to spell this truth out, and I will place the burden of deriving an acceptable conclusion upon the shoulders of the reader where it rightly belongs. And, I will yet set forth but one rational construct to act as an offering of encouragement, as well as to act as a seed of faith.

The most pronounced indication that God is a resurrected man is found in the words of the Savior viewed in connection with the words of other inspired men: first, Christ exclaimed, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Second, he commented to certain men who had come to warn him to leave Jerusalem to avoid death at the hand of Herod, "Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." Third, Jesus taught "how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." In other biblical passages we are meant to understand that Christ was raised from the dead by being resurrected. And fourth, Christ, shortly after his death and resurrection, proclaimed to certain inhabitance of the American Continent, "I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."

From this string of Biblical passages one may see that, ultimately, Christ became perfect like unto his Father by being resurrected. Heavenly Father, then, is an ultimately perfected resurrected Man.

There is explained in the Bible that the resurrected Christ was, and is the express image of the invisible God, and that worthy men will be resurrected to conform to the image of Christ's resurrected body. So, when Christ appeared unto men following his resurrection, he not only demonstrated what his nature was like as a resurrected being, but he also gave demonstration of the nature of those who would be resurrected, or who were already resurrected: even God.

If the reader wishes to have additional guidance in seeing and comprehending what scriptural evidence there is that God is a resurrected personage, it would be helpful to ponder the following: what is the purpose behind mankind entering mortality and taking upon them a physical body? Why must we all die and be resurrected? Why did Christ undergo the same? What is the intended result of the gospel of Christ, and what does it mean to be saved and exalted? Did not Paul declare, "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen then is our perishing vain and your faith is also vain...If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are all men most miserable;" Also, "And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise of God unto your fathers...that God should raise the dead;" "of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called into question." What does it mean to declare that God is a "living God;" and is there correlation between this declaration and those scriptures which speak of the resurrection as the embodiment of eternal life? What does it mean to say that God is glorified and incorruptible; and is there a correlation between these scriptures and those which speak of the resurrection as glorification unto a state of incorruption?

For those who hold fast to the belief that the corporal appearances of God to mortal man were but temporary manifestations of an incomprehensible God in a form comprehensible to mortal man; and that once the appearances ended, the corporal form was dispensed, and God resumed His incomprehensible nature; they must keep in mind the declarations: "I am the Lord, I change not;" "the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." They must also keep in mind the truth that God is eternal, and that His resurrected nature is eternal. He has form, and His form changes not. He has a resurrected body, and His resurrected body changes not. And, as will be set forth in Christ to follow, those who will be found worthy at the last days will be permitted to look upon His form and resurrected body, they will be enabled to comprehend His incomprehensible form and nature, and they will abide in the presence of His personage for eternity. For them, all that will remain incomprehensible is the question of how a person may believe that God is not a glorified resurrected Man.

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