Elder Linder

In my previous posts about understanding God’s true nature and the nature of scripture, I explored fundamental truths restored through Joseph Smith. Today, I want to examine perhaps the most fundamental restored truth of all: our own divine nature and potential as literal children of God.

Growing up Catholic, I was taught that humans were created beings, fundamentally different in nature from God. This view, common across traditional Christianity, sees an unbridgeable gap between Creator and created. But through the restored gospel, I discovered a dramatically different understanding of human nature and potential.

This difference in understanding human nature and destiny runs deep in Christian theology. Protestant denominations generally teach that the saved will spend eternity worshiping God in heaven, perhaps with varying degrees of heavenly rewards, but never approaching anything like divine status. Some Protestant groups, particularly Reformed traditions, emphasize predestination—teaching that God has predetermined who will be saved and who will be damned, leaving human agency largely out of the equation. Catholics teach that the ultimate purpose of human life is the “beatific vision”—eternally beholding and adoring God, while maintaining an unbridgeable ontological distinction between Creator and created. Eastern Orthodox Christianity speaks of “theosis” or deification, coming closest to our understanding, but still sees it as partaking of divine attributes rather than achieving actual godhood.

At the root of these differences lies a fundamental question about creation itself. Traditional Christianity teaches creatio ex nihilo—creation “out of nothing”—meaning God created everything, including human souls, from absolute nothingness. This doctrine, developed in the second and third centuries AD, fundamentally shapes how other Christians view human nature and potential. If we were created from nothing, they reason, we must remain eternally different in nature from our Creator. The restored gospel, however, reveals the truth of creatio ex materia—creation from existing matter, including eternal intelligences. As the Lord taught Joseph Smith, “Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be” (D&C 93:29). This means we are, in our most fundamental essence, eternal beings, organized rather than created by God.

This understanding illuminates scriptures that traditional Christianity often interprets metaphorically. Throughout the Bible, we find clear declarations of our divine heritage and potential: the Apostle Paul told the Athenians we are “the offspring of God” (Acts 17:29), the Psalmist proclaimed “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High” (Psalm 82:6)—a truth Jesus Himself would later cite (John 10:34-36)—and Paul revealed we are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). While the fullness of these truths was lost during the Great Apostasy, these scriptures testify of our literal divine parentage and potential.

This doctrine carries with it deep implications. If we are literally God’s children, then we have inherited divine qualities and potential from our Heavenly Parents. Just as mortal children grow to become like their parents, we have the potential to grow toward godhood. This isn’t blasphemy—it’s the natural pattern of eternal progression.

This understanding of our divine potential was powerfully expressed in what became known as Lorenzo Snow’s couplet: “As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may become.” This statement, which President Snow received as a revelation while contemplating the doctrine of exaltation, builds upon truths taught by Joseph Smith in his famous King Follett Discourse. There, Joseph Smith taught that God was once like Christ—meaning He experienced mortality in some form. This aligns with Jesus’s own testimony that “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” (John 5:19), suggesting that Christ’s mortal ministry followed a pattern established by the Father.

This teaching requires careful understanding. While some mistakenly interpret it to mean that God was once a sinful mortal like us, this contradicts our fundamental doctrine that God is “infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God” (D&C 20:17; Moroni 8:18). Just as Christ remained sinless in His mortality (Hebrews 4:15), any mortal experience of God the Father would have been without sin. This doctrine emphasizes two key truths: first, that God understands mortality through His own experience, though we don’t fully comprehend the nature of that experience; and second, that through Christ’s Atonement, we can become joint-heirs with Him and partake of His divine nature.

As modern Church leaders have emphasized, while the first half of the couplet contains deep theology that we don’t yet fully comprehend, we can absolutely affirm its second half—that through Christ, we can become like our Father in Heaven. This remarkable truth stands as one of the most beautiful doctrines restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. It doesn’t diminish God’s divinity; rather, it elevates our understanding of human potential and divine parentage.

I testify that understanding our divine nature changes everything about how we see ourselves and others. We are not merely God’s creations—we are His children, with all the eternal significance that relationship implies. While we may not yet comprehend all the mysteries of our divine heritage, we can know with certainty that we are beloved children of Heavenly Parents who want us to become like Them.

Today, I invite you to ponder your own divine heritage. How might your life be different if you truly saw yourself as a child of God? How might your relationships change if you saw others as your divine siblings? As you consider these questions, remember that you are not just learning about your origin—you are discovering your destiny.

In my next post, we’ll explore how this understanding transforms our view of mortality, salvation, and eternal progression.