I Am A Child of God, Made in His Image

If God is so much greater, holier, more powerful, and more glorious than humans, what makes me think I could be His child? How am I different than any other animal that walks the earth?

It is true that I, like all human beings, am so far removed from the glory, intelligence, and power of God that the figurative distance is incomprehensible to my mind. I am vastly inferior in every way to the Supreme Being of the universe. To most people who believe in God, our frail mortal existence separates us from the God of Heaven and Earth in profoundly significant ways. The barrier between God and us is so high, wide, and deep that it seems impenetrable.

And yet, Jesus, God's Beloved Son, has instructed us to address the God of the universe as Father. So, first and foremost, I believe I am the offspring of God because Jesus said so. 

For example, Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). He did not say "my Father" or "the Father," he said "your Father." He used the phrase "your Father" elsewhere in His great sermon: 

• "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven..." (Matthew 6:9).
• "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (Matthew 6:14).
• "...your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things" (Matthew 6:32).

The ancient apostles likewise taught very directly of the familial relationship between God and humans. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" (Romans 8:16-27). According to Paul, we are not so very distant from God the Father after all.

Prophets in the Book of Mormon also testified of our divine heritage. King Benjamin reminded the Nephites, "...ye are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father" (Mosiah 2:34). 

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught the Saints in the early days of the Restoration about their divine relationship to their Heavenly Father. “The Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, page 39).

Modern apostles proclaimed God's relationship to us in these words, "It is significant that of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to [God], He has asked us to address Him as Father” (“Father, Consider Your Ways,” Ensign, June 2002, 12). 

So, God is my Father. But in what sense is this true? Do I take this relationship literally, or is it merely a metaphor? Again, the Scriptures provide the answer.

God is the literal Father of all human spirits:

• "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numbers 16:22)
• "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Hebrews 12:9).
• "And he [Moses] beheld the spirits that God had created" (Moses 6:36).
• "Whereupon are the foundations [of the Earth] fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:6-7).

My spirit--my essence and consciousness--is a literal son of Heavenly Father, housed temporarily in a mortal body. I lived with God before the Earth was created and before I was born on said Earth. But is there more to my sonship than my spiritual creation?

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:26-27).

So, my body is in the likeness and image of God. But is this literal or figurative? 

Jesus's beloved apostle John wrote, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

And what exactly will we see, and how shall we be like Him?

The Lord answered that question for Joseph Smith when He revealed, "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit." (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22).

I am, therefore, a literal son of God in the spirit, and my physical body has the same form as Heavenly Father's, although without His glory and immortality. Those additional attributes will come in the Resurrection. 

I choose to believe these principles about my nature and relationship to God not only because they have been revealed to prophets, but because they make logical sense. God did not create me to be a lowly creature who would spend eternity groveling before the Supreme Being, but, like any good father, to enable me to become like He is. From the very beginning, He created my spirit to grow and develop, take on flesh and bone like His, pass through a mortal probation where I could learn faith and patience, and then come forth as a resurrected, glorified being, immortal and eternal as God is, God's rightful heir and a joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17).

Heavenly Father doesn't want just worshippers; He wants sons and daughters who will follow in His footsteps and become as He is.

Ultimately, I believe I am a child of God because, as the Apostle Paul said, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16). "And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things" (Moroni 10:5), including the truth about who I am.