All these sayings give us reason to believe that man may become as Christ and God are; that he may walk in their footsteps, become like them and inherit the same glory with them. The Prophet Joseph Smith corrected the idea that God that now is was always God: "We have imagined," said he, "and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and will take away the vail so that you can see. * * * It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did. * * * The scriptures inform us that Jesus said: 'As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power'—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner, to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life, as my Father did, and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it, you do not believe the Bible."[[15]] * * * God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the vail was rent today and the great God who holds the world in its orbit, and upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible—I say were you to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves, in all the person, image and very form as a man, for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from and walked and talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another."

"* * * Here, then, is eternal life—to know that only wise and true God and you have got to learn how to become Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you—namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power."[[16]]

But if God the Father was not always God, but came to his present exalted position by degrees of progress as indicated in the teachings of the prophet, how has there been a God from all eternity? The answer is that there has been and there now exists an endless line of Gods, stretching back into the eternities, that had no beginning and will have no end. Their existence runs parallel with endless duration, and their dominions are as limitless as boundless space. These truths led one of the disciples of the prophet to write:

If you could hie to Kolob,
In th' twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward,
With that some speed to fly,

D'ye think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?

Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation,
Where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers—
"No man has found 'pure space,'
Nor seen the outside curtains
Where nothing has a place.

"The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round."

These conceptions of man's origin and future development and glory involve the idea of a plurality of Gods—a doctrine somewhat startling, perhaps, to modern ears, since men in our times have been taught to look upon it as sacrilege to speak or think of more than one God. But since modern Christianity finds itself so far separated from other truths of the gospel, may it not find itself wrong in this? What means that expression in Genesis where, speaking of the creation of man, God is represented as saying: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness?"[[17]] Is it not a fair inference that he addressed himself to other Gods who were present? In the account of the creation given in the Book of Abraham the plural is used throughout—"And the Gods prepared the earth to bring forth the living creatures." "And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said, 'Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness,'" etc.

Passing by many other expressions in the Old Testament that convey the idea of the existence of a plurality of Gods, I take up the preface to the gospel according to St. John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." It is generally conceded that the "Word" here spoken of as being with God in the beginning is Jesus Christ. If any doubt existed that Jesus is referred to, it would be dispelled by the fourteenth verse of the same chapter, in which the preface occurs: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth."

Here, then, at least is an account of two Gods—one of which dwelt with the other in the beginning, and one—the Word—afterwards came to the earth, was made flesh and dwelt on earth with men and was known as Jesus of Nazareth.

When Jesus—the Word—was baptized in Jordan, as he came out of the water, the heavens opened, the Spirit of God descended upon him, and lo, a voice from heaven said: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."[[18]] Here there appears on the scene again two Gods—the "Word" and doubtless the God with whom the "Word" had dwelt in the beginning. In other words here was God the Father, and God the Son, both present, yet both distinct and separate—two Gods.[[19]]

In the greeting to the seven churches of Asia, which John embodies in his preface to the Apocalypse he says: "Grace be unto you * * * from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness. * * * Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."[[20]] I call special attention to the words written above in italics—"unto God and his Father," which can only mean God and the Father of God, which certainly conveys the idea of a plurality of Gods.[[21]]

I have not space here to consider such expressions—with which the scriptures abound—as "The Lord God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords;"[[22]] "The Lord, God of Gods, the Lord, God of Gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know if it be in rebellion," etc.[[23]] "O give thanks to the God of Gods * * * O give thanks to the Lord of Lords."[[24]] "And shall speak marvelous things against the God of Gods."[[25]] "The Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of Lords and king of kings."[[26]]