(Scripture Reading Exercise.)
NATURE AND FORM (Continued).
ANALYSIS. | REFERENCES. |
IV. A Spiritual Personage Revealed. | The Scriptures and works cited in the body of this lesson. |
V. The Holy Ghost in Person Revealed | |
VI. Personality of the Holy Ghost Revealed in Described Activities. | |
VII. The mode of Union Between the Holy Ghost and Men. |
SPECIAL TEXT: "I beheld that he was in the form of a man; yet, nevertheless, I knew that it was the Spirit of the Lord, and he spake unto me as a man speaketh with another." (II Nephi xi:)
DISCUSSION.
1. A Personage of Spirit Revealed: The Holy Ghost may be as the pre-existent spirit of the Christ was, before the incarnation; and of which we have at least one enlightening revelation in the Book of Mormon.
The brother of Jared having by faith come into the presence of the Christ, that spirit personage, said to him:
"Behold I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people; * * * and never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image [likeness]. Yea, even all men were created in the beginning after mine own image. Behold this body which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit, will I appear unto my people in the flesh."[A]
[Footnote A: Book of Ether, ch. iii.]
I do not say that the spirit-personage of this passage and the "personage of spirit," the Holy Ghost, is declared to be by the Prophet Joseph Smith, of like essence or substance, or even that they are similar in the nature of their substances; they may be very different. But the passage in Ether informs us what a spirit-personage may be. He may be as Jesus was, a spirit in the form of a man.