Light Of Christ

[inquiringmind]

Is the Light of Christ The Holy Ghost?

Did the Apostles have the influence of The Holy Ghost when Christ was with them on earth (and before the Gift was given on the day of Pentecost)?

When Peter said that Jesus was The Son of God, Jesus said "Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah, for that was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in Heaven," but was that The Holy Ghost?

When Alma 39:6 says that denying The Holy Ghost when it once has had place in you is unpardonable, is it talking about the gift, or the influence?

(And would the influence of the Holy Ghost include the light of Christ that lighteth every man that comes into the world?)

[altersteve]

The Light of Christ is not the Holy Ghost:

The Light of Christ is the divine energy, power, or influence that proceeds from God through Christ and gives life and light to all things. The Light of Christ influences people for good and prepares them to receive the Holy Ghost. One manifestation of the Light of Christ is what we call a conscience.

http://lds.org/study...ry=light+christ

The Father revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ through and by the power of the Holy Ghost.

To deny the Holy Ghost is to deny God even when you have a perfect knowledge of Him. Satan, his followers, and Cain are the only ones, to our knowledge, who have committed this sin.

[Nominee]

To deny the Holy Ghost is to deny God even when you have a perfect knowledge of Him. Satan, his followers, and Cain are the only ones, to our knowledge, who have committed this sin.

For clarification, are you reffering here to the 1/3 of heaven that was cast down with Satan?

Edited November 21, 2011 by Nominee

[Cobalt-70]

Is the Light of Christ The Holy Ghost?

According to Joseph Smith's gnostic theology exemplified in D&C 93, the "light of Christ" was the same thing as intelligence, or the glory of God. It is the spark of God that resides in us that is coeternal with God. It is the eternal light that makes God God.

Thus, it is incorrect, without turning Joseph Smith's writings into an caricature, to say that the light of Christ is a person's "conscience." It is far more than that. It is intelligence itself. As an intelligence that is coeternal with God, Smith is saying that each one of us was, originally, the light of Christ. The light of Christ is not just our "conscience." Smith would say that it is the divine part of us.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is something quite different, although in the mid 1830s, when D&C 93 was written, Joseph Smith didn't really know what the Holy Spirit was. In 1834, he thought it was the shared mind of the Father and the Son, but was not a distinct person (see Lectures on Faith). So we can legitimately speculate that he may have thought, at this early stage, that the Holy Spirit was the same as the light of Christ. But certainly this is not his view by the late 1830s.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Cobalt-70

[Stargazer]

The Light of Christ is not the Holy Ghost, as the LoC is available to every human born upon the planet, and though it can be ignored to the point where it is very very faint, it cannot be lost entirely. Interestingly, on my mission we had an investigator whom we were teaching comprehend this well enough to assert this herself as a clear certainty in her mind.

I don't have any scriptural reference for this, sorry about that. DC 93 sounds correct to me, though.

[altersteve]

For clarification, are you reffering here to the 1/3 of heaven that was cast down with Satan?

Yes.

[altersteve]

Thus, it is incorrect, without turning Joseph Smith's writings into an caricature, to say that the light of Christ is a person's "conscience." It is far more than that. It is intelligence itself. As an intelligence that is coeternal with God, Smith is saying that each one of us was, originally, the light of Christ. The light of Christ is not just our "conscience." Smith would say that it is the divine part of us.

I didn't say the Light of Christ is "just" our conscience. The link I posted says that our consciences is one of the manifestations of the Light of Christ. There's no contradiction between that and anything you said.

[Nominee]

Yes.

Thank you.

[inquiringmind]

According to Joseph Smith's gnostic theology exemplified in D&C 93, the "light of Christ" was the same thing as intelligence, or the glory of God. It is the spark of God that resides in us that is coeternal with God. It is the eternal light that makes God God.

Thus, it is incorrect, without turning Joseph Smith's writings into an caricature, to say that the light of Christ is a person's "conscience." It is far more than that. It is intelligence itself. As an intelligence that is coeternal with God, Smith is saying that each one of us was, originally, the light of Christ. The light of Christ is not just our "conscience." Smith would say that it is the divine part of us...

I noticed you used the singular, "intelligence," and you speak of it as "a spark of God," and a "part of us."

Does that mean that we haven't always existed as individuals?

[Nofear]

I noticed you used the singular, "intelligence," and you speak of it as "a spark of God," and a "part of us."

Does that mean that we haven't always existed as individuals?

The Encyclopedia of Mormonism article Intelligences gives a decent response:

While the revelations leave no doubt as to the existence of intelligent matter prior to its being organized as spirits, speculation sometimes arises regarding the nature of premortal existence and whether there was individual identity and consciousness prior to birth as a spirit. Some hold that the terms "intelligence" and "intelligences" have reference to a form of prespirit conscious self-existence, which included individual identity, variety, and agency (so reasoned B. H. Roberts, pp. 401-423). Others maintain that while these characteristics, attributes, and conditions are eternal, they essentially came together for each individual at the spirit birth. The question of whether prespirit intelligence had individual identity and consciousness remains unanswered. Elder Joseph Fielding Smith gave this caution in 1936: Some of our writers have endeavored to explain what an intelligence is, but to do so is futile, for we have never been given any insight into this matter beyond what the Lord has fragmentarily revealed. We know, however, that there is something called intelligence which always existed. It is the real eternal part of man, which was not created or made. This intelligence combined with the spirit constitutes a spiritual identity or individual [p. 10].

In short, opinions vary.

[LeSellers]

For clarification, are you reffering here to the 1/3 of heaven that was cast down with Satan?

It's a nit, but please recall that the scripture to which you allude does not say that 33.3333333333333....% of the spirits in pre-mortality fell with Satan, but that "The third part" of them did. "The third part" is, in Greek, just as ambiguous as it is in English. The implication is that there were three parts (perhaps more) and that, of them, the third one fell. That each of (only) three parts might be equal is possible, but not mandatory.

Here's an alternative interpretation of this passage, one that I do not accept as "truth", but which is possible. The first part consists of us on the earth today, we who fought for Father's plan and accepted Jesus as our Savior. The Second part were those who decided to hold off for a while, perhaps to come forth on a different world, not yet ready to commit to mortality. The third part, well, they fought against Father and His forces under Michael, the Captain of the Lord's Host..

Other options are also conceivable, although some would be more or less reasonable.

"The third part", again, does not mean one out of every three. We tend to make that assumption (which may turn out to be true), but we have no authoritative reason for doing so.

Lehi

Edited November 21, 2011 by LeSellers

[Nominee]

SO true, Lehi! One gets into the lazy habit of just saying a third of...

However, I do agree with you completely. "THE third part" and "A third part" are NOT the same thing in the way you have described. I, in addition, think it to be highly unlikely (even if possible, but not mandatory) that each of the three parts would have been equal.

[inquiringmind]

The Father revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ through and by the power of the Holy Ghost

How do we know that it was by the power of the Holy Ghost, and not through the Light of Christ (or by The Father Himself)?

Edited November 21, 2011 by inquiringmind

[Cobalt-70]

I noticed you used the singular, "intelligence," and you speak of it as "a spark of God," and a "part of us."

Does that mean that we haven't always existed as individuals?

That depends on whom you ask. Joseph Smith said yes, Brigham Young said no. But 20-21st century standard Mormonism says yes. According to Joseph Smith, "intelligence" is the a divine spark, or the glory of God, and "intelligences" were individual premortal spirits who always existed, who always had this spark of god's glory, and were never born. According to Brigham Young, on the other hand, "intelligence" is the eternal element from which our spirit bodies were "organized" when we were spiritually born through the sexual union of our Heavenly Father and Mother (in Young's view, Adam and Eve). In the 20th century, these two opposite views were quasi-officially synthesized, so that today, most Mormons seem to believe that there existed an individual, disembodied "intelligence" that was co-eternal with God, and that this "intelligence" was embodied within a spirit through a sexual union between a God and Goddess, analogous to the way a spirit is embodied in a mortal body.

Personally, I prefer Joseph Smith's view. It doesn't make sense to me that Mormon women should spend the eternities giving birth to billions upon billions of spirit babies. That sounds more like hell, than heaven. Besides, spirits are supposed to be in adult form. How do you give birth to an adult-sized spirit? How does a material woman give birth to a spirit baby, anyway? Ghosts are supposed to be able to pass through physical matter, so how do they stay in the womb?

[altersteve]

How do we know that it was by the power of the Holy Ghost, and not through the Light of Christ (or by The Father Himself)?

Because revelation is done by the power of the Holy Ghost.

[inquiringmind]

Because revelation is done by the power of the Holy Ghost.

I probably should know this, but does it say that somewhere in The Bible, The BOM, The D&C, or The POGP?

[Cobalt-70]

How do we know that it was by the power of the Holy Ghost, and not through the Light of Christ (or by The Father Himself)?

The light of Christ and the Holy Spirit are not two separate "media" of inspiration. The Holy Spirit is a person, and the light of Christ is intelligence itself, as well as the glory of God. You could say that the Holy Spirit (that is, the person) transmits the light of Christ throughout the universe. Joseph Smith means that the Holy Spirit influences us by transmitting to us the light of Christ.

See D&C 84:46: "And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world, and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit."

D&C 88:11-12: "And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God [the Holy Spirit] to fill the immensity of space."

[altersteve]

I probably should know this, but does it say that somewhere in The Bible, The BOM, The D&C, or The POGP?

Moroni 10:5

[Storm Rider]

I probably should know this, but does it say that somewhere in The Bible, The BOM, The D&C, or The POGP?

I don't think this fits perfectly, but it does add to the topic:

Revelation 19:10

10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

The spirit of prophecy is with each of us who knows Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. The Comforter is Holy Spirit, the teacher of all truth:

John 14:26

26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.