The Holy Ghost As A Preparatory Office?

[Calm]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been studying this idea for a long time, for personal reasons, and I think you are right.

This concept also is confirmed, I think, in the difference between the Initiatories men receive vs those for women.

Women can be "re-virginated" by blessing alone, while men must work for it.

Just sounds right to me!

 

I don’t think we agree then….this might be necessary in God’s eyes (more likely men’s imo and not that they were actually impure because of biological processes to God, but rather he used them to convince humanity to let go of their fear, repulsion or whatever of women’s biological processes) to protect his daughters in a world that made women ritually unclean (untouchable by some even when obeying the commandment to multiply)  just for their normal biological processes, but I would hope we have moved far beyond that point at this time.

Edited March 2, 2024 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don’t think we agree then….

Hmm.. the difference used to be difficult to discover, one would have  to go to the temple with someone "of the opposite sex" and later in the Celestial room, compare notes, but now, due to changes in the presentation, it is mentioned directly and very clearly.

What am I missing?

[Pyreaux]

13 hours ago, telnetd said:

@ZealouslyStriving

This reminds me of the movie AVATAR.

The queen of heaven, mentioned several times in the Bible, is a pagan god.

Avatar borrows heavily from the Gaia, both as in ancient religion and as a patron of the modern environmentalist religion (see Captain Planet).

The Canaanites' chief god was El, just because foreigners worship El doesn't make El a pagan god does it?

There are strong suggestions that the Deuteronomic histories are bias against Asherah or at least the engraven images of her, or the worship of her. There are multiple instances in the Bible where the Prophets tolerate the Asherah or even seem to have venerated her themselves.

Elijah's purge of Canaanite Ba'alism didn't include Asherah. Isaiah seems to condemn Hezakiah, who removed the Asherah from the temple. A holy tree was felled (Isaiah 6:13) Isaiah 7 Immanuel prophecy had a heavenly "The Mother of the Lord" figure in the Isaiah Scroll but was tampered with in our Bibles.

Moses' Menorah is an Asherah, it's a golden tree image in the center of the temple, full of olive oil and fruit of fire, representing the tree of life in the midst of Eden. It was likely the Menorah and Nehushtan (Moses' brazen serpent) that Hezekiah removed. Was the removal of Nehushtan because it's a pagan god, and after all this time had it never belonged in the temple? I think not, I think we presume too much.

Edited March 3, 2024 by Pyreaux

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, telnetd said:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the Holy Ghost is
a spirit man, a spirit son of God the Father. It is fundamental Church doctrine 
that God is the Father of the spirits of all men and women".

https://eom.byu.edu/index.php?title=Holy_Ghost

The Church teaches a lot of things that didn’t come by revelation and are assumed to be true because they ‘make sense’.

[Calm]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Hmm.. the difference used to be difficult to discover, one would have  to go to the temple with someone "of the opposite sex" and later in the Celestial room, compare notes, but now, due to changes in the presentation, it is mentioned directly and very clearly.

What am I missing?

I am not saying the blessings aren’t different. I just don’t believe women can be made holy and undefiled with a blessing and men can’t, ritually or otherwise.
 

I see baptism as rendering all holy and undefiled and therefore partaking of the sacrament would do the same thing for both women and men.

Edited March 2, 2024 by Calm

[CV75]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

I am not saying the blessings aren’t different. I just don’t believe women can be made holy and undefiled with a blessing and men can’t, ritually or otherwise.
 

I see baptism as rendering all holy and undefiled and therefore partaking of the sacrament would do the same thing for both women and men.

...and @mfbukowski... tried to send a Message but it apparently failed. So I'll try to make my remarks appropriate for "public" viewing.

Physical birth is through the mother and spiritual rebirth is through Christ.

Temples must be clean for the Lord to transmit the covenants, and His grace keeps them open for the sake of all who attend in good faith, despite whoever else might enter. At some extreme point of rebellion among His people, His tolerance ends and the temple is destroyed, rededicated, etc. An extreme example might be the New Testament account.

Physical birth into the earth (and into the kingdom of God on earth) is through the mother and spiritual rebirth into the heavenly kingdom of God is through Christ. The purpose of physical birth is to receive all the covenants necessary for spiritual rebirth and exaltation, whether now or in the afterlife. The physical temple is made clean for the sake of transmitting the birthright covenant, despite the righteousness or guilt of either parent. Physical birth in the covenant – clean in that respect, and in the innocence of little children -- guarantees a shred of hope for repentance should the parents and the beneficiary children subsequently fall off the covenant path. Being reminded of these enacted covenants at some future time, even in the next life, can engender faith and repentance.

As to why any of this has to happen in this life at all (given the redemption of the dead): someone has to be around to do that work in the flesh and as President Nelson taught, spiritual momentum. The Spirit of Elijah shows how this spiritual momentum builds intergenerationally as well as individually in the flesh. The Lord also destroys and rededicates individuals and families in the flesh when necessary, when their rejection of the covenants is too extreme (the Flood, and other Old Testament and Book of Mormon examples).

So we have a necessary difference for the sake of transmitting the covenant to the children of the couple who are united by covenant, just as the same couple requires a clean temple to receive these covenants in their generation.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

So we have a necessary difference for the sake of transmitting the covenant to the children of the couple who are united by covenant, just as the same couple requires a clean temple to receive these covenants in their generation.

 Not understanding what you mean and why it would be different for men and women on who gets to be clean or not.

[JAHS]

On 2/29/2024 at 8:03 AM, ZealouslyStriving said:

*I hope you all don't mind my musings. These are just random things I've pondered and would like feedback on.*

So the idea is this:

What if, instead of a specific person, the Holy Ghost/Spirit is actually an office that has been held by various "noble and great ones" to prepare them for prophetic office on earth?

A few quotes:

"The Holy Ghost is yet a spiritual body and is waiting to take to himself a body, as the Savior did."[Joseph Smith, Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith's Teachings, edited by Larry E. Dahl and Donald Q. Cannon (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997)]

and;

"The Holy Ghost is now in a state of probation which if he should perform in righteousness he may pass through the same or a similar course of things that the Son has." (Joseph Smith, The Words of Joseph Smith, p. 245; Sabbath address, Nauvoo, 27 August 1843. Reported by Franklin D. Richards.)

However even these statements from Joseph should probably be considered as speculation at best, since he nor any other prophet has proclaimed it official church doctrine. 

President Joseph Felding Smith:
"There is so much in relation to the gospel that we are required to do and so many commandments to observe and ordinances to receive in order that we may obtain an exaltation in the kingdom of God, that we should have no time to enter into speculation in relation to the Holy Ghost.
Too many members of the Church bother themselves about something which does not concern us and which has not been revealed. They neglect the weightier matters and fail to seek for the light and truth which is revealed and also to obtain and be true to the ordinances and covenants so essential to our salvation."(Answers to Gospel Questions, vol. 2 p. 148)

[CV75]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

 Not understanding what you mean and why it would be different for men and women on who gets to be clean or not.

Temples (or certain mountains or the ground at burning bushes) “get to be” clean, and not chapels, banks and other buildings, because Christ requires a clean physical place for transmitting His covenants in this earth unto spiritual rebirth. Certain human bodies (also physical tabernacles) likewise “get to be” clean so that the covenant can be transmitted through birth unto this earth, the physical, probationary estate. The person who is pronounced clean and the person who may become clean are united by the marriage covenant so that they share these qualities by mutual proxy while fulfilling the commandments to multiply and replenish the earth, keep their covenants, help each other keep them, help their children and descendants receive and keep them, and bring them to their ancestors and others who have died without them.

All souls are precious, and in this case the two are bound and work together, so I think “pronounced clean” is a better way of putting it than “get to be” clean. A building isn't especially privileged to be pronounced clean because it has no sense. A human tabernacle alone, as the purely elemental part of the soul, has no sense either. How and why is one building or mountain pronounced clean and not another? The same with the bodies of human souls. They can be pronounced clean for the sake of physically delivering children into the world with the covenant and into a covenant community and still have to become clean regarding the spirit. You can be conditionally promised to become clean in all respects without having to become clean for the sake of physically delivering children into the world.

It is physically impossible for those who may become clean to deliver children (without a major physical renovation, which isn't part of the presentation of the endowment). So they (their bodies) are not pronounced clean for this purpose.  As miraculous as their births were, Sarah and not Abraham delivered their children into the world to perpetuate the covenant. Adam and Eve did not alternate giving birth.

ETA: we are inescapably tied genetically or generationally in the flesh to our ancestors (ultimately Adam and Eve) through birth through our mothers -- with or without the temple covenant. But the sealing power ties us spiritually to our spiritual Father (Christ) through spiritual birth. Christ’s “wife” and our “mother” in this sense is the Church; the "mother" is the vehicle by which the covenant is passed to the children, individually by conversion and rebirth and collectively through familial birth (to include adoption). Taking this further into the reconciled form that exists in the pre-mortal and post-resurrection worlds, the Church is the Church of the Firstborn and the parents are our Heavenly Parents.

Edited March 3, 2024 by CV75