Come Follow Me
January 2026
Genesis 1-2; Moses 2-3, Abraham 4-5
"This is My Work and My Glory"
From
Introduction
What was the purpose of the
Creation?
Moses 1:39 “For behold, this is my work
and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
“The purpose of the Creation is to
provide a place where Heavenly Father’s spirit children can come to obtain a
physical body and be tested or proven to see if they will obey him when they
are away from his presence . . . although an account of the Creation is
included in the book of Genesis, the purposes and importance of the Creation
are explained only in latter-day revelation.” (Old Testament Gospel Doctrine Teachers Manual, 10)
Spiritual vs Physical Creation
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith:
“The account of creation in
Genesis was not a spirit creation, but it was in a particular sense, a
spiritual creation. This, of course, needs some explanation. The account in
Genesis [as well as in Moses and Abraham]. . . . is the account of the creation
of the physical earth. The account of the placing of all life upon the earth,
up and until the fall of Adam, is an account, in a sense, of the spiritual
creation of all of these, but it was also a physical creation. When the Lord
said he would create Adam, he had no reference to the creation of his spirit
for that had taken place ages and ages before when he was in the world of
spirits and known as Michael. [Moses 2:26–28; Genesis 1:26–28.]
“Adam’s body was created from the
dust of the earth, but at that time it was a spiritual earth. Adam had a
spiritual body until mortality came upon him through the violation of the law
under which he was living, but he also had a physical body of flesh and bones.
“. . . Now what is a spiritual
body? It is one that is quickened by spirit and not by blood. . . . After the
fall, . . . . the forbidden fruit had the power to create blood and change his
nature and mortality took the place of immortality, . . . . Now I repeat, the account in is the account
of the physical creation of the earth and all upon it, but the creation was not
subject to mortal law until after the fall. It was, therefore, a spiritual
creation and so remained until the fall when it became temporal, or mortal.” (Doctrines
of Salvation, 1:76–77.)
Possible Topics and Questions
(Time constraints will limit what is used)
A Genesis 1:1 God Created All Things
President Russell M. Nelson:
“I testify that the earth and all life upon it are of divine
origin. The Creation did not happen by chance. … It is God who made us and not
we ourselves. We are His people! The Creation itself testifies of a Creator. We
cannot disregard the divine in the Creation. Without our grateful awareness of
God’s hand in the Creation, we would be just as oblivious to our provider as
are goldfish swimming in a bowl.” (The Creation, Ensign, May 2000, 85)
B Genesis 1:1;
Moses 2:1 ; Abraham 4:1 Create –
Meaning Of
Prophet Joseph Smith:
“[to] create … does not mean to create out of nothing; it
means to organize, the same as a man would organize materials and build a
ship.” (Manuscript History
of the Church, Volume E-1, 1973)
C Moses
2:1 Christ As The Creator
Elder Bruce R McConkie:
“We know that Jehovah-Christ, assisted by ‘many of the
noble and great ones’ (Abraham 3:22) of whom Michael is but the illustration,
did in fact create the earth and all forms of plant and animal life on the face
thereof. But when it came to placing man on earth, there was a change in
Creators. That is, the Father himself became personally involved. All things
were created by the Son, using the power delegated by the Father, except man.
In the spirit and again in the flesh, man was created by the Father. There was
no delegation of authority where the crowning creature of creation was
concerned” (The Promised
Messiah, 62)
D Abraham 4:1
“They, that is the Gods”
Elder Bruce R.
McConkie:
“In the ultimate and final sense of the
word, the Father is the Creator of all things. That he used the Son and others
to perform many of the creative acts, delegating to them his creative powers,
does not make these others creators in their own right, independent of him. He
is the source of all creative power, and he simply chooses others to act for
him in many of his creative enterprises” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith [1985], 63).
E Abraham
5:1–3, 5. The Gods Counseled and Planned
President Spencer W. Kimball:
“Before this earth was created the Lord made a blueprint,
as any great contractor will do before constructing. He drew up the plans,
wrote the specifications, and presented them. He outlined it and we were
associated with him. … Our Father called us all together as explained in the
scripture, and plans were perfected now for forming an earth. In his own words:
‘And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those
who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take
of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we
will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord
their God shall command them.’ (Abraham
3:24–25.) That assemblage included us all. The gods would make land,
water, and atmosphere and then the animal kingdom, and give dominion over it
all to man. That was the plan. … God was the Master-worker, and he created us
and brought us into existence” (The
Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982],
29–30)
F Moses
2:27 & Abraham 4:26-27 Created In the Image of God
(1) Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Anthon H.
Lund, The First Presidency
“All men and women are in the
similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and
daughters of Deity.
“God created man in His own
image. This is just as true of the spirit as it is of the body, which is
only the clothing of the spirit, its
complement; the two together constituting the soul. The spirit of man is in the
form of man, and the spirits of all creatures are in the likeness of their
bodies. This was plainly taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith (D&C 77:2) (Messages of the First Presidency of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4:203)
(2) President Thomas S. Monson:
“God our Father has ears with which
to hear our prayers. He has eyes with which to see our actions. He has a mouth
with which to speak to us. He has a heart with which to feel compassion and
love. He is real. He is living. We are his children, made in his image. We look
like him, and he looks like us.” (“I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” Ensign,
Apr. 1990, 6.)
(3) President Spencer W Kimball:
Man became a living soul – mankind, male and female. The
Creators breathed into their nostrils the breath of life and man and woman
became living souls. We don’t know exactly how their coming into this world
happened, and when we’re able to understand it the Lord will tell us.” (“The Blessings and Responsibilities
of Womanhood,” Ensign, March 1976, 72)
G Moses 2:12,
21, 25 “After Their Own Kind”
Elder Mark E. Peterson of the
Twelve:
“He commanded them to reproduce
themselves. They too would bring forth only ‘after their own kind.’ It could be
in no other way. Each form of life was destined to bring forth after its own
kind so that it would be perpetuated in the earth and avoid confusion.
“Man was always man, and always
will be. For we are the offspring of God. The fact that we know of our own form
and image and the further fact that we are god’s offspring give us positive
knowledge of the form and image of God, after whom we are made and of whom we
are born as his children.
“God would not violate his own
laws. When He decreed that all reproduction was to be ‘after its own kind,’ he
obeyed the same law. We are therefore of the race of God. To follow an opposite
philosophy is to lead us into atheism.” (Moses: Man of Miracles, 163)
H
Genesis 1:31; Abraham 3:31
How Long Did Creation Take?
(1) President Russell M. Nelson:
“The physical Creation itself was staged through ordered
periods of time. In Genesis and Moses, those periods are called days. But in
the book of Abraham, each period is referred to as a time. Whether termed a
day, a time, or an age, each phase was a period between two identifiable
events—a division of eternity.” (The Creation, Ensign, May 2000, 85)
(2) President Brigham Young:
“[six days] it is a mere term,
but it matters not whether it took six days, six months, six years or six
thousand years. The creation occupied certain periods of them. We are not
authorized to say what the duration of these days was, whether Moses penned
these as we have them, or whether the translators of the Bible have given the
words their intended meaning. (Discourses
of Brigham Young, 100)
I Genesis
2:1–3; Moses 3:1–3; Abraham 5:1–3 The Sabbath
Elder David A. Bednar:
“The Sabbath is God’s day, a sacred
time set apart to remember and worship the Father in the name of His Son, to
participate in priesthood ordinances, and to receive and renew sacred
covenants. … On His holy day, our thoughts, actions, and demeanor are signs we
give to God and an indicator of our love for Him.” (“Be Still, and Know That I Am God,” Liahona, May
2024, 30.)
J Genesis 1:28; Moses 2:28; Abraham
4:28 Multiply and Replenish
First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles:
“The first commandment that God
gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and
wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish
the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the
sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman,
lawfully wedded as husband and wife.”
K Abraham 5:9 Two Trees Placed In
The Garden
Elder Bruce R McConkie:
“The scriptures set forth that there were
in the Garden of Eden two trees. One was the tree of life, which figuratively
refers to eternal life; the other was the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
which figuratively refers to how and why and in what manner mortality and all
that appertains to it came into being.” (A new Witness for the Articles of Faith, 86)
L Moses 3:17 Forbidden to Eat &
Invitation to Exercise Agency
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith:
“The Lord said to Adam that if he wished
to remain as he was in the garden, then he was not to eat the fruit, but if he
desired to eat it and partake of death he was at liberty to do so. So really it
was not in the true sense a transgression of a divine commandment. Adam made
the wise decision, in fact the only decision he could make.” (Answers to Gospel Questions,
Vol. 4, 81)
M Moses 3:18 Help Meet
President Howard W. Hunter:
“The Lord intended that the wife be a help meet for man
(meet means equal) – that is a companion equal and necessary in full
partnership.” (“Being a
Righteous Husband and Father,” Ensign, Nov 1984, 50-51)
N Moses 3:21-22 The Rib
President Spencer W Kimball:
“The story of the rib, of course
is figurative.” (“The Blessings
and responsibilities of Womanhood,” Ensign, March 1976, 71)
Brother
David J. Ridges:
“All in all, this account lends
feeling and intrigue to the all-important joining of Adam and Eve together as
family, as parents of the human race on this earth. It gives much more than the
fact than she came on the scene. It provides drama and focus, warmth and
tenderness, belonging and protectiveness, unity and purpose to the account, far
beyond the fact of Adam and Eve’s coming forth to fulfill their role in the
great “plan of happiness,” (The
Old Testament Made Easier, Book 1, page 44)
Additional
Information Of Interest
How old is the earth?
Even when it is realized that
chapter 1 of Genesis does not describe the beginning of all things, or even the
starting point of mankind, but only the beginning of this earth, it cannot be
said definitively when that beginning was. In other words, the scriptures do
not provide sufficient information to accurately determine the age of the
earth. (Old Testament Student Manual, 28)
There are several theories that
add some light to this subject, none of which are endorsed officially by the
Church.
For me (Cal Christensen), one of
those makes the most sense: It deals with how the word “day” is used in the
relevant scriptures: it says that the word day refers to a period of an
undetermined length of time, thus suggesting an era. The word is still used in
that sense in such phrases as “in the day of the dinosaurs.” The Hebrew word
for day used in the creation account can be translated as “day” in the literal
sense, but it can also be used in the sense of an indeterminate length of time
(see Genesis 40:4, where day is translated as “a season”; Judges 11:4, where a
form of day is translated as “in the process of time”; see also Holladay,
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, pp. 130–31). Abraham says that
the Gods called the creation periods days (see Abraham 4:5, 8). (Old
Testament Student Manual, 29)
Did God create the earth out of nothing?
The Prophet Joseph Smith:
“You
ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing: and
they will answer, ‘Doesn’t the Bible say He created the world?’ And they infer,
from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word
create . . . . does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize;
the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer
that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which
is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from
the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never
be destroyed; they may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed. They
had no beginning, and can have no end.” (Teachings, pp. 350–52.)
Abraham’s Creation account teaches us that Jesus Christ
organized the earth out of preexisting “materials.” (Abr. 3:24) Abraham’s
account also uses the phrase “empty and desolate” (Abr. 4:2) to describe the
earth in its earliest stages, rather than “without form, and void.”
President Brigham Young:
“God created the world. God
brought forth material out of which he formed this little terra firma upon
which we roam. How long had this material been in existence? Forever and
forever, in some shape, in some condition” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 100)
One published scientific view:
Harold G. Coffin, Professor of Paleontology and Research
at the Geoscience
Research Institute, Andrews University in Michigan, presented
one scientist’s view of how life began. The following excerpts are from a
pamphlet on the Creation written by Dr. Coffin.
“The time has
come for a fresh look at the evidence Charles Darwin used to support his
evolutionary theory, along with the great mass of new scientific information. Those
who have the courage to penetrate through the haze of assumptions which
surrounds the question of the origin of life will discover that science presents
substantial evidence that creation best explains the origin of life. Four considerations
lead to this conclusion.
“1. Life is
unique.
“2. Complex
animals appeared suddenly.
“3. Change in
the past has been limited.
“4. Change in
the present is limited.
“Anyone
interested in truth must seriously consider these points. The challenge they
present to the theory of evolution has led many intelligent and honest men of science
now living to reevaluate their beliefs about the origin of life.”
“Constant exposure to one theory of origins, and only
one, has convinced many that no alternative exists and that evolution must be
the full and complete answer. How unfortunate that most of the millions who
pass through the educational process have little opportunity to weigh the
evidences on both sides!
“Examinations
of the fossils, stony records of the past, tell us that complicated living
things suddenly (without warning, so to speak) began to exist on the earth.
Furthermore, time has not modified them enough to change their basic relationships
to each other. Modern living organisms tell us that change is a feature of life
and time, but they also tell us that there are limits beyond which they do not
pass naturally and beyond which man has been unable to force them. In consideration
of past or present living things, man must never forget that he is dealing with
life, a profoundly unique force which he has not been
able
to create and which he is trying desperately to understand.
“Here
are the facts; here are the evidences; here, then, are the sound reasons for
believing life originated through a creative act. It is time that each individual
has the opportunity to know the facts and to make an intelligent choice.” (Coffin, Creation, p.1, 15)
Creation of Light. Why Two Seemingly Different Accounts
The creation of light is talked about in two different
places in Genesis:
Genesis 1
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided
the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
And in Genesis 1
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of
the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the
heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and
over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it
was good.
Elder John Taylor:
“(God) caused light to shine upon
(the earth) before the sun appeared in the firmament; for God is light, and in
him there is no darkness. He is the light of the sun and the power thereof by
which it was made; he is also the light of the moon and the power by which it
was made; he is the light of the stars and the power by which they are made” (Journal of Discourses, Vol.
18, 327)
After their own kind.
Elder Boyd K. Packer:
“No lesson is more manifest in nature than that all living things do as the Lord commanded in the Creation. They reproduce ‘after their own kind.’ They follow the pattern of their parentage. … A bird will not become an animal nor a fish. A mammal will not beget reptiles, nor ‘do men gather … figs of thistles’ (Matthew 7:16)” (“The Pattern of Our Parentage,” Ensign, Nov. 1984, 67).
What does it mean to have “dominion” over the things of
the earth?
As children of God created in His image, men and women hold
a unique position among God’s creations. To have dominion means to “rule over.”
Part of our dominion over God’s creations involves being responsible for them
as good stewards.
Elder Marcus B. Nash of the Seventy:
“Life on this earth is both a
blessing and a responsibility. The Lord declares, ‘Behold, the beasts of the
field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained
for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in
abundance’ (Doctrine and Covenants 49:19). However, because the earth and all
on it are the ‘workmanship of [His] hand’ (Doctrine and Covenants 29:25), it
all belongs to Him. As temporary inhabitants of this earth, we are stewards—not
owners. As such, we are accountable to God—the owner—for what we do with His
creation.” (“Becoming Better
Stewards of the Earth God Created for Us,” Liahona, Mar. 2021, 44.)
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