Now for the second half of this simultaneous duet and some light hearted goofiness.
I was reading around Moses 6:58-61 for some context before posting my last post and I stumbled upon this oft read beauty of a verse:
64 And it came to pass, when the Lord had spoken with Adam, our father, that Adam cried unto the Lord, and he was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, and was carried down into the water, and was laid under the water, and was brought forth out of the water. (Moses 6:64)
So I noticed for the first time, in my focus on there being a potential difference between the Holy Ghost and the Spirit of God, that it is the Spirit of the Lord that baptizes Adam.
This brought to mind McConkie’s opinion that the Spirit of the Lord as seen by Nephi in his vision starting in 1 Ne. 11 might be the actual spirit body of Jesus Christ as no one has in any other place recorded seeing the Holy Ghost in body form before. But the two terms used in these two stories are exactly the same. The Spirit of the Lord.
Could the Spirit of the Lord in Moses 6:64 be the spirit body of the premortal Jesus? I always wondered before how the HG “carried” Adam into the water and baptized him. It makes a kind of sense if the premortal Jesus performed the baptism.
Before you all write me with scores of comments that Nephi uses the term “Spirit of the Lord” in many contexts including ones which can not be understood to refer to a premortal Jesus body, I already know. The terms for both of my posts are confusing and not clearly distinguished in the scriptures. That’s why this post is strictly labeled as speculation and explicitly said by me to be for fun alone. So enjoy the possibility of the idea before you burn me in efficgy. That’s all I ask. See, I’m not hard to please.
I also posted in part #1 (crazy two part stuff, eh eh..) But to also mention that the Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of Christ which is the holy ghost. What is it we hearken unto? The spirit right? We hearken unto the light of Christ according to D&C 84:43-47 which is his spirit sent into each one of us to know the truth of all things. What does the holy ghost do? teaches us all things we must do and the truth of all things. I firmly believe that the holy ghost is the light of christ that dwells in each one of us. Everyone born into the world receives the holy ghost or the light of Christ. If you sin though that light departs and we have to be born again in the spirit and once again have that spiritual light to be our constant companion. Those who eternally reject the light of christ from within them become the sons of perdition.
Further- the early saints believed that the holy ghost was really only the mind or will of god.
Rob: Do you have a reference for your last comment I can look up? It would help my exploration of the issue significantly.
It comes from the oft cited “Lectures on Faith” lecture #5. Supposedly the book was made up under Joseph Smith. Lecture 5 states that only 2 beings make up the God head- the Father and the Son while the holy ghost is just the “mind and will” that they both posess! It is an interesting read.
I believe that the authorship of much of the Lectures on Faith is in dispute (since Sidney Rigdon apparently also worked extensively on them). So using them as a source of Joseph’s thinking may be ill-advised.
Whether the authorship is in dispute doesn’t matter as the early brethren used the Lectures as their standard for learning for many many decades.