On the 'Sons of God'

There is an interesting episode that appears in the Book of Job that describes the ‘sons of God’ presenting themselves before the Lord². This has led many to ask, “Who are these ‘sons of God’?” Certainly they include the angels. But is there anything else we can find out about them? Could the phrase ‘sons of God’ be describing something more? Maybe a status or rank? Let’s look into it.

Stolen Valor

In the Book of Moses, Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and subsequently they were called the ‘sons of God’³. It doesn’t appear to be something they were called before that time, but now they are. Contrast that with verse 14⁴ where a different group of people appear: the sons of men. Then down in verse 20 and 21 we have the ‘sons of men’ claiming to also be the ‘sons of God’:

20 And it came to pass that Noah called upon the children of men that they should repent; but they hearkened not unto his words;

21 And also, after that they had heard him, they came up before him, saying: Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men? And are we not eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage? And our wives bear unto us children, and the same are mighty men, which are like unto men of old, men of great renown. And they hearkened not unto the words of Noah.

It’s clear from verse 20 who these people are. They are the ‘children of men’, the same group verse 14 called the ‘sons of men’. They need repenting. Yet, here they are claiming to be the same status as Noah and his sons. They claim they need no repentance because they are also the children of God and doing all the same things as the great men that came before them. Yet, ‘they hearkened not unto the words of Noah’. What is going on here? It sounds more like a case of stolen valor⁵, claiming to be something that hasn’t been bestowed upon them.

So what actually made the difference between the two groups? The verse tells us plainly, and it is easy to read right past it. Noah and his sons ‘hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed’. That’s it. That’s the whole distinction. One group hearkened. The other ‘hearkened not unto the words of Noah’ and the title followed the hearkening.

A Title Has to Be Given

Claiming to be a child of God doesn’t appear to mean a lot. You see, spiritually speaking, your father is whoever it is that you listen to and obey. Jesus describes the Pharisees as children of the devil when they claim to be children of God⁶. They were doing the same thing as the people Noah was preaching to. In their minds they were the righteous ones having no need for repentance.

Many people today do the same thing. They read Moses 1:4⁷ and see Moses is declared to be a son of God and assume it’s a declaration of every man’s status instead of a specific declaration to Moses regarding his new relational status to God⁸. Sure, we are all the children of God and for many people that means something. But that meaning seems to be more sentimental than covenantal.

CS Lewis ran into the same problem and put a name to it. He noticed that Christians talk about becoming sons of God, and that this ought to strike us as strange, because we assume we already are. His answer turns on two words we hardly use anymore:

To BEGET is to become the father of: to create is to make… What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man.⁹

Making produces something of a different kind than the maker. A man makes a statue, and if he is good at it the statue looks very like a man. But it does not breathe. Begetting produces something of the same kind. Which leaves us, at the start, as the statue. Thus: Jesus was begotten of God and man was made in the image of God. Which means sonship is not where we start out. It is something that has to happen to us.

A bestowed title has to be bestowed by someone, at some time.

So those who keep the commandments of God ought to expect to have the words of Psalms 2:7¹⁰ spoken to them at some point in their life. Personally.

If that sounds like something reserved for prophets in another age, read D&C section 34. In November 1830 a nineteen-year-old named Orson Pratt, six weeks baptized, was told that Christ gave his own life “that as many as would believe might become the sons of God.” The very next words are “Wherefore you are my son”¹¹.

Down into the Water

There is another reason to expect it. We are expected to follow Jesus in all things, and Nephi is unusually direct about what that means. If the Lamb of God, being holy, still needed to be baptized, “how much more need have we, being unholy”? The point was never the water. The point is the pattern. “Follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do”¹².

So what did we see him do? He went down into the water. The Spirit descended. And a voice out of heaven made a declaration about who he was.

Section 93 is where this stops being comfortable. John’s record says that Christ “received not of the fulness at the first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness”. And then:

14 And thus he was CALLED the Son of God, because he received not of the fulness at the first.

Read that again. The reason given for the title is a process. The very next verse is the baptism, the dove, and the voice¹³.

And what the voice said may not be what your Bible says it said. A number of the earliest manuscripts, and several of the early Christian writers who quoted the passage, have the voice speaking Psalms 2:7 word for word: “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee”¹⁴. You do not have to settle the manuscript question to see the point, because Paul settles it for us. Preaching at Antioch he takes that verse, names the psalm it comes from, and applies it to Christ¹⁵.

Then section 93 turns it on us:

20 For if you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.

22 And all those who are BEGOTTEN through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn.

Grace for grace. The same way he did it.

The Father and the Son

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The doctrine of becoming a Son or Daughter of God is everywhere in the scriptures¹⁶. One such example can be found in Ether chapter three when The Brother of Jared encounters the Lord (Ether 3:14).

Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall BECOME my sons and my daughters.

It seems now that we are beginning to unravel one of the mysteries. How Jesus can both be the Father and the Son¹⁷.

And notice who is doing the begetting. “That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God”¹⁸. By him. Through him. Of him.

Back to Job

Which brings us back to Job. If the title is bestowed, then what do we do with the sons of God who were already shouting for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid¹⁹?

Joseph Smith took up that question eleven days before he was killed. The text he preached from was Revelation 1:6, that Christ “hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father”. Thomas Bullock took down these words:

I bel. in these Gods that God reveals as Gods-- to be Sons of God & all can cry Abba Father-- Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods even from bef the foundat[io]n. of the world & are the only Gods I have a reverence for-- John sd. he was a K.-- J. C. who hath by his own blood made us K & P. to God--²⁰

Bullock was writing in shorthand, so read that as a notetaker’s report and not as Joseph’s exact words. But the gist of it is hard to miss. The sons of God at the creation were not there by default. They exalted themselves, even from before the foundation of the world. They arrived. Whatever else Job is showing us, it is not showing us a room full of people who were simply born into the room.

Sons of God, and kings and priests, in the same breath.

Sonship and Order

And this is not the first time those two things show up together. Go back to Moses chapter 6, to Adam. He is baptized, born of the Spirit, quickened in the inner man. Then a voice out of heaven tells him two things, back to back:

67 And thou art after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years, from all eternity to all eternity;

68 Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all BECOME my sons. Amen.

Order, then sonship²¹.

Then go back to Moses chapter 8 one last time. Six verses after Noah and his sons are called the sons of God, we are told that “the Lord ordained Noah after his own order”²². Sonship and order. Same chapter, six verses apart.

Twice. With the first man, and with the man who started the world over.

And if you want all of it said in one place, section 76 says it. Of those who belong to that same church of the Firstborn:

56 They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory;

57 And are priests of the Most High, after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son;

58 Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God

Kings and priests. The order. Sons of God. With a wherefore tying it all together²³.

Does this make D&C 107:3 mean something different to you now? When you become a Son (capital S) of God do you also join into that order²⁴?

And if you do, is that the top of it? A son is an heir. But an heir can be an heir and still not be told what his Father is doing²⁵. That is a different conversation, and one for another day.

But what do I know? I don’t know, Jack.

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