Holland - The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent - October 2007

Elder Holland speaks about the Godhead, who They are, what Their physical form is and what Their purpose is in the plan of happiness.

• Our first and foremost article of faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” We believe these three divine persons constituting a single Godhead are united in purpose, in manner, in testimony, in mission. We believe Them to be filled with the same godly sense of mercy and love, justice and grace, patience, forgiveness, and redemption. I think it is accurate to say we believe They are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance, a Trinitarian notion never set forth in the scriptures because it is not true.

He declares that we do not believe in the same God as other Christian churches as the truth of the nature of God was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith when the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth.

• Our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself.
  

He speaks of the traditional Christian view of the Godhead and their declaration that God is incomprehensible and unknowable.  He declares that this is not the way that Jesus wanted us to know God and Himself.  He shares that part of the people of the Savior's ministry was to teach us who His Father is so we would not be confused by His nature.

• How are we to trust, love, worship, to say nothing of strive to be like, One who is incomprehensible and unknowable? What of Jesus’s prayer to His Father in Heaven that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”?
  
• It is not our purpose to demean any person’s belief nor the doctrine of any religion. We extend to all the same respect for their doctrine that we are asking for ours. (That, too, is an article of our faith.) But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first Christian Saints, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?
  
• We declare it is self-evident from the scriptures that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are separate persons, three divine beings, noting such unequivocal illustrations as the Savior’s great Intercessory Prayer just mentioned, His baptism at the hands of John, the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the martyrdom of Stephen—to name just four.
  

He speaks of the idea that God does not want or need a body to be exalted.  He asks if this is so, why did the mortal mission of Jesus Christ end with Him taking back his physical body never to be separated from His spirit again.

• If having a body is not only not needed but not desirable by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be separated from His spirit in time or eternity? Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ. No one claiming to be a true Christian will want to do that.
  

Elder Holland concludes with his testimony and declaration about the Christ that worship, His nature, and His visitation to Joseph Smith that started the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• Now, to anyone within the sound of my voice who has wondered regarding our Christianity, I bear this witness. I testify that Jesus Christ is the literal, living Son of our literal, living God. This Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer who, under the guidance of the Father, was the Creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. I bear witness that He was born of a virgin mother, that in His lifetime He performed mighty miracles observed by legions of His disciples and by His enemies as well. I testify that He had power over death because He was divine but that He willingly subjected Himself to death for our sake because for a period of time He was also mortal. I declare that in His willing submission to death He took upon Himself the sins of the world, paying an infinite price for every sorrow and sickness, every heartache and unhappiness from Adam to the end of the world. In doing so He conquered both the grave physically and hell spiritually and set the human family free. I bear witness that He was literally resurrected from the tomb and, after ascending to His Father to complete the process of that Resurrection, He appeared, repeatedly, to hundreds of disciples in the Old World and in the New. I know He is the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah who will one day come again in final glory, to reign on earth as Lord of lords and King of kings. I know that there is no other name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved and that only by relying wholly upon His merits, mercy, and everlasting grace can we gain eternal life.
  
• My additional testimony regarding this resplendent doctrine is that in preparation for His millennial latter-day reign, Jesus has already come, more than once, in embodied majestic glory. In the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old boy, confused by many of these very doctrines that still confuse much of Christendom, went into a grove of trees to pray. In answer to that earnest prayer offered at such a tender age, the Father and the Son appeared as embodied, glorified beings to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. That day marked the beginning of the return of the true, New Testament gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the restoration of other prophetic truths offered from Adam down to the present day.
  

Elder Holland has a way of making the difficult discussions seem easy to understand.  There is much confusion in the world about who God is and what His nature is.  Elder Holland explains in great detail that this confusion should not be.  Part of the restoration of the gospel was to bring clarity to this discussion confused by man many years ago.  We as members of the church declare that Joseph Smith saw two personages in the grove of trees.  There is no more confusion as to their physicial nature.  The nature of God that Joseph Smith would later open up to us declared God's plan for us, the role of Jesus Christ in that plan, and brought clarity to the nature, purpose, and role of the Holy Ghost is that plan.  Indeed, we are Christians in the traditional, New-Testament taught, way.