From Eternity to Eternity

Jesus was able to fulfill His mission in mortality because of who He was before. He wasn’t just a superior achiever who managed to live a perfect life, teach sublime truths, and then by pure willpower atone for our sins and rise from the dead. He was literally God “made flesh” (John 1:14). That’s the message I hear from multiple Book of Mormon prophets and from Doctrine and Covenants 76.

The angel who taught King Benjamin about the Savior identified Him as the all-powerful and eternal God:

For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay.

Mosiah 3:5

After explaining what Jesus would do for us, the angel explained that there is no other way to achieve salvation except “in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:17).

A few years earlier, Abinadi prophesied of Jesus in a similar way. After quoting a chapter from Isaiah about a servant of God who would suffer on our behalf, he identified this suffering servant as “God himself”:

I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.

And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God.

Mosiah 15:1-2

When Jesus introduced Himself to the Nephites and Lamanites after His death, He also began by emphasizing His premortal divinity. While they sat in darkness after a series of natural disasters, they heard His voice saying:

Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name.

3 Nephi 9:15

Doctrine and Covenants 76 reaffirms this doctrine. Speaking of the Savior, it says:

From eternity to eternity he is the same, and his years never fail.

Doctrine and Covenants 76:4

Referencing this verse, Sister Amy A. Clark recently said:

We need to infuse the Light of Jesus Christ into every corner of our lives. If we are not testifying to the veracity of His premortal godhood, His divine mission, and His prison-bursting Resurrection in our homes and in every single meeting of this Church, then our messages of love, service, honesty, humility, gratitude, and compassion can become nothing more than a jaunty pep talk of thoughtful living. Without Jesus Christ there is no power to change, no purpose to aspire to, and no reconciliation of the travails of life.

“Thou Art the Christ,” General Conference, April 2025

Today, I will remember and rely on the divinity of Jesus Christ. I will remember that He was with the Father from the beginning, that He created the heavens and the earth, and that He is the same from eternity to eternity.