Updated February 1, 2026

As of today there are at least three different interpretations in the Latter-day Saint community of,

“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” (John 5:19 KJV)

• General parallel: The Son follows a general pattern of taking a body and resurrecting. For some this allows for the historical possibility that the Father was a sinful mortal.
• Sinless mortality: The Father experienced a sinless mortality, but not as a savior-figure.
• Sinless savior: The Father was a sinless savior who likewise accomplished an atonement for a different set of spirit children and worlds.

Questions

• What kind of “seeing” is meant? Concurrent work, or witnessing of a prior mortality?
• Which tense? “Seeth” (present) vs. “had seen” (past)?
• Did the Father experience mortality? And if so, was it sinful, sinless, or a sinless savior-role mortality?
• How closely does the Son’s career parallel the Father’s? General resemblance, or exact replication including an atonement?
• Infinite regress? If the Father imitated his Father, does the chain recurse upward without end?
• Scope of Christ’s atonement? Does it cover all creations universally, one generation of worlds, or only a single earth?
• Multiple redeemers? Are there other savior-figures (properly speaking) beyond this dominion, or is Christ the sole Savior across every world?
• Inseparable work vs. imitative chain? The historic Christian reading (Father and Son doing the same work concurrently) vs. the LDS framework (Son replicating what the Father once did sequentially).
• Who governed while the Father was mortal? Did another fill in for the Father in his absence?

Common misquotation

Latter-day Saint leaders and members often misquote John 5:19 as though Jesus was doing what he “had seen” the Father do in the past. Joseph Fielding Smith writes,

“The statement of our Lord that he could do nothing but what he had seen the Father do, means simply that it had been revealed to him what his Father had done.”¹

The KJV actually reads “seeth”, not “saw.” Modern translations read,

“The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (ESV)

“The Son can do nothing on his own but only what he sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” (NRSV)

Joseph Smith: Jesus replicates the Father’s work of creation, proving prior worlds existed.

William Patterson McIntire records Smith as teaching on January 5, 1841,

“fire, air, & watter are Eternal Existant principles which are the Composition of which the Earth – has been Composed; also this Earth has been organized out of portions of other Globes that has ben Disorganized; in tistimoney that this Earth was Not the first of Gods work; he quoted a passage from the testament where Jesus said all things that he had saw the father Do he had done & that he done Nothing But what he saw the father do John the 5th”²

Joseph Smith: The Father redeemed a world and became the eternal God. The Holy Ghost would do the same, and so would all the Saints.

Wilford Woodruff records Smith as teaching on January 30, 1842,

“Joseph the Seer taught the following principles that the God & father of our Lord Jesus Christ was once the same as the Son or Holy Ghost but having redeemed a world became the eternal God of that world he had a son Jesus Christ who redeemed this earth the same as his father had a world which made them equal & the Holy Ghost would do the same in his turn & so would all the Saints who inherited a Celestial glory so their would be Gods many & Lords many.”³

Joseph Smith: The imitative chain recurses upward.

In a June 16, 1844 discourse recorded by Thomas Bullock, Joseph Smith taught:

“Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly. Hence, if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.

“I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him. As the Father had done before? He laid down His life and took it up the same as His Father had done before.”⁴

Brigham Young: The Gods are “working and operating together.”

“If men are faithful, the time will come when they will possess the power and the knowledge to obtain, organize, bring into existence, and own. ‘What, of themselves, independent of their Creator?’ No. But they and their Creator will always be one, they will always be of one heart and of one mind, working and operating together; for whatsoever the Father doeth so doeth the son, and so they continue throughout all their operations to all eternity.”⁵

Truman Madsen: “The relationship is exact.”

BYU professor and philosopher Truman G. Madsen writes,

“A deeper point is the relationship of these two beings. Joseph taught in the 1840s—and I think it was an extension of what he learned in the Grove that morning—that the statement of the Master about his doing nothing but what he had seen the Father do has infinite implications. How could Jesus have seen the acts of the Father as a witness? …

“Again, the relationship is exact. If Christ himself was uniquely begotten and was the firstborn in the spirit, and if he was the Christ not only of this earth but also, as the Prophet taught later, of the galaxy, so before him the Father himself was a Redeemer, having worked out the salvation of souls of whom he was a brother, not a father. This is deep water. The conclusion is drawn by Joseph Smith in his King Follett discourse. Whatever else it may mean, and it is mind-boggling, it at least means this: The Father, by experience, knows exactly what his Son has been through. And the Son, by experience, knows exactly what the Father has been through.”⁶

Delbert L. Stapley: Christ imitated “works which the Father had performed previously in his own experience.”

Apostle Delbert L. Stapley remarked in General Conference,

“Now Jesus said, ‘The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.’ (John 5:19.) Also: ‘As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.’ (John 8:28.) Here Christ informs us that he was following the example and teachings of his Father and the works which the Father had performed previously in his own experience, which proves both Father and Son possess like individual characteristics, attributes, and powers.”⁷

Rodney Turner: The parallel is “similar for all even though it is not identical for all.”

BYU professor Rodney Turner writes,

“[O]pinion is divided as to how closely the Son’s career paralleled that of his Father . . . These and the Prophet’s earlier remarks are believed by some to infer that our God and his father once sacrificed their lives in a manner similar to the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is argued that the Prophet’s words suggest that these gods did not simply live and die as all men do, they ‘laid down’ and ‘took up’ their lives in the context of sacrifice . . .

“This extrapolated doctrine rests upon a somewhat inadequate, if not shaky, foundation. Indeed, it is highly doubtful. The basic process of laying down and taking up one’s life is similar for all even though it is not identical for all.”⁸

Blake Ostler: “There must have been another who filled for him the role of God.”

LDS philosopher Blake Ostler rejects the common recursive imitative framework of LDS leaders and authors, arguing instead that the Father was always God prior to his condescension. He posits a temporary fill-in deity for when the Father himself experienced mortality and sonship:

“In fact, when the Father became mortal, there must have been another who filled for him the role of God and whom the Father worshipped and to whom he gave obeisance while in a state of condescension. However, it doesn’t follow that the Father’s God would have been recognized as superior when the Father again regained a fulness of divinity. The Father could not have been a son on another planet unless he had a Heavenly Father also who governed the universe while the Father was mortal. Joseph Smith seems to have been aware of these implications. Instead of talking about the Father’s spiritual birth through the procreation of another Father above him, it seems persuasive to me that he was referring to the Father’s experience as a mortal—which would necessitate his also having had a mortal father, and also one who filled the role of God during the Father’s time as a mortal.”⁹

Multiple redeemers and atonements?

How closely the Father’s mortality paralleled the Son’s relates to another set of questions: Are there multiple Savior figures (properly speaking; not in a lesser sense of common proxy work) beyond this dominion, and what is the extent of Christ’s atonement? There are a variety of positions:

• Absolute scope without exception: Appealing to D&C 76:22–24, some Latter-day Saints hold that Christ’s atonement covers all creations, past, present, and future, making him the sole Savior across every world, without exception or assumption of scope, and without any regress of gods prior to Heavenly Father.
• One Savior per generation of gods: Others argue that the firstborn Son of each Heavenly Father atones once for all worlds under that God, still encompassing an infinite number of earths.
• One Savior per earth: Brigham Young preached, “Every earth has its redeemer, and every earth has its tempter; and every earth, and the people thereof, in their turn and time, receive all that we receive, and pass through all the ordeals that we are passing through.”¹⁰ And, “And the oldest son has always had the privilege of being ordained, appointed and called to be the heir of the family if he does not rebel against the Father, and he is the Savior of the family.”¹¹

Christian interpretation: Father and Son accomplish same inseparable work.

As understood by historic Christianity, John 5:19 is about the inseparable work of the Father and the Son in redemptive history. This is also called “inseparable operations,” and is fitting to the unity of being shared by the the Father and the Son.

That the Son only does what the Father is doing in the Son is a theme of the Gospel of John. See John 4:34, 5:30, 5:36, 6:38, 7:16, 8:26, 8:28, 10:25, 10:32, 12:49–50, 14:10, 14:31. Plug those verses into an online Bible web site and read them all. You’ll see the pattern.

It is perhaps best summarized in John 14:10:

“The Father who dwells in me does his works.”

That is what Jesus is getting at in John 5:19, just on the heels of the miracle of Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath (John 5:1-8). Jesus explains this miracle as the work of the Father and the Son:

“My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17)

That’s the point. Not that Jesus is imitating a past mortality of the Father. But that the Father and the Son, mutually indwelling, are accomplishing the same inseparable work, and are even incapable of working apart from each other.

“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” (John 5:19)

References

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954), 32–33, quoted in Truman G. Madsen, “Joseph Smith: The First Vision and Its Aftermath,” lecture, August 22, 1978, BYU Speeches (Brigham Young University), accessed February 1, 2026, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/truman-g-madsen/joseph-smith-first-vision-its-aftermath/. Emphasis added. ↩︎
2. Joseph Smith, Discourse, Nauvoo, Hancock Co., IL, 5 January 1841, as reported by William P. McIntire, in William P. McIntire, Notebook, ca. 1841–1845, pp. [1]–[5], handwriting of William P. McIntire, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/account-of-meeting-and-discourse-5-january-1841-as-reported-by-william-p-mcintire/1. ↩︎
3. Joseph Smith, “Discourse, 30 January 1842,” Nauvoo, Hancock Co., IL; featured version copied ca. 30 January 1842 in Wilford Woodruff, Book of Revelations, pp. [3]–[4], handwriting of Wilford Woodruff; Church History Library (CHL); The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-30-january-1842/1. ↩︎
4. Joseph Smith, “Discourse, 16 June 1844 (1),” in The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph, comp. and ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980). ↩︎
5. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 2 (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855), 304, https://jod.mrm.org/2/298; also quoted in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1998), 89, https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/f9/73/f9736b040ae611ecbf18eeeeac1e5d0bc1647165/teachings_of_presidents_brigham_young_1998_99.pdf. ↩︎
6. Truman G. Madsen, “Joseph Smith Lecture 1: The First Vision and Its Aftermath,” devotional address delivered at Brigham Young University, August 22, 1978, audio and transcript, BYU Speeches, accessed February 1, 2026, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/truman-g-madsen/joseph-smith-first-vision-its-aftermath/; reprinted as “Fire from Heaven: The First Vision and Its Aftermath,” BYU Magazine (Spring 2020), accessed February 1, 2026, https://magazine.byu.edu/article/fire-from-heaven-the-first-vision-and-its-aftermath/. ↩︎
7. Delbert L. Stapley, “Easter Thoughts,” General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (April 1976), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed February 4, 2026, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1976/04/easter-thoughts. ↩︎
8. Rodney Turner, “The Doctrine of the Firstborn and Only Begotten,” in The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 91–118, https://rsc.byu.edu/pearl-great-price-revelations-god/doctrine-firstborn-only-begotten ↩︎
9. Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: Volume 3, Of God and Gods (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 29. ↩︎
10. Brigham Young, “Sin—The Atonement—Good and Evil—The Kingdom of God” (remarks delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden City, July 10, 1870; reported by David W. Evans), in Journal of Discourses, vol. 14 (Liverpool: Albert Carrington, 1871), 71–72. https://jod.mrm.org/14/70#71. ↩︎
11. Brigham Young, Sermon, October 8, 1854 (General Conference), pp. 11–26, Historian’s Office Reports of Speeches, 1845–1885, CR 100 317, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. ↩︎