The King Follett Discourse is Joseph Smith’s most famous, well-recorded, and controversial sermon. It was the last General Conference talk Joseph gave before his death, and its teachings on the nature of God and man are among the most controversial things Joseph ever taught. Evangelical Christians hold to a traditional view of God and have pointed to the King Follett Sermon as evidence that Joseph Smith was a false prophet.

Yet Mormonism’s founding prophet felt so confident about this sermon, he staked his prophetic status on it. He did not view his teachings as blasphemous, but as both revolutionary and revelatory. In recent years, much controversy has surrounded Smith’s teachings on this occasion. How have Latter-day Saints—both past and present—interpreted this important sermon?

The Background

Joseph Smith preached his King Follett Discourse (KFD) on April 7, 1844—just a couple of months before he was killed. This was his last General Conference sermon, and it was a charged event. Wilford Woodruff, who recorded one of the principal accounts of the sermon, said that more than 10,000 people gathered to hear the alleged prophet.

The sermon itself served to encourage Latter-day Saints after the death of a man named King Follett (he wasn’t actually a king, contrary to what his name might imply). At the request of Follett’s wife, Smith agreed to preach a funeral sermon for him during April’s General Conference. The sermon aimed to provide comfort to all those mourning the death of loved ones.

Despite it functioning as a funeral sermon, Smith evidently knew that the KFD would be one of the most significant sermons he ever preached. He considered it important enough to ask more people to record it than any other sermon he ever gave. Joseph even asked them to brush up on their Hebrew so that they could accurately record what he preached.

LDS apologist Van Hale stated that

“considering his upcoming sermon to be of great importance he had assigned three clerks to take minutes. On only one other occasion had any of his discourses been reported by more than one clerk.”

The Measure of a Prophet

There was a growing contingent of disgruntled members in Nauvoo who were disillusioned with Joseph Smith because of his secretive practice of plural marriage. Many of them had been anticipating General Conference as an opportunity to bring formal charges against Smith. To their frustration, Joseph opened the conference by declaring that no such cases would be entertained. 

The Nauvoo newspaper Times and Seasons recorded,

[Smith] stated that it had been expected by some that the little petty difficulties which have existed, would be brought up and investigated before this conference, but it will not be the case; these things are of too trivial a nature to occupy the attention of so large a body . . .  Those who feel desirous of sowing the seeds of discord will be disappointed, on this occasion. It is our purpose to build up, and establish the principles of righteousness, and not to break down and destroy (Minutes and Discourses, 6–7 April 1844, as published in Times and Seasons, 522).

Because a growing number of people were questioning whether “the Prophet” was actually a prophet, Joseph used the sermon to boldly declare the legitimacy of his prophetic office. He claimed to be a man who, by revelation, was given insight into truths unknown by the wider Christian world—specifically truths about the nature of God.

Smith said,

“My first object is to go back and find out the character of the only wise and true God and what kind of a being He is. If I should be the man so fortunate as to comprehend God and explain to your hearts what kind of a being God is, so that the Spirit seals it, then let every man and woman henceforth put his hand on his mouth, sit in silence, and never say anything or lift his or her voice against the servants of God again. But if I fail to do it, and show I have no right to revelation or inspiration or to being a prophet, etc., it becomes my duty to renounce all of my pretensions to inspiration or to being a prophet, etc. If I should do so, should I not be as bad as all the rest of the false teachers of the world? They will all be as badly off as I am.”

Joseph hinged his status as a prophet on the truthfulness of what he preached; if the sermon was false, so was he. Because of Joseph’s bold claims here, evaluating the content of this sermon should demonstrate whether or not Joseph was a true prophet.

The Nature of Man: Eternal Intelligence

To understand the most controversial parts of this sermon, it’s important to follow Smith’s logic. That logical train begins with his claims about man’s nature. Keep in mind that Joseph preached this sermon, in part, to comfort mourners, “in order to understand the subject of the dead and to speak for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary to understand the character and being of God.” 

But why? How does the character and being of God encourage and comfort those lamenting the dead? The answer: Joseph links God’s nature to man’s nature. It’s the truth about man’s nature that can provide comfort:

“if men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend their own character. They cannot comprehend anything that is past or that which is to come…”

Then, what is misunderstood about the character and nature of man? He explained,

“We say that God Himself is a self-existent God. Who told you so? It’s correct enough, but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principle? . . . Man existed in spirit; the mind of man—the intelligent part—is as immortal as, and is coequal with, God Himself. I know that my testimony is true.”

Both man and God are co-eternal, self-existent beings. Generally speaking, Latter-day Saints agree with this idea today. They believe that our essential nature, our intelligence, is co-eternal with God.

Smith continued,

“Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. The first principles of man are self-existent with God.”

As God is self-existent, Joseph teaches—so are we. This means that we’re not “contingent beings” dependent on God for continued existence, as Christianity teaches. Historic Christian teaching argues that the Lord “upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). Christians believe in an infinite gulf between the Creator and the creature. The Creator brought everything into existence and sustains the existence of the creature.

But Joseph was teaching a revolutionary new idea: man is like God: necessary, self-existent beings. Like little I AMs. That’s a bold claim—a dramatic departure from historic Christian theism that teaches that God is the only self-existent, necessary, eternal being.

As a Christian, this claim is wildly blasphemous. Joseph’s teaching here is one of the most fundamental and profound disagreements between his theology and historic Christian teaching. I’d go so far as to suggest that Smith is preaching idolatry. Genesis tells us that Man was made in God’s image. idolatry remakes God into man’s image. That’s exactly what Joseph was doing. He was crushing the ontological distinction between God and man.

Smith applied this theology to provide comfort. If we are self-existent, uncreated, eternal beings—then, logically, death cannot destroy us.

“I want to reason more on the spirit of man for I am dwelling on the immortality of the spirit and on the subject of man on the subject of the dead. Is it logical to say that spirit is immortal and yet have a beginning? Because if a spirit of man had a beginning it will have an end, but it does not have a beginning or end.

This is good logic and is illustrated by my ring. I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal spirit—because it has no beginning or end. Suppose you cut it in two—as the Lord lives there would be a beginning and an end. So it is with man. All the fools learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that man had a beginning, prove that he must have an end. If that doctrine be true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, then I might with boldness proclaim from the housetop that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God Himself could not create Himself.”

Smith took his ring off as an illustration, pointing out that it forms a perfect circle, an image of eternity. If the ring is cut, it loses its “eternal” form. It now has a definite beginning and end. Smith applied this to human intelligences—if we have a beginning, we have an end. If his Christian critics are right (he calls them ”fools, learned and wise men who say that man had a beginning”), then mankind will one day end. Therefore, death in Christian thinking might indicate true annihilation. Joseph argues that historic Christian belief provide no grounds for comfort over the loss of loved ones.

But because men are essentially like God—eternal, self-existent, uncreated beings—we never had a beginning and thus will never have an end. Therefore, they can be assured that King Follett (or anyone else who has died) is not annihilated. Human intelligence cannot be created or destroyed, just as God cannot be created or destroyed. 

As a Christian, I question this logic. Why did Joseph assume that if something has a beginning, it must have an end? That’s stated in the sermon as an assumed truth, but it’s never proven. The Bible certainly never teaches that. Not even Latter-day Saints believe that. If our intelligences were given spirit-bodies in the premortal life, does that not mean our spirit-bodies have a definite beginning? Using this logic, would that not mean they will also have a definite end? And yet, Latter-day Saints don’t see spirits as having an end even though they have a beginning. 

If God, as the sole self-existent, eternal being, created the entire universe by the Word of His power, then He is able to sustain what He created. God can create something with a definite beginning, and sustain its existence for eternity. Smith’s assumption here is unfounded.

Child Resurrection: Babies on Thrones

On the subject of providing comfort, Joseph makes a couple of shocking claims about the resurrection of children. He taught that parents will receive their deceased children back in the resurrection as children—and they will remain children for eternity:

“A question about parents receiving their children. Will mothers have their children in eternity? Yes! Yes! Mothers, you will have your children…But as the child dies, so will it rise from the dead and be living in the burning of God and possessing all the intelligence of a God. It will never grow, it will be the child in its precise form as it was before it died out of your arms. Children dwell and exercise power, throne upon throne, dominion upon dominion, in the same form just as you laid them down. Eternity is full of thrones upon which dwell thousands of children, reigning on thrones of glory, with not one cubit added to their stature.”

According to his teaching, if a baby dies, it will be resurrected and reign on a throne as a baby for all eternity. Such children “…will never grow.” This shocking theology has some precedent in Smith’s previous teaching. William Clayton, one of his scribes, recorded a year earlier:

“I asked the Prest. wether children who die in infancy will grow. He answered No, we shall receive them precisely in the same state as they died in no larger. They will have as much intelligence as we shall but shall always remain separate and single.” (William Clayton, “Nauvoo Diaries and Personal Writings,” May 18, 1843).

Fourth LDS President Wilford Woodruff recorded that Smith preached the same idea in a sermon back in 1842,

“Children will be enthroned in the presence of God & the Lamb with bodies of the same stature that were on earth.” (The Wilford Woodruff Papers, Woodruff Journal (January 1, 1841 – December 31, 1842), March 20, 1842).

By the 1900s, the idea of a static eternal existence was tantamount to damnation. In fact, Doctrine and Covenants 132 states that those who are “separate and single”  are not exalted (D&C 132:17). that’s the same language Smith used to describe such children, according to William Clayton: “[They] shall always remain separate and single.”

This teaching was one of the more controversial elements of the King Follett Discourse. Some later Latter-day Saint leaders opposed Joseph’s notion of child resurrection precisely because it implied some degree of damnation. In fact, if you consider most versions of the King Follett Discourse, this section on child resurrection is likely missing (or dramatically modified). Because it taught such a controversial idea, the section was altered or altogether removed in many later versions of the sermon. Presidents Brigham Young, and Joseph F. Smith, as well as Apostle Orson Pratt, all questioned the validity of this teaching. Perhaps the prophet Joseph got this one wrong.

It is important to remember that Joseph claimed that his prophetic status hinged on the truthfulness of this sermon. If he taught falsehoods, then he really was a false prophet. Despite these high stakes, later LDS prophets and apostles had no trouble questioning and rejecting this teaching in the KFD.

Eternal Progression of Men and Gods

In Joseph’s theology, men possess the same essential nature as God. Both are self-existent and eternal. But he takes this logic a step further: men must also follow in the same course as Christ and the Father. As they once progressed, so too must we progress. Joseph began this logic train with Jesus. He claimed that Christ does only what he saw the Father do. Therefore, the Father once did what Jesus is now doing:

“What did Jesus say?—As the Father has power in Himself, even so has the Son power in himself. To do what? Why, what the Father did. That answer is obvious; even in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again.”

Jesus does what the Father did on another world: take on flesh, die, and resurrect. When Christ is one day exalted to where the Father is, the Father’s dominion and glory will expand. The governing idea is everlasting progression—the Father continues to grow in his glory and domain as those under him grow and progress in exaltation:

“…contemplate the saying that they will be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it? To inherit and enjoy the same glory, powers, and exaltation until you ascend a throne of eternal power and arrive at the station of a God, the same as those who have gone before. 

What did Jesus Christ do? ‘Why I do the same things that I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence.’ Saw the Father do what? ‘I saw the Father work out His kingdom with fear and trembling and I am doing the same, too. When I get my kingdom, I will give it to the Father and it will add to and exalt His glory. He will take a higher exaltation and I will take His place and am also exalted, so that He obtains kingdom rolling upon kingdom.’ So that Jesus treads in His tracks as He had gone before and then inherits what God did before. God is glorified in the salvation and exaltation of His creatures.”

Notice how Smith here applies that same basic trajectory to us. As God has done, Jesus now does. As Father and Son have done, we must also do. Jesus “treads in the tracks” of the Father, and we follow in the tracks of Jesus, joint-heirs with Him. All of us press towards greater exaltation and progress. Joseph goes on to say “when you climb a ladder you must begin at the bottom rung.” 

The Father started at the bottom rung and has worked his way up. Christ follows behind him, working his way up. We too must work our way up, following their steps, rung by rung, toward greater dominion and exaltation. This is why Smith famously said:

“You have got to learn how to make yourselves Gods in order to save yourselves and be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done—by going from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, until the resurrection of the dead, from exaltation to exaltation—till you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before, sit enthroned.”

Joseph even tied this progression/tracks/rung logic to proxy works; as Christ has saved us through his “proxy work,” faithful Latter-day Saints can “save” others through proxy works (most specifically proxy baptism):

“God has made a provision that the spirits of our friends and every spirit in that eternal world can be ferreted out and saved…Every man who has got a friend in the eternal world can save him, unless he has committed the unpardonable sin. You can save any man who has not committed the unpardonable sin. So you can see how far you can be a savior.”

There has been a lot of recent discussion about this topic of progression. For the sake of clarity, here are three major ways that Latter-day Saints have historically understood Smith’s teaching on this point:

1. The Equivalence View: Joseph referred to every facet of the son’s experience. The Father was previously a savior like Christ. We must follow in the tracks of the Father and the Son, becoming “little saviors”. This mindset led some Latter-day Saints to believe in things like Adam-God and/or Multiple Mortal Probations.
2. The Moderate Similarity View: Some exalted gods have been sinless saviors while others were once sinful mortals. Smith was making a more general/generic point. All those who are worthy make progress on the ladder to godhood, though the specifics vary from being to being.
3. The Distant Similarity View: The members of the Godhead have always been divine; they did not progress from being men to being gods. Although they took on physical bodies, their experience is something we cannot fully replicate. Their exaltation differs from ours because they have eternally been gods, while we have not. While we can become like them, we cannot enjoy the same type of Godhood that they have.

Two years before Smith gave this sermon, Wilford Woodruff revealed that Joseph had been essentially teaching the Equivalence View, saying that the Father, Son, and Spirit all needed to be Saviors at some point. Such logic implies that humans would have to do the same thing. Woodruff explained:

“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 turn, & so would all the Saints who inherited a Celestial glory so their would be Gods many & Lords many” (Wilford Woodruff, Discourse, 30 January 1842, 3, The Joseph Smith Papers).

Franklin D. Richards similarly recorded a year before the KFD:

“Joseph also said that the Holy Ghost is now in a state of Probation which if he should perform in righteousness he may pass through the same on a similar course of things that the son has” (Discourse, 27 August 1843, as reported by Franklin D. Richards, 27, The Joseph Smith Papers).

The Father, Son, Holy Ghost are all on different rungs of the ladder moving up. We follow in the same tracks, moving ever upward. It’s worth noting that some LDS scholars suggest that Smith was not teaching this in the King Follett Discourse. Today, there are Latter-day Saints all over the spectrum of belief concerning the nature of progression. Many say that such things are “speculative” or “deep doctrine.” It’s helpful for Evangelicals to realize that there exists a diversity of LDS positions on the exact nature of progression.

Rewriting God: Progression & Heavenly Father

Joseph extrapolated from his notion of progression back to the nature of God. Rightly understanding the nature of God, said Joseph, is essential:

“What kind of a being is God?…if the declaration of the Apostle be true, he will realize that unless he knows God he has not eternal life for there can be eternal life on no other principle.”

If mankind follows a parallel track to God, then that tells us something about God’s nature and past existence. If all of us exist on the same ladder moving upward rung by rung, then what’s true of Christ (and us) was logically once true of God. That’s exactly what Smith claimed:

“First, God Himself who sits enthroned in yonder heavens is a Man like unto one of yourselves—that is the great secret! If the veil were rent today and the great God that holds this world in its sphere and the planets in their orbit and who upholds all things by His power—if you were to see Him today, you would see Him in all the person, image, fashion, and very form of a man, like yourselves.”

He went on to say, “We have imagined that God was God from the beginning of all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so you may see.” This logic is why Joseph says that we have got to learn to be gods just as all gods before us have done. It’s this progression/track/ladder logic applied consistently to both God’s nature, and our own.

“He once was a man like one of us and that God Himself, the Father of us all, once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did in the flesh and like us.”

After the KFD, the Nauvoo Expositor newspaper was published, partly as a response to Smith’s controversial teachings. The paper was headed up by William Law, a man previously the second counselor in the First Presidency. The goal of the paper? To expose what was happening in Nauvoo—namely, polygamy, and blasphemy.

The Expositor accused Smith of teaching that there were many gods above our God. It read, “and inasmuch as they have introduced false and damnable doctrines into the Church, such as a plurality of Gods above the God of this universe.”

Smith’s logic in The King Follett Discourse led some to believe in a regress of gods. That’s what William Law believed Smith was teaching. If we do exactly what the Son does, and He does exactly what the Father did, then it follows that the Father has his own god.

After the Expositor was published, Joseph preached a follow-up sermon called the Sermon in the Grove. He stated,

“Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them.” and “my object was to preach the Scrip[tures]— & preach the doctrine there being a God above the Father of our Lord. Jesus Christ”

To put it bluntly, if God was once a man like we are, then God has a God. Some notion of a regress of gods has been the predominant understanding of Smith’s teachings for the majority of LDS Church history.

Smith’s “First Principles” of the Gospel

I regularly talk with Latter-day Saints about the nature of God. I think it is one of the most important and substantial areas of disagreement. I’ll often ask my LDS friends whether God has a God above himself, how the godhead works, what God’s existence as a man on a prior world looked like, etc. Most people respond by saying something like “that’s all really speculative, and we don’t really know. It’s not important, it’s not what we focus on.”

This is not how Smith viewed such things. Exaltation and progression were not minor speculative points in Smith’s theology. They were at the very heart of his teaching; he called them the first principles of the Gospel. Smith claimed that “the first principle of truth and of the Gospel is to know for a certainty the character of God.”

Smith (rightly) understood that what we believe about God necessarily trickles down into every other area of belief:

“For us to take up beginning at the creation it is necessary for us to understand something of God Himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is very easy for us to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it is a hard matter to get right.”

When he spoke about humanity’s progression to godhood, he likewise stated that “it is plain beyond comprehension and you thus learn that these are some of the first principles of the gospel.” While facets of this discussion are speculative within LDS theology, Joseph proclaimed in this sermon that the nature of God was essential to grasping the fullness of the Gospel. When Evangelicals comment on and critique the historic LDS position concerning a regress or gods, progression, and exaltation, we’re not meddling in speculative, ancillary issues. Joseph never claimed that such topics were “just speculation.”

I agree with Smith on this point: There is no topic more essential to Christianity than the nature of God.

The Historic Controversies: Spirits, Babies, and God

There are three major areas of historic controversy concerning Joseph’s teachings in this sermon. The first rose to prominence during “Middle Mormonism,” a period spanning from Joseph’s death in 1844 until around 1890. 

Soon after Smith’s death and the LDS Church’s relocation to Utah, Joseph’s teaching about man’s self-existent nature began to be tweaked by LDS leaders and thinkers. Part of what quickly shifted was a belief that we not only had a Heavenly Father, but also a Heavenly Mother. Latter-day Saints began to believe that both Heavenly Parents were involved in our existence through some form of spirit-birth.

This raises a question: if we began to exist as individuals when born to Heavenly Parents, are we actually self-existent in the way that Joseph taught? This spirit-birth theology quickly became associated with the now-public practice of plural marriage. If exalted humanity is to populate worlds without end with spirit offspring, and if some kind of spirit-birth was a part of that process, then having multiple wives helps. LDS spirit-birth theology became mainstream partially as a rationale for polygamy.

However, this view raised a bit of a theological problem: if we follow in the tracks of the Father and were “born” in some spiritual sense, what does that mean for the Father? Two predominant theories emerged.

President Brigham Young believed that spirit-birth theology necessitated an infinite regression of gods; namely, that God was once a man who was spiritually begotten by a higher god. That god was once a man who was spiritually begotten by an even higher god, and so on and so forth into eternity past.

Apostle Orson Pratt, on the other hand, believed that intelligence particles self-organized and optimized their form into a “first God” at some point in the past. He proposed a “limited regress” of gods, as opposed to an infinite regress. (Though, some evidence suggests that Pratt might have abandoned this view in favor of infinite regress by the 1850s. If you’re curious to learn more, check out our page on regress.)

This discussion of mankind’s essential nature and spirit-birth came to a head in the early 1900s in a disagreement between Apostle Charles Penrose and Seventy B.H. Roberts. This controversy led President Joseph F. Smith to halt printing of the KFD in 1912.

Roberts sought to harmonize spirit-birth theology with Smith’s KFD teaching that we are eternal and self-existent. He argued that mankind eternally existed as individual intelligences and then was begotten with spirit bodies to Heavenly Parents. After keeping the first-estate, these spirits were born as physical beings on earth.

Despite the controversies over this issue at that time, B.H. Robert’s harmonization view eventually won out and became the predominant LDS view today. The second major controversy was over the resurrection of children, which was mentioned earlier. This was another reason why Joseph F. Smith ordered that the KFD be removed from B.H. Robert’s History of the Church right before it was printed in 1912 (without even notifying Roberts, much to his frustration).

Many of the controversies surrounding the sermon today involve questions about God’s eternal nature, his tenure as a man, and other such issues. But the controversies surrounding the sermon in the 18-1900s were on completely different topics. Historic LDS disagreements had nothing to do with God once not being God. Rather they were concerned with this odd theology of child resurrection and the nature of intelligence, spirit, and the self-existence of man.

The third major controversy is far more modern. LDS philosopher Blake Ostler argues that Smith never taught a regression of gods, or that God earned/progressed to godhood. Rather, he taught that the Father was always God, the first to create a world; and that He took physical form on that earth, later becoming the adoptive Father of our spirits.

Ostler’s position rejects any regress of gods—the idea that Heavenly Father has His own Heavenly Father. Proponents have labeled this view “Monarchical Monotheism.” Though currently popular in some more philosophical LDS circles, this view has little (if any) support from the historic teachings of Mormon apostles and prophets after Smith.

Was the King Follett Sermon Accurately Recorded?

Some have claimed that the King Follett Discourse was not accurately recorded, and thus it isn’t a reliable source. The sermon was two hours long, and yet we don’t have two hours of content. It was windy—a fact that Smith points to multiple times in the sermon. Perhaps people couldn’t quite hear him properly.

But the King Follett Sermon is, without a doubt, the best recorded sermon of Smith’s in existence. There are four key accounts of the KFD: Thomas Bullock, William Clayton, Wilford Woodruff, and Willard Richards. You can find them all in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Stan Larson, writing for BYU, said,

“the reports have have no irreconcilable parts—no contradictory statements—and it is sometimes quite amazing how easily the various accounts combine. A high degree of agreement and harmony exists among them… Every indication points to the Bullock, Clayton, and Richards versions’ being written as Joseph spoke; this fact deserves emphasis. There is no evidence that any account was made by copying and/or expanding any other account.” (Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies Quarterly, 18:2, 1978).

While there might be parts missing from the sermon, what was recorded is almost certainly accurate. The fact that the details of the sermon agree and show up in multiple different accounts is a point worth considering.

Latter-day Saints often appeal to the Biblical idea of two or three witnesses. There are two or three witnesses on every part of the sermon referenced in this article. If you’re curious to dive into the textual history of the King Follett sermon, consider reading The King Follett Sermon: A Biography by William V. Smith. In an appendix of the book, there’s a critical text that visually shows the different accounts, and how they commend on each phrase in the sermon. It’s an excellent resource, and much of that book was useful in understanding the development of the ideas in the King Follett Discourse throughout LDS Church history. 

True Comfort

Joseph claimed at the beginning that if these things were not true, then all of his accusers were correct—and he really was a false prophet.

Joseph was, in fact, wrong. It means that the followers of truth are bound to reject his teachings. And they are bound to reject all his pretensions as a prophet according to his own standards.

• If Joseph was wrong about babies reigning on thrones for eternity as babies, then he is a false prophet.
• If Joseph was wrong about God having once been a man on a previous world, then he is a false prophet.
• If Joseph was wrong about God growing in glory and dominion as we progress to exaltation, then he is a false prophet.
• If Joseph was wrong about man being a self-existent eternal being, then he is a false prophet.

Joseph sought to comfort people by limiting God’s power and inflating the nature of man. But true comfort does not stem from our own nature. Rather, it comes from what God has done on our behalf. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”

Jesus sought to comfort us not by limiting God’s power, but rather by pointing to God. The New Testament glories in the fact that God alone is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He is the only one able to raise us from the dead.

Consider this: If God created the universe, then God is able to sustain the universe for eternity. If God created us, we will forever exist because God allows us to. If God alone is from eternity to eternity, everlasting to everlasting, then He alone is the only being worthy of worship.

Humans are not eternal. They do not have these attributes. And thus nobody will ever be worthy of worship. Mankind’s true hope is not that we are little “I AMs.” Rather, it’s in the gospel. The True “I AM” chose to save Adam’s helpless race as an act of pure grace. Not because of who or what we are, but rather because of who He is and what He’s done.

If you want to be comforted in death, don’t look to your own nature. Look to what God has done in the Gospel. You can be resurrected to eternal life by simply trusting in what Jesus has done and clinging to Him for salvation. As Paul writes in Romans 11:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)

God never had to become the kind of being who has never been taught. God never had to become the kind of being who has never been given a gift. But you and I are not like that. All things are from God and for God. That is just not true of us.

To God alone belongs all glory, dominion, power, and authority—now and for all time.

All KFD quotes from this article come from Stan Larson’s amalgamation (Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 18: Iss. 2, 1978).