Son of the Son
The endless line of fathers and sons — the patriarchal order reaching upward before this earth and downward into the Holy Order.
“And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn.”
I. The Pattern Is Familial
The universe of the Restoration is not an impersonal machine governed by forces. It is a kindred governed by a Father. Every layer of the divine order is structured on father-son covenant: El Elyon is Father to Jehovah; Jehovah is Father to the covenant Son; the Son becomes Father to His own redeemed seed; and the pattern continues upward and downward without end.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The Word — Jehovah — was with the Father and was God. Two Personages, one in Godhood, related as Father to Son. This is not a late theological construction; it is how the New Testament opens, and the Book of Mormon confirms it in prophets who saw centuries before: "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things" [Mosiah 3:8]. Father of the earth. Son of the Most High. Both at once.
II. "Son of the Son" — The Layered Filiation
The title "Son of the Son" names a truth the creedal Christian mind cannot hold: that sonship cascades. If Jehovah is Son of Elohim, and if Jehovah — the Son — becomes Father to all who are reborn in His name, then those who are begotten of the Son stand in their own filial covenant to Him, while He in turn stands as Son to the One above Him.
“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you.”
King Benjamin’s language is precise: Christ is Father because He spiritually begets those who enter His covenant. They become His sons and daughters. But Christ Himself remains the Son of the Most High. Hence the layered title: the covenant-keeper is a son of the Son. And the Son is a Son of the Father. And the Father is a Son of His Father. The patriarchal order reaches back before this earth and forward into eternities yet unrolled.
III. D&C 132 — The Continuation of the Seeds
D&C 132 is the most explicit scripture in the canon on the eternal family pattern. The new and everlasting covenant of marriage is not a perk for the exalted; it is the mechanism by which the pattern continues.
“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end… because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.”
They continue. The Greek and Hebrew equivalents of "continuation of the seeds" [D&C 132:19, 22, 30] describe an endless generative line. Exaltation is not arriving at a static throne — it is entering into the endlessness of the covenant family, where begettings continue, where sons become fathers, where the line extends.
Abraham’s promise is the same pattern stated in ordinary language: his seed shall be as the stars, "and as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father" [Abraham 2:9–11]. Every gentile who enters the covenant becomes accounted as Abraham’s seed. And Abraham himself is son to his fathers — Noah, Enoch, Adam — reaching upward to the Father above all.
IV. Moses 7 and the Enoch Pattern
Moses 7 gives us the vision that ties the pattern to cosmology. Enoch sees the Lord weep over the wickedness of His children [Moses 7:28–29] — God grieves as a Father grieves. Then Enoch sees, across the expanse of time, "an innumerable company of angels" ascending to the presence of God in Zion, and the tabernacle of God descending to dwell with men [Moses 7:62–63].
“And the day shall come that the earth shall rest, but before that day the heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the heavens shall shake, and also the earth… And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; and truth will I send forth out of the earth, to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten.”
The Father sends down righteousness; the earth sends forth truth. This is not poetry — it is the pattern: the Father above sends, and His covenant children below receive and send upward. Enoch’s Zion is the intermediate link — a people who have so received the pattern that the heavens open and the Father visits them in their place [Moses 7:16, 24].
V. The Holy Order as the Earthly Expression
The Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God [D&C 107:3–4; Alma 13:1–9] is the priesthood expression of the Son-of-the-Son pattern. It is called after the order of the Son because it traces its authority through the Son to the Father, and then delegates that authority downward to those the Son has received as His own sons.
“The Holy Order of God is not an order which men establish among themselves… But it is conferred upon those whom the Lord foreordained before the foundations of the world.”
Every holder of the Holy Order stands as a son to the Son. The authority descends from Christ to those Christ accepts. And those who receive it in the fulness become themselves fathers to a righteous seed, extending the pattern one more generation. Note again that per [D&C 124:28] the fulness of that priesthood was taken from the institutional church in 1841 and will only be restored through the Servant at the return of the Lord; the pattern is intact, but the earthly expression awaits the fulness.
To be a "son of the Son" is to be in covenant relation to Christ as His son by spiritual begetting — which is not metaphor. It is the actual transmission of eternal life by covenant, sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise [D&C 132:7]. The Son makes sons. Those sons, in their own time and order, become fathers. The chain of life is endless.
VI. As Above, So Below — The Reaching Upward and Downward
The final implication is the one that most offends creedal categories but that the Restoration teaches plainly:
- Above Jehovah there is a Father — El Elyon, the Most High, the God of the Gods [Psalm 82:1; D&C 121:32]
- Above El Elyon there are Fathers reaching back without end, the doctrine Joseph taught from the Hebrew of Elohim (the plural)
- Below Jehovah are the sons of God He begets in covenant — the children of Christ [Mosiah 5:7]
- Below them are the generations of their seed who receive the covenant and become sons in their turn [Abraham 2:9–11; D&C 132:19–20]
There is not one lonely God at the top of the universe. There is a family. The family reaches up before this earth was, and it reaches down forever. The purpose of mortality is to be begotten into this family by covenant, to keep the covenant, to be accepted as a son of the Son, and eventually — if faithful to the end — to become a father in the same order, continuing the seeds, extending the endless line of fathers and sons. This is eternal life.
| John 1:1–3 | The Word was with God and was God — Father and Son from the beginning |
|---|---|
| D&C 93:21–22 | "I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn" |
| Mosiah 3:8 | Christ the Son is also Father of heaven and earth — both offices at once |
| Mosiah 5:7 | Those who covenant with Christ become His sons and daughters by spiritual begetting |
| Abraham 2:9–11 | Gentiles grafted in are accounted Abraham’s seed — the adopted line continues |
| Moses 7:28–63 | The Father weeps; the heavens visit Zion; the pattern revealed to Enoch |
| D&C 132:19–22 | Continuation of the seeds; exaltation is the continuation of the family |
| D&C 121:32 | The Council of the Eternal God of all other gods before this world was |
| Alma 13:1–9 | The Holy Order after the Son of God — foreordained in the patriarchal pattern |
| Melchisedec I 11:11–19 | Abraham recognized as one already foreordained — the sonship established before birth |
