David Paulson has written beautifully and compellingly on the topic of Jesus’ special prayer which was given as Jesus interceded in our behalf by pleading with the Father. We learn much about the nature of the Godhead by watching Jesus interact with his Father and how he prays to God and what he prays for. It gives us the earliest Latter-day Saint document pertinent to the Godhead. To us it is not so mysterious.
Here you have a fully represented concept about God and Jesus, in a beautiful text that we are perfectly comfortable with. We understand this; it seems so obvious. But there are many historians who think that Joseph Smith did not understand the nature of the Godhead until much later, and that it was not even really until Nauvoo that he began to really articulate things which we understand as being essential to the doctrine of the Godhead. People who wonder about that have perhaps not read 3 Nephi carefully enough. David Paulson argues that there are several features of the relationship between the Father and the Son that are represented here as separate but united beings. This text presents a very powerful statement of the understanding of the Godhead as three separate beings perfectly united in purpose.
Theologians David L. Paulsen and Ari D. Bruening, in fact, have identified five different ways 3 Nephi depicts the Father and the Son as separate, individual beings.
Godhead Differences | 3 Nephi |
1. Christ Speaking of God as “My Father” | |
2. Christ Praying to the Father | |
3. Christ Obeying the Father | |
4. Christ’s Ascension to the Father | |
5. Other Ways Father and Son are Distinguished |
While several passages in 3 Nephi speak of the oneness of the Father and the Son (
Taking this another step in this direction, Robert L. Millett once asked this provoking question: If God and Jesus are existentially one being, “why did Jesus need to pray?” His answers are helpful, as we stretch to conceive the matchless harmony that exists between the members of the Godhead:
To begin with, during his mortal ministry he set aside much of the power and glory he had enjoyed before he came into the world (John 17:5). Paul wrote that Jesus “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7–8). Other translations render the above passage as “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (New American Bible; see also New Revised Standard Version; emphasis added). By choice Jesus did not turn the stones to bread, although he certainly possessed the power to do so (Luke 4:3–4). By choice Jesus did not cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and anticipate divine deliverance, although he had the power to do so (Luke 4:9–12). By choice our Lord did not call down legions of angels to deliver him and his in the Garden of Gethsemane, although he indeed possessed the power to do so (Matthew 26:51–54). And by choice the Master of ocean and earth and skies did not come down from the cross and bring an end to the pain and suffering, the ignominy and irony of his crucifixion and death, although the power to do just that was within his grasp (Matthew 27:39–40; Luke 23:39).
By setting aside power and glory, he was able to know mortality in its fulness, to know by experience what it felt like to be hungry, thirsty, tired, snubbed, ridiculed, excluded; in short, he chose to endure the throes and toils of this estate so that he might then be in a position to succor his people (Alma 7:11–13; D&C 62:1). Thus when he felt the need for reassurance, he prayed to his Father in Heaven. When he needed answers or perspective, he prayed. When he needed the sacred sustaining influence of the Father in his darkest hours, he prayed, prayed earnestly. Because of the Spirit, which conveys the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:16),16 he was in the Father, as the Father was in him. They were one.
Jesus prayed to the Father because he loved the Father. Jesus prayed to the Father because it was a reverential way of speaking to his Father, who is forever worthy of the reverence of his children. Jesus prayed to the Father because they enjoyed communion. That word communion is an especially meaningful word, one that is worth much reflection. President David O. McKay observed that spirituality is “the consciousness of victory over self, and of communion with the Infinite.” Jesus possessed perfect spirituality because he had overcome the world (John 16:33; D&C 101:36) and because he enjoyed perfect communion with the Father. This pattern is a call to you and me, is it not, to live our lives in such a manner that we cultivate the cleansing and revelatory benefits of the Spirit more and more; that we yield our hearts unto God (Helaman 3:35) and have an eye single to his glory (D&C 88:67); that we allow our consciences to be strengthened, our judgment to be refined, and our desires to be educated.
Book of Mormon Central, “Why Is 3 Nephi Important for Understanding the Godhead? (3 Nephi 19:23), KnoWhy 213 (October 20, 2016).
David L. Paulsen and Ari D. Bruening, “The Social Model of the Trinity in 3 Nephi,” in Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture, ed. Andrew C. Skinner and Gaye Strathearn (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book, 2012), 191–233, see pages 193, 204, 214.
Ari B. Bruening and David L. Paulsen, “The Development of the Mormon Understanding of God: Early Mormon Modalism and Early Myths,” FARMS Review of Books 13, no. 2 (2001): 109–169.
Robert L Millet, “The Praying Savior: Insights from the Gospel of 3 Nephi,” in Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture, ed. Andrew C. Skinner and Gaye Strathearn (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book, 2012), 142–144.