1. Abraham 3 Abraham 3:23-24 Thou Wast Chosen Before Thou Wast Born The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council” (Teachings, 365).

2. Elder Bruce R. McConkie explains how this is so: “As a result of preexistent faithfulness, certain of the Father’s children earned the right to receive preferential treatment during their mortal sojourn. Some who were noble and great were foreordained, as the Messiah himself was to his mission, to minister as apostles and prophets on the earth. Others merited birth into the house of Jacob, so they would be in a position to hear the word of truth and begin the processes or repentance, and of working out their salvation, before that same gift was given to others” (The Promised Messiah, Deseret Book Co., 1978, 506). (Election of Grace)

3. Abraham 3:24“We will make an Earth” Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught: “Christ, acting under the direction of the Father, was and is the Creator of all things. That he was aided in the creation of this earth by ‘many of the noble and great’ spirit children of the Father is evident from Abraham’s writings…. Michael or Adam was one of these. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, James, and John, Joseph Smith, and many other ‘noble and great’ ones played a part in the great creative enterprise” (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3:194).

4. Abraham 3:25We Will Prove Them President Ezra Taft Benson succinctly restated the message of Abraham 3:25 when he said: “The great test of life is obedience to God” (Conference Report, Apr. 1988, 3). We are not here to test or “prove” God, but to be tested and proved ourselves. We are on trial, not God. Elder Rex C. Reeve Sr., who was a member of the Seventy, said: “This life is a time of testing. It is not the reward time. That will come later. We are here being tested. The test is going on now!” (Conference Report, Oct. 1982, 37).

5. For nearly six thousand years, God has held you in reserve to make your appearance in the final days before the Second Coming of the Lord. …While our generation will be comparable in wickedness to the days of Noah, when the Lord cleansed the earth by flood, there is a major difference this time.

6. And that is that God has saved for the final inning some of his strongest children, who will help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly. And that is where you come in, for you are the generation that must be prepared to meet your God.

7. All through the ages the prophets have looked down through the corridors of time to our day. Billions of the deceased and those yet to be born have their eyes on us. Make no mistake about it you are a marked generation. There has never been more expected of the faithful in such a short period of time than there is of us. Never before on the face of this earth have the forces of evil and the forces of good been as well organized (“In His Steps,” talk given by Ezra Taft Benson, 14 Stake Fireside, BYU, March 4, 1979, 1).

8. The Power to Exalt Abraham 3:26 The Atonement is both redemptive and exalting in its nature. C.S. Lewis understood the principle: “For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed with humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been, more glorious than any unfallen race now is (if at the moment the night sky conceals any such)….And this super- added glory will, with true vicariousness, exalt all creatures (Lewis, Miracles, 122-23).

9. This life is the second estate over the prospects of which we once shouted for joy (Job 38:7), even though there may be brief moments when we might wonder what all that shouting was about (Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, But Thine, 113). In some ways, our second estate, in relationship to our first estate, is like agreeing in advance to surgery. Then the anesthetic of forgetfulness settles in upon us. Just as doctors do not de-anesthetize a patient in the midst of authorized surgery to ask him again if the surgery should be continued, so, after divine tutoring, we once agreed to come here and to submit ourselves to certain experiences and have no occasion to revoke the decision (Neal A. Maxwell, “Meeting the Challenges of Today,” 151-52).

10. Abraham 3:27 In the great pre-mortal council, when Jesus meekly volunteered, saying, “Here am I, send me,” it was a most significant moment: a few words were preferred to many, for the meek do not multiply words. Never has one individual offered to do so much for so many with so few words as did Jesus when, having created this and other worlds, He then meekly proffered Himself as ransom for all of us on this planet, billions and billions of us! (Neal A. Maxwell, Meek and Lowly, 8).

11. Conversationally, we reference God’s great design almost too casually at times; we even sketch its rude outlines on chalkboards and paper as if it were the floor plan for an addition to one’s house. However, when we really take time to ponder the Plan, it is breathtaking and overpowering! Indeed, I, for one, cannot decide which creates in me the most awe --- its very vastness or its intricate, individualized detail (Neal A. Maxwell, “Thanks Be to God,”).

12. Facsimiles 2-3 Facsimile 2General Information The type of drawing depicted in facsimile 2 is known among scholars as a “hypocephalus,” which means “under or beneath the head.” “A hypocephalus is a small disk-shaped object made of papyrus, stuccoed linen, bronze, gold, wood, or clay, which the Egyptians placed under the head of their dead. They believed it would magically cause the head and body to be enveloped in flames or radiance, thus making the deceased divine. The hypocephalus itself symbolized the eye of Re or Horus, i.e., the sun, and the scenes portrayed on it relate to the Egyptian concept of the resurrection and life after death” (Michael D. Rhodes, The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus…Seventeen Years Later (F.A.R.M.S. paper, RHO-94), 1).

13. President Joseph Fielding Smith taught: “Abraham wrote things and sealed them up that cannot be read. They cannot be revealed unto the world, but are to be had in the holy temple of God. They are certain keys and blessings that are obtained in the house of the Lord that we must have if we are to obtain exaltation” (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:253).

14. Facsimile 2, figure 1Kolob The center of facsimile 2 contains a representation of Kolob. In his exaltation for figure 1, the Prophet Joseph Smith said that Kolob is “first in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time.” This means that Kolob is the star nearest to the presence of God (Abraham 3:2-3), is the governing star in all the universe (v. 3), and that time passes more slowly on Kolob than on any other star in this order (v.4). Kolob is also symbolic of Jesus Christ, the central figure in God’s plan of salvation.

15. Kolob Kol = voice ob = Father In Hebrew “Kolob” translates as voice of the Father. Who is the voice of the Father? Jesus Christ Many believe that “Christ” is Kolob!

16. Facsimile 2, figures 7-8 Returning to God’s Presence Egyptologists suggest that hypocephali contain information to help deceased persons return to the presence of God. Similarly, the Lord has given Latter-day Saints divine help to return to His presence. President Brigham Young taught: “Your (temple) endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 416).

17. Facsimile 3General Information In Abraham 3:15, the Lord told Abraham that he was to teach the Egyptians the things he had learned (Ab. 3:15). Commenting on this, the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “The learning of the Egyptians, and their knowledge of astronomy was no doubt taught them by Abraham and Joseph, as their records testify, who received it from the Lord” (Teachings, 251). Figure 1 could also be symbolic of Abraham receiving his exaltation and sitting upon a throne in the presence of God (Doctrine & Covenants 132:37).