(3) Talmage: Agency

Jesus The Christ – Study Guide

(3) Agency

In the Premortal Existence (PME) “the entire human race existed as spirit being…they were endowed with the powers of agency…” (p. 17). If we treat agency as the power to act righteously with the ability to make choices, it adds to the richness of the construct.

Elder Talmage explains that God’s omnipotence relates to agency and also provides an answer to the underlying question of how we are able to exercise agency despite His omniscience. He permits us the ability to make choices without infringing upon our desire to act righteously. However, when we choose sin over His commandments we no longer engage in agency. Instead we stray from the strait and narrow and His Spirit is withheld.

(2) Talmage: Premortal Existence

Jesus The Christ – Study Guide

(2) The Premortal Existence

Genesis 1:26-27 is the biblical account of what is left of the premortal life, which according to some LDS scholars was over 2.5 billion years of existence. In this organizational meeting (Abraham 3:22-28), we were all present and witnessed the Savior’s appointment as the Redeemer. Jesus explained that some souls would be lost and not make it back. Lucifer argued that he could save them (v. 26). In verses 24-25, Jesus is already the Chosen One. He is speaking in past tense that we (God the Father and Him) we prove us to determine if we keep our covenants made (in the premortal existence).

Lucifer’s Plan Violated Law

His suggestion was a violation of a law that has no beginning and has no end. To say I don’t comprehend eternity, where God came from, how I’ll become a God, or how Christ brought about the atonement is an understatement, but to requisition the power of the universe as a spirit entity, before ever going through the required mortality of the system, is absurd.

After the eternal law of no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God and Adam remove Lucifer, the physical creation of the earth is completed and Adam and Eve are placed thereon.