“Seed is the progeny of the species. Among us men it is our children. The children of the Lord Jesus Christ are those who believe in him and obey his gospel, those who exercise the power given them to become his sons and his daughters, and who as a consequence are adopted into his family. … Included in this group of whom Abinadi speaks are all those who have been faithful from the day of father Adam to that moment; all are members of their Messiah’s family. … In principle the same thing will apply to all the faithful yet to come, all who shall be spiritually born of him” (McConkie, Promised Messiah, 359–60).
“One of the grandest messianic sermons ever delivered was Abinadi’s defense before King Noah and his wicked priests, particularly that portion constituting chapter fifteen of Mosiah. The first five verses of this chapter are especially poignant and may be understood in light of … the ministry of Christ as the Father and the Son. … Key doctrinal matters are given in verses one through five:
“1. God himself—Jehovah, the God of ancient Israel—will come to earth, take a physical body, and bring to pass redemption for all men.
“2. Because Jehovah/Jesus Christ will have a physical body and dwell in the flesh—like every other mortal son and daughter of God—he will be known as the Son of God. On the other hand, because he will be conceived by the power of God and will thus have within him the powers of the Spirit, he will be known as the Father. This same doctrine is given in a modern revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith (see D&C 93:4, 12–14).
“3. The will of the Son is to be swallowed up in the will of the Father. That is, the flesh will become subject to the Spirit, the mortal subject to the immortal. ‘I seek not mine own will,’ Jesus explained, ‘but the will of the Father which hath sent me’ (John 5:30; compare 6:38). In short, Jesus will do what the Father would have him do.
“4. Thus Christ will be both the Father and the Son. He will be called the Father because he was conceived by the power of God and inherited all of the divine endowments, particularly immortality, from his exalted Sire. He will be called the Son because of the flesh—his mortal inheritance from his mother, Mary. Therefore Christ will be both flesh and spirit, both man and God, both Son and Father. And they—the Son and the Father, the man and the God, the flesh and the spirit—are to be blended wondrously in one being, Jesus Christ, ‘the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth’” (Millet, Power of the Word, 122–23).