A possible explanation of the otherwise puzzling first sentence of this verse is as follows: Jehovah appeared to the brother of Jared as he would during his life on earth; he appeared as Jesus Christ, just as he announced and entitled himself. President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “The Savior showed to the Brother of Jared His entire body just as it would appear when he dwelt among men in the flesh. It is a reasonable conclusion for us to reach, and fully in accordance with the facts, that the Lord had never before revealed Himself so completely and in such a manner. We may truly believe that very few of the ancient prophets at any time actually beheld the full person of the Lord.”25
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland provided a unique perspective on this verse: “We would assume all … of the major prophets living prior to the brother of Jared had seen God… . Adam’s face-to-face conversations with God in the Garden of Eden can be exempted because of the paradisiacal, prefallen state of that setting and relationship. Furthermore, other prophets’ visions of God, such as Moses and Isaiah in the Bible, or Nephi and Jacob in the Book of Mormon, came after this ‘never before’ experience of the brother of Jared. But before the era of the Tower of Babel, the Lord did appear unto Adam and ‘the residue of his posterity who were righteous’ in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman three years before Adam’s death (see D&C 107:53–55). And we are left with Enoch, who said very explicitly, ‘I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me, even as a man talketh one with another, face to face’ (Moses 7:4). We assume there would have been other prophets living in the period between Adam’s leaving the Garden of Eden and the building of the Tower of Babel who also saw God in a similar manner, including Noah who ‘found grace in the eyes of the Lord’ and ‘walked with God’ (Genesis 6:8–9), the same scriptural phrase used to describe Enoch’s relationship with the Lord (see Genesis 5:24)… .
“Surely the most persuasive … explanation for me is that Christ is saying to the brother of Jared, ‘Never have I showed myself unto man in this manner, without my volition, driven solely by the faith of the beholder.’ As a rule, prophets are invited into the presence of the Lord, are bidden to enter his presence by him and only with his sanction. The brother of Jared, on the other hand, stands alone then (and we assume now) in having thrust himself through the veil, not as an unwelcome guest but perhaps technically an uninvited one… . (Ether 3:9, 15, emphasis added)… .
“Indeed it would appear that this is Moroni’s own understanding of the circumstance, for he later writes, ‘Because of the knowledge [which has come as a result of faith] of this man he could not be kept from beholding within the veil… . Wherefore, having this perfect knowledge of God, he could not be kept from within the veil; therefore he saw Jesus’ (Ether 3:19–20; emphasis added)… .
“This may be an absolutely unprecedented case of a prophet’s will and faith and purity so closely approaching that of heaven’s that the man moves from understanding God to being actually like him, with his same thrust of will and faith, at least in this one instance.”26