The Testimony of Jesus: The Deciding Factor of the Last Days By Larry Barkdull

Jesus as proxy for the Father.

...The Father creates a Proxy

But how? The Father is a resurrected being who cannot die. How can he give his life? The answer: He generates (creates) a proxy, a substantially identical duplicate of himself–not a clone, rather a Son–a being who is “the express image of his person,”[xi] who has yet to experience mortality and can still sacrifice his life. The Father creates this proxy as a God like himself, someone who looks like him, who has identical characteristics and attributes, who thinks, talks and acts like him, all the while having a separate identity, occupying distinct space, and exercising independent agency

By necessity, this proxy must be the first of all the Father’s creations: “the beginning of the creation of God.”[xii] Thus Jesus taught, “I was in the beginning with the Father.”[xiii] Jesus is “the firstborn of every creature… he is before all things…that in all things he might have the preeminence.”[xiv]

It is sobering to imagine our heavenly parents standing together at the dawn of eternity, contemplating the vastness of their future kingdom. At that first moment, what issues would have occupied their minds? Redemption and exaltation! So first things first. Our heavenly parents would not, could not create anything without initially providing a means to redeem, save and exalt their creations. Thus, their first act as gods had to do with preparing a redemptive solution in the person of a proxy for the Father: a saving Son. From the earliest moment of our heavenly parents’ godhood, their work and glory was and would continue to be defined as bringing to pass “the immortality and eternal life of man.”[xv]

Therefore, the Father begat a wholly unique being, an “express of his person,” a proxy, as his firstborn Son. As the firstborn, Jesus would be the rightful and natural heir to the Father’s kingdom,[xvi] thus making all of the Father’s creations and all of the Father’s children junior and subordinate to the Son. The Father placed his name upon the Son, making the Son his co-equal,[xvii] clothing him with the same power, knowledge, will, intentions, and “fulness.”[xviii]–“in [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”[xix]

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How the Son becomes the Father

To accomplish that feat, the Father had to offer a sacrifice that would eclipse the demands of salvation: his own life. Because that was not possible, he proposed to deliver his children into the hands of his Son by means of the covenant of adoption, making the Son their adoptive father. Then, working through the Son, the Father could sacrifice his life by proxy: a Father’s life to save the lives of the children. There was no other way for Heavenly Father to provide for our redemption and exaltation. The Father needed to duplicate himself; he needed a proxy through whom he could work and sacrifice his life. Otherwise, the purposes of creation would be frustrated and all would be in vain.

Thus, in the incomparable miracle of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Father created a being exactly like himself, with the exception that this being had not yet taken a physical body, died and resurrected.

This firstborn and rightful heir to the kingdom of God was identical to the Father in characteristics, attributes, perfections, knowledge, power, glory, might and dominion, equal to the Father in every way, and co-creator of everything and everyone. As co-creator, the Son now shared the burden of salvation of all the Father’s creations. He was “generated” to become the Father’s substantial duplicate and proxy.

The Son becomes the Father’s Proxy

And Jesus lived true to the purpose of his creation. “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”[xxv] The Father’s proxy indeed! “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”[xxvi] Abinadi elaborated on the proxy mission of Jesus Christ: “The will of the Son [is] swallowed up in the will of the Father.”[xxvii]

As the Father’s proxy, subordinating his will to the Father, Jesus allowed the Father to use his mortal body to do a work that was uniquely the Father’s to accomplish. “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”[xxviii] Abinadi points to an astonishing evidence of the Father working through the Son to provide for the immortality of man: “And thus God [the Father] breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men.”[xxix]

Clearly, the indwelling Father speaks and acts through the Son, who is essentially the Father’s duplicate. Said Jesus, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”[xxx] And the similarities do not stop there: “I and my Father are one.”[xxxi]This oneness is perhaps greater than we are capable of imagining.

Jesus qualifies to be called “the Father and the Son” because of his amazing generation. “He was conceived by the power of God” for the purpose of becoming the Father’s proxy. Because of the identical nature of the Father and the Son, and because Jesus voluntarily subjects his flesh to the Father, they can rightfully be called “one God.”[xxxii] There is great truth in the words we sing, “There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only [only He] could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.”[xxxiii]

O the greatness of our God! Only he could create another God in the “express image of his person.”[xxxiv] Jesus Christ was the first and the greatest miracle of the Father! And who shall declare the testimony of Jesus’ generation?