1. "FATHER" AS LITERAL PARENT

Scriptures embodying the ordinary significance—literally that of Parent—are too numerous and specific to require citation. The purport of these scriptures is to the effect that God the Eternal Father, whom we designate by the exalted name title "Elohim," is the literal Parent of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the spirits of the human race. Elohim is the Father in every sense in which Jesus Christ is to designated, and distinctively He is the Father of spirits. Thus we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Hebrews 12:9). In view of this fact we are taught by Jesus Christ to pray: "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name."

Jesus Christ applies to Himself both titles, "Son" and "Father." Indeed, He specifically said to the brother of Jared: "Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son" (Ether 3:14). Jesus Christ is the Son of Elohim both as spiritual and bodily offspring; that is to say, Elohim is literally the Father of the spirit of Jesus Christ and also of the body in which Jesus Christ performed His mission in the flesh, and which body died on the cross and was afterward taken up by the process of resurrection, and is now the immortalized tabernacle of the eternal spirit of our Lord and Savior. No extended explanations of the title "Son of God" as applied to Jesus Christ appears necessary.

2. “FATHER” AS CREATOR

A second scriptural meaning of “Father” is that of Creator, e.g., in passages referring to any one of the Godhead as “The Father of the heavens and of the earth and all things that in them are” (Ether 4:7; see also Alma 11:38, 39 and Mosiah 15:4).

God is not the Father of the earth as one of the worlds in space, nor of the heavenly bodies in whole or in part, nor of the inanimate objects and the plants and the animals upon the earth, in the literal sense in which He is the Father of the spirits of mankind. Therefore, scriptures that refer to God in any way as the Father of the heavens and the earth are to be understood as signifying that God is the Maker, the Organizer, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

With this meaning, as the context shows in every case, Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ the Son of Elohim, is called “the Father”, and even “the very eternal Father of heaven and of earth” (see passages before cited, and also Mosiah 16:15). With analogous meaning Jesus Christ is called “The Everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6; compare 2 Nephi 19:6). The descriptive titles “Everlasting” and “Eternal” in the foregoing texts are synonymous.

That Jesus Christ, whom we also know as Jehovah, was the executive of the Father, Elohim, in the work of creation is set forth in the book “Jesus the Christ” Chapter 4. Jesus Christ, being the Creator, is consistently called the Father of heaven and earth in the sense explained above; and since His creations are of eternal quality He is very properly called the Eternal Father of heaven and earth.