The Only Begotten of Moses 2 by whom God the Almighty created both heaven and earth was not Jesus Christ. This is evidenced by the following:

1. The Only Begotten created heaven, the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the spirit. According to all creation accounts, as well as logic, heaven was created prior to the spiritual creation of man there. Jesus Christ was a product of that spiritual creation. He, therefore, was spiritually created by the Only Begotten. Jesus could not have created heaven before he was created.

2. The Only Begotten had created other worlds before Jesus Christ was spiritually created. At the very inception of the creation before the spiritual creation of man which included Jesus Christ, Elohim said: “Jehovah, Michael, see yonder is matter unorganized. Go ye down and organize it into a world like unto the other worlds that we have heretofore organized” (temple account). Our Savior had not then been spiritually created (see chronology of spiritual creation).

3. The Only Begotten is the spiritual Father of Jesus Christ. As we have seen, the account where the Only Begotten creates man after His own image is the spiritual creation of man. Christ was one of those spirits created by the Only Begotten. “And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and it was so” (Moses 2:26). For the reasons previously discussed, the immediately foregoing is of the spiritual creation of man. Christ was a product of that creation. He could not have created that which created Him. Had Christ been that Only Begotten He would then be our Father, not our brother. References to Jesus as our creator are dealt with in chapter 15.

4. Jesus was not with the Father from the beginning as was the Only Begotten. From Moses 2:26 quoted above, the Only Begotten was with the Almighty Father from the beginning. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is a product of the Father’s spiritual creation the same as you and I. This means that Christ is at least one generation in existence behind the Almighty God and therefore could not have been with Him (the Almighty Father) from the beginning.

5. The Book of Abraham differentiates between Jesus Christ and the temple Jehovah. At the preexistent council (Abraham 3:27) the Lord said: “Whom shall I send?” to which Jesus (identified as “one like unto the Son of Man”) answers, saying: “Here am I, send me.” Clearly the dialogue is taking place between Jesus and “the Lord.” In the ensuing verses of the Book of Abraham. In Abraham 4:1 the same Lord who had voice in Abraham 3:27 “then” says: “Let us go down.” In the temple account it is Jehovah so says “Let us go down.” Therefore “the Lord” who spoke to Jesus in Abraham 3:27 is the temple Jehovah. Since the temple Jehovah was speaking to Jesus in Abraham 3:27, Jesus could not be the Jehovah of the temple creation account.

6. The Only Begotten possessed knowledge of godhood not then acquired by Jesus as a spirit. After Adam had partaken of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Lord said to His Only Begotten: “Behold, the man is become one of us to know good and evil” (Moses 4:28). The knowledge which Adam had obtained was relative to his physical body. His newly acquired knowledge made Him as one with Elohim and the Only Begotten. To assert that Christ was that Only Begotten would be ascribing to Him qualities and attributes not yet acquired by Christ though a mortal probation. This is to say that Adam had become as Christ in knowing good from evil; whereas Christ, at that point in His progression, He could become as God the Father in knowing good and evil. Adam could only have become as those beings who had entered into mortality whereby they could know good and evil. This Jesus Christ had not done. Jesus was himself not as the Lord God in knowing good and evil. Adam had become as a being (the Only Begotten) more advanced in progression than Jesus Christ, one that had known good and evil in a temporal sphere.

7. In the preexistence Jesus Christ was not married whereas the temple Jehovah was. Before a change for obvious reasons, the temple ceremony depicted Jehovah as having a wife in the preexistence. Elohim, in considering the creation of a wife for Adam, addressed Jehovah asking: “Is it good for man to be alone?” Jehovah’s reply “it is not for we are not alone” (The World Today, vol. 8, no. 2, p. 166) suggests that both Jehovah and Elohim were married. Jesus, then in the spirit, had not the advantage of mortality wherein He could have entered the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Jehovah’s reply further suggests that both Elohim and Jehovah had lived a previous mortal existence wherein they had honored the eternal marriage covenant. This, Jesus at the point had not done.

The foregoing contradictions suggest that the Only Begotten is a title of deity that may be applied to individuals other than Jesus Christ. This is evidenced in Moses 5:9 where the Holy Spirit identifies himself as the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning. “And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam . . . saying: I am the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and forever. . . .”