The Kolob Theorem, thoughts concerning ‘eternity’, by Brother Lynn M. Hilton
The following thoughts are taken from Lynn M. Hilton’s interesting book entitled, “The Kolob Theorem”, pages 44 and 45.
“Joseph Smith wrote a poem that was published before his martyrdom. In the poem, Joseph restates his vision of the Three Degrees of Glory, found in Doctrine and Covenants 76:
‘And I heard the great voice bearing record from heaven,
Jesus is the Savior and only begotten of God:
By him, of him, through him the worlds were all made.
Even all that careen in the heavens so broad.
Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last,
Are saved by the very same Savior as ours.
And of course are begotten God’s daughters and sons,
By the very same truths and the very same powers.’
This idea is reinforced by the Lord’s simplified explanation of His visiting His twelve other ‘kingdoms’ or worlds one after another, likely during the millennial period of each. He said He will visit each one in succession and each one “will be made glad with the light of the countenance of His Lord.” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:51-57. We understand this to mean Christ’s Atonement is valid for all of Heavenly Father’s worlds. Truly, what great glory the Savior possessed in the premortal world, and what great ‘condescension’ He made (1 Nephi 11:16). He elected to come as a man to the earth, to humble Himself, and work out the wonders of the Atonement.
In 1845, W. W. Phelps, a close confidant of Joseph Smith, wrote a letter in which he shared an idea that came from the Prophet Joseph Smith:
“…when the house of Israel begins to come into the glorious mysteries of the kingdom, and find Jesus Christ, whose going forth, as the prophets said, have been from of old, from eternity: and that eternity, agreeably to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system (not this world) almost two thousand five hundred and fifty-five millions of years: … it almost tempts the flesh to fly to God, or muster faith like Enoch to be translated and see and know as we are seen and known.”
An eternity, according to Brother Phelps, is 2,555,000,000 years. Assuming these are earth-years, we can convert them to God’s time. Since there are 1000 earth years in a day to the Lord, there would be 365,000 earth-years in one of God’s years. Therefore:
2,555,000,000 earth years ÷ 365,000 earth-years = 7,000 God years
Latter-day Saints should be impressed with the above-calculated number, for 7000 matches exactly the duration of the earth’s temporal or probationary period (Doctrine and Covenants 77:6). Likewise, 7000 God-years is the duration of an ‘eternity’. Saying that God was from eternity (2.5 billion years) to eternity (another 2.5 billion years) give us a way to understand Him better. Perhaps these numbers give us an exact meaning for the Savior coming in the ‘meridian’ of time (Moses 5:57). The term ‘elder brother’ hardly tells us the antiquity of this ‘first born among many brethren’ (Romans 8:29). These facts should increase our love and admiration for Him, our Jehovah, the Lord Omnipotent.
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