In 2009 I received a revelation which dealt with the doctrine of re-assignment of parentage. I told a few people privately and, as expected, no one believed it. Unfortunately, I also got kind of a backlash from its private release, in which some denounced it as “of the devil,” while others said I was just a lunatic.
After I received the revelation, I believed it at once—(for all my revelations are true)—but then, upon pondering it afterward, I decided to see if there was scriptural precedence for it. So I pulled out the scriptures and started searching. Sure enough, this doctrine was written all over the freaking place. In particular, this scripture stood out:
¶Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother,
Woman, behold thy son!
Then saith he to the disciple,
Behold thy mother!
And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. (John 19:25-27)
In this case, the disciple received a new mother, and the woman received a new son. Neither was biologically related, yet there occurred a re-assignment of parentage. I thought, “Okay, good. When I tell people this revelation, and when they inevitably refuse to believe it, surely they will ask me for scriptural ‘proof’ that the doctrine is sound, so I’ll just turn to this passage and expound the doctrine to them.”
Unfortunately, instead of hearing the revelation and then asking questions concerning it, about its doctrinal basis and so forth, people just got offended by it, passed judgment upon me, and not a single one of them ever asked me to expound it. Instead, they merely pondered it and then came to their own (unscriptural) conclusions based on their own false assumptions, without consulting with either the scriptures or myself. I suppose this was to be expected, as I have a tendency of convincing people of my way of viewing things if they reach for the scriptures to try to prove me wrong, so the unspoken rule is that the scriptures are never to be consulted whenever I’m involved in any controversy.
Anyway, so 6 years have gone by and I’ve never explained the doctrine to anyone. However, earlier this year I was contacted by email by one of the readers of this blog, who, after reading some of my writings about the Josephite restorer, was beginning to wonder whether this man might be himself. He detailed many interesting facts about his life in his emails to me, one of which in particular caught my attention. Now, I received his emails through my cupholder account, which I no longer have access to, so I’m just going on memory here, which might be off. If he still visits this blog and reads what I write, according to my memory, and if it turns out my memory is wrong, he can correct me. But, if my memory serves me right, I recall that he wrote in his emails that he was given a patriarchal blessing in which he was told he was of the tribe of Ephraim, but then he got an emendation of the blessing, and his tribe was switched from Ephraim to Manasseh.
I did not tell him of this revelation I received in 2009; but, as I have “two sets” of scriptures—the canon the standard LDS uses and my own personal “canon” of revelations—I could not help but compare what he told me to what the Holy Ghost told me in 2009. The switch from Ephraim to Manasseh is the re-assignment of parentage, from one father (Ephraim) to a different father (Manasseh).
Now, re-assignment of parentage is what the gospel is all about. Sin and death cuts us off (disinherits us) from God the Father, but, through the atonement and resurrection of Christ, and on condition of faith and repentance, we are allowed to become restored to the Father, through the re-assignment of parentage, Jesus Christ becoming our new Father. In this way, we still inherit the blessings we lost through death and disobedience.
If we continue to rebel against God, again we get re-assigned parentage, the devil becoming our new father. If we repent and exercise faith, we Gentiles get re-assigned parentage, Abraham becoming our mortal father, through whom we inherit the promises. And so on, with each of the 12 tribes of Israel. All of this is the doctrine of re-assignment of parentage.
Even in a contemporary setting, this doctrine plays out. For example, if we adopt children, who are not literally our seed, they may be sealed to us for time and all eternity, as if they were our literal seed. Thus they get re-assigned new parents, for this life and the next.
Okay, so recently I was thinking about what this man wrote to me about his switch from Ephraim to Manasseh, and I wondered about the Josephite, whether some kind of re-assignment of parentage would indeed take place for him, like what happened to this man. The lineage of the Josephite is of three kinds: Gentile, Lamanitish and Josephite. (My understanding is that he was raised as a Gentile, so I will count that as a “lineage.”) Then, I suppose, when he gets into the church of God (the Mormon church), the Lamanitish lineage would manifest. After all, the Nephites, when they self-destructed, were assimilated into the Lamanites (those Nephites who remained alive, that is), so they became Lamanites, and this Lamanitish lineage has stayed strong for more than a thousand years.
But then at some point this guy is going to have the Nephite part of him manifest, right? And when that part of him starts to manifest, might there not be a corresponding lineage switch? In other words, while he is still in “Lamanite-mode,” his parentage consists of these parents, but when he goes into “Nephite-mode,” his parentage changes to those parents. It all corresponds to the level of faith exercised. It takes a certain level of faith to go from unbelieving Gentile to believing LDS (re-assigned into the house of Israel as a “Lamanite.”) And it takes an even greater level of faith to go from a believing LDS “Lamanite” to a bona fide Nephite. When any of these levels of faith are manifested or exercised, God changes the lineage accordingly, to match that faith. Thus, the Josephite will journey from Gentile, to Abrahamic covenant (through baptism into the church of God), to Lamanite (starting to suspect his lineage), to Nephite covenant, as a full blown Josephite.
Thus, it seems to me entirely possible that we are going to hear of some kind of re-assignment of parentage from this guy, such as what this blog visitor wrote to me about, or perhaps like what happened to that disciple of Jesus.
P.S.
Do not ask me about the revelation. I am not going to release it in any form publicly.
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Grafting is re-assignment of parentage
The scriptural principle of grafting, in which a branch of one plant is cut off and grafted into another plant, is re-assignment of parentage. In Zenos’ allegory, there are two olive trees, one wild (the Gentiles) and one tame (the house of Israel). From memory (’cause I’m too lazy to look up the scriptures and double check) I recall that the Lord never takes from the tame tree and grafts into the wild tree. He always takes from the wild tree and grafts into the tame tree. Or, he takes from the mother tree and from its child trees and grafts in either direction. Grafting, then, is always done in one direction, always into the house of Israel.
Whatever is rotten or withered away and dry, gets cut off and cast into the fire (essentially “grafted” into the satanic dead tree.)
Everything in existence is a plant to God
The universe itself is a plant, planted in the midst of the real field (the Nothing of outer darkness.) However, within this universe, these various plants are further divided into “land plants” and “plant plants.” (I’m making these terms up as I go along.) It is kind of like the game Plants vs. Zombies, in which you can plant plants to fight the Zombies, and there are many different types of plants you can use, but when you are on the roof of your house planting plants, as there is no lawn there, you get to use a “pot plant,” which is a “plant” that is in the form of a pot with soil in it, in which you can plant other types of plants. It’s kind of a funny thing in that game, but strangely enough, it actually is grounded in gospel reality. The seeds we put into the ground are the seeds of plants, and the ground is land, but the land of this earth is also a plant, the Earth itself beginning as a sort of “land seed.” So, some seeds grow into land and some seeds grow into plants that can be planted in that land.
God has power to re-pot and re-plant according to His will and pleasure, mixing things up to suit His designs and purposes. He also has power to take a “land plant” and make it a “plant plant” because, well, everything is a plant. So, when we read something like this, that sounds so bizarre:
it may be helpful to understand that the stones are also plants, even land plants, and although we think of them as inanimate objects, making them into the children of Abraham is not a hard thing for God, for it is just a matter of a little re-arrangement of their physical and spiritual composition. Or, another way to think of it is as a re-assignment of their parentage, the stones being the “children” of their parent Earth, and later becoming the children of Abraham.
Viewing these things this way shows that God is a Husbandman, a Farmer, a Tiller of the earth, a Botanist, etc., mixing and matching His plants.
Prophetic adoption is re-assignment of parentage
Remember what Lehi said in his blessing to his grandchildren?
Lehi didn’t say, “My grandsons and my granddaughters,” but he called them his sons and his daughters. Why did he do that? Well, ’cause that is prophetic adoption, or the re-assignment of parentage via the spirit of prophecy. In other words, Lehi claimed these kids as his own, while keeping their lineage intact (which was through Laman and Lemuel.) So, the children of these men had two sets of fathers: Laman and Lemuel were there first fathers, and Lehi was their second. Lehi was also their grandfather, showing that God has power to make a grandfather one’s father. He did the same with Ephraim and Manasseh through the blessing of Israel, Israel claiming them as his own.
The blog post, “Manasseh’s future leadership role,” written back in 2010, is talking of this same doctrine of re-assignment of parentage. The “numbering” that must take place in the future may keep one with the same parents or may re-assign parentage. Lineages may be switched. Blessings may be added or altered. Parents may be changed. Even additional parents may be given, just as both Lehi, Laman and Lemuel became the fathers of those kids. Consider, for example, this scripture:
I suppose it is nice and logical to think of having many fathers as a genealogical (vertical) line of fathers, meaning father, grandfather, and so on, but this is not necessarily what this scripture is talking of, for God has power to assign to us as many fathers and mothers as He likes, horizontally, giving us, essentially, all their genetic and prophetic blessings.
Anyway, I just wanted to expound upon this principle a little bit.
I was once watching a documentary about the Universe and there was a moment where the point of view started with earth and backed away till you saw our solar system, then a cluster of solar systems, then our galaxy, then clusters, super clusters, etc. I was blown away how much the system looked like a vineyard, with planets as clusters of grapes. It really is “his vineyard”.
thank you god for this post it perhaps expounds on the mystery of why god directs our first human family were to be married to and be given to marry each other horizontally(?), diagonally(?) and vertically(?) and how
Well — I guess this post was totally timely given the leaked CHI documents that revealed a change in policy regarding how the church will associate itself with children that have an openly homosexual parent.
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of current Salt Lake politics — so that whole scandal didn’t cross my radar until yesterday when we had a whole sacrament meeting on the importance of “following the prophet” and falling in-line with the Salt Lake’s policies, even when they seem at odds with our personal feelings of truth and justice.
Has anyone else here heard about this thing — or bothered to have formulated an opinion on it?
Justin,
I heard about this on Saturday, I think, through a YouTube video from some news broadcast. I gotta say, I didn’t see this coming. It appears to be a carbon-copy of the polygamy policy applied to same-sex relations. To me, it appears to be an extremely wise move. In other words, it appears to be inspired by the spirit of wisdom. As far as strategies go, it is the best thing the church can do at this point. Although I am opposed to the polygamy policy theologically, I can understand the reasoning of it and even the wisdom of it, given the circumstances we are in, and what the church is working with. But this new policy I am not opposed to, and strategically, it is very smart. Hopefully conditions will soon change and the polygamy policy can finally be dropped, for they are working expediently on that one, and not doctrinally, and thus are not on good scriptural ground, but on this new policy, they have doctrinal support and have apparently been able to see the clear and present danger that SSMP poses to both the church and society at large. So, my faith in the leadership has gone up a notch with this silent change. They are indeed acting as wise as serpents on this issue.
My thoughts exactly. Then there is this:
Both the image and the quote were taken from this page.
Amen to that Joker meme.
I wonder if this is a pattern that applies to the Elias who restores all things?