Too many believe that God’s power and authority can be conferred via ordination, independent of a person’s similitude to Jesus. The idea that God magically bestows merit to previously unworthy individuals is false, as can be readily seen by the fact that no such individual claiming his authority has ever demonstrated power equal to their claims. Ordination is not a workaround to personal righteousness.
Priesthood is not a permission slip that entitles the holder to God’s power or authority independent of their informed understanding of his will. Priesthood is not an alternative pipeline of power outside of learning about and adopting God’s character. Ordination to the priesthood does not empower the recipient to use God’s power in any way other than that which God has ordained. Ordination does not make you any more like God than you were before. Priesthood is not a dispensation of power to man independent of God.3 If you fail to live up to your understanding of how God would think, feel, or act in your place, you will decrease in the power of God you wield, no matter what authority someone has ordained you with.4
Ordination is not meant to be an invitation to achieve greater similitude to God, but the outward acknowledgment that such a change has already occurred.5 God does not look lightly on those who make priests out of people who are nothing like him.6 Only those who are actually after (or like) the Son of God are actually priests “after the order of the Son of God.”7
Ordination is meant to be the continuation of the process of becoming more like God, not the beginning of it. Melchizedek performed mighty miracles in the Lord’s name before his ordination, earned the approbation of God, and continued exercising greater measures of God’s power as he continued learning more about him.8 As part of his progressive receipt of priesthood, Abraham received greater peace, happiness, rest, knowledge, and righteousness.290 None of these attributes were new to him; rather, he received the next increment of each having consummately lived up to what God had already given him. He had dedicated his life to serving all as God would in his place as far as he already knew him to be, attracting, instructing, and retaining hundreds of people into his family.
Greater similitude to God can only come through a lengthy process of choosing to learn more about and continuously live like the Lord. Priesthood progression includes the receipt of additional power from heaven, but it comes through what you enact on earth. As you live up to what you understand God would think, feel, and do in your place, he will continue to reveal more about himself. Power from God comes from knowledge about God, which comes in response to your fidelity to and fulfillment of what he has already taught you about himself.
Footnotes
- 1. And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust. (Mormon 9:20) ↩
- 2. The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth (D&C 65:2) 19And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live. (D&C 84:19-22) ↩
- 3. And they deny the power of God, the Holy One of Israel; and they say unto the people: Hearken unto us, and hear ye our precept; for behold there is no God today, for the Lord and the Redeemer hath done his work, and he hath given his power unto men; (2 Nephi 28:5) ↩
- 4. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. (D&C 121:37) ↩
- 5. ...none were consecrated except they were just men. (Mosiah 23:17) ↩
- 6. So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. (2 Kings 17:32) After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. (1 Kings 13:33) And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. (1 Kings 12:31) ↩
- 7. For this Melchizedek was ordained a priest after the order of the Son of God, which order was without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life. And all those who are ordained unto this priesthood are made like unto the Son of God, abiding a priest continually. (Hebrews 7:3, JST ) ↩
- 8. And thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained an high priest after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch, It being after the order of the Son of God; which order came, not by man, nor the will of man; neither by father nor mother; neither by beginning of days nor end of years; but of God; And it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice, according to his own will, unto as many as believed on his name. (Genesis 14:27-29, JST) ↩