In a sermon
dated July 26 1857, Heber C. Kimball said the following which does a great job
at showing how we should understand the relationship between the members of the
Godhead and the Son and Spirit's "procession" from the Father, and
how we should understand our union with one another, as a Church, and our
becoming "one" with the Godhead:
My feelings are like this, that I may have no
will but that which is extract from the will of God, that my will may be the
will of God, just as much as there are three drops of water, the first, the
second, and the third drop, and the second and the third drops run into the
first, and they are combined in one. Now, inasmuch as they are combined and
have become one with the Father and the Son, it is a pretty hard thing for any
person on earth to extract those three drops; they cannot be extracted or
divided, for they are one, and they are one with the Father and the Son.
We receive the Spirit of Jesus as he receives
it from the Father, and we receive it from the Son, or down through the channel
of the Holy Priesthood from the Father; then we are like one vine or one tree,
the Father being the root, and the Son of God the tree or vine that sprung from
the Father, and we are the branches, or this Church is the main branch sprung
out of that vine. Then, inasmuch as we abide in Joseph or in Brigham, and then
Brigham abides in Joseph, and Joseph in Peter, and Peter in Jesus, and then
Jesus in the Father, don't you see we are one? And then we will extend it to
the Twelve in these last days; they are one with the First Presidency, and then
the Seventies with the Twelve, and then the High Priests and other officers.
Ain't we one?
That is the way we have got to be one; we
have got to come to that; and when we do, the Spirit of God will rest upon us,
and the Spirit of Jesus, and of all the Prophets, and Apostles, and holy men of
God that ever did live or ever will. Then the same Spirit and power will rest
upon our sisters as it did upon Mary, and Elizabeth, and Anna, and thousands of
others
I wonder if the brethren understand me? If
you do not, I shall have to get some more simple figure; for a tree in its
nature is like a grape vine, or a cucumber vine, or a water; melon vine. You
plant a cucumber seed, and it brings forth a cucumber vine. You may take this
vine, and there is a main vine, and then there are other vines that break out
of that main vine; you take away one of these vines from the main true vine,
and it would cease to exist, because it is disconnected from the vine to which
it was connected; therefore it cannot bring forth fruit. Don't you understand
this, you men and women that are farmers? (JOD 5:86-87)
