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| "Nephi's Vision of the Virgin Mary" by Judith A. Mehr |
“‘The condescension of God,’ of which the scriptures speak, means that the Immortal Father—the glorified, exalted, enthroned ruler of the universe—came down from his station of dominion and power to become the Father of a Son who would be born of Mary, ‘after the manner of the flesh.’”
From the Article: Behold the Condescension of God by Bruce R. McConkie
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And so here we have a doctrine of the Divine Sonship. We have one man out of all eternity—one man among the infinite hosts of the spirit children of God our Father—who is born into the world, inheriting from an immortal exalted Father the power of immortality and inheriting, on the other hand, from a mortal woman—the best and most gracious and most noble mortal woman without question—inheriting from her the power of mortality. Now the power of immortality is the power to live. It is the power to elect to continue to live. The power of mortality is the power to die. And so here is one being who had a dual nature, who could elect to live or elect to die; and having made the election in accordance with the plan of the Father, having elected to separate body and spirit, then by the power of the Father, which is the power of immortality, he could elect to live again. As a consequence we have the redemption from death, the ransom from the grave; we have immortality for him and for us and for all men.
Now we cannot comprehend, we do not understand, we do not know nor can we in our present state, how the effects of this infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice passed upon all men. We cannot comprehend and understand how creation works, where God came from, or how we came into being. Someday these things will be within the comprehension and understanding of those who gain exaltation. But the fact that we cannot comprehend them does not lessen the fact that we have been created, that we do exist, that there is a resurrection, that in due course all men will be raised in immortality, and that those who have believed and obeyed the gospel law will be raised in addition unto eternal life in our Father’s kingdom. And all of this is possible because of the divine Sonship of Christ the Lord, because he inherited in his birth—in that day when he was born after the manner of the flesh—he inherited the power of immortality from God his Father.
From the Book: The Mortal Messiah (Volume 1) by Bruce R. McConkie
Having seen in vision—more than six hundred years before the events themselves transpired—the city of Nazareth and a gracious and beautiful virgin therein, Nephi was asked by an angel: "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" He responded by saying he knew of the Lord's love for his children, but not the full answer to the profound query framed by angelic lips. Then the angel answered his own question by saying: "Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, "after the manner of the flesh." That is to say, the condescension of God lies in the fact that he, an exalted Being, steps down from his eternal throne to become the Father of a mortal Son, a Son born after the manner of the flesh." Immediately after hearing these words, Nephi saw that the virgin "was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time," Nephi saw "the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms." Thereupon the angel said: "Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!" To be "carried away in the Spirit" means to be transported bodily from one location to another, as witness the fact that Nephi, at the very time he beheld these visions, had been "caught away in the Spirit of the Lord" and taken bodily "into an exceeding high mountain," which he never "had before seen," and upon which he "never had before" set his "foot." (1 Ne. 11:1, 13-21.)
