[Heber J. Grant]
We have before us your letter of February 18, in which you say that in your Priesthood class one Brother claims that Adam 'had been through the experience of mortality on another sphere before he came here; that he was a celestialized being when placed in the Garden of Eden.' What this brother means by 'celestialized being' is not clear. We are informed that we all lived in the presence of God in the spirit world before we came here. In one sense we might say that this was a celestialized existence. If what is meant is that Adam had passed on to celestial glory through a resurrection before he came here, and that afterwards he was appointed to this earth to die again, the second time becoming mortal, then it is not scriptural or according to the truth. ... Adam could have remained in the Garden of Eden indefinitely if he had not transgressed the law which brought to pass mortality. Since Adam had not passed through the resurrection his spirit and body were not inseparably connected, hence it was possible for him to become mortal by partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. By so doing he received the seeds of death and brought to pass mortality in himself and caused all of his posterity to partake of like conditions and be subject to death. ...
[Heber J. Grant, Letter to Joseph H. Eldredge, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]
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