Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. It is Christmas here at followHIM. I’m here with my friend John Bytheway. Hi, John.

John Bytheway: 00:11 Hi, Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:12 We are going to cover a single question from this week’s Christmas lesson. The question for this week’s lesson comes right from the manual, John. It says, what do you know about who Jesus Christ was before he was born? When I ask that question, what comes to mind?

John Bytheway: 00:28 Earlier in the year we did the Book of John. It says, “In the beginning was the word and the word was God, and the word was with God. The same was in the beginning with God.” And John is kind of the only one who speaks of Jesus’ pre-mortal existence, and it speaks of him and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. But it also says that he created everything. We know that he was the Creator. We know that he was with God before. We know that the Atonement was part of the plan from the beginning.

Hank Smith: 00:55 Absolutely. As Latter-day Saints, John, you know that we have the benefit of the Pearl of Great Price. There’s a couple of insights from the pre-mortal life in that book, one from Moses, chapter four, that the Savior was chosen from the beginning. The Atonement was part of the Father’s plan all along, and then there’s this phrase in Abraham chapter three that says “There stood up one among them that was like unto God” giving us insight into the Savior’s status. He was significantly different.

  01:27 John, something that comes to my mind, I’ve heard you talk about this before, is in the Book of Mormon, there’s this moment where Nephi is seeing the birth of the Savior and the angel asks this question of Nephi “Knowest thou the condescension of God?” In my mind, I hear that angel saying something like this. Nephi, do you have any idea who that is? Do you have any idea where he is coming from and where he is going to? Knowest thou the condescension of God? And Nephi doesn’t know.

John Bytheway: 01:58 Yeah. Nephi gives a great answer.

Hank Smith: 02:01 Right.

John Bytheway: 02:01 The more we study the scriptures, the more we think, yeah, we talk about being laid in a manger. It was a trough for animal food, the things that he allowed people to do to him on Earth. So, the more we ponder that, the more we think, yeah, that was a really good question that angel asked.

Hank Smith: 02:21 Knowest thou the condescension of God? And Nephi’s answer, I know he loves us.

John Bytheway: 02:25 I don’t know the meaning of all things, but I know he loves his children, which is a really good thing to know.

Hank Smith: 02:30 And what a great Christmas message, John, from Nephi. Maybe he didn’t intend to give us a Christmas message, but I know he loveth his children. That’s really what Christmas is about. I know that God loves his children. I know that the Savior loves us.

John Bytheway: 02:45 Right.

Hank Smith: 02:47 Well, Merry Christmas to all of our listeners and thank you for staying with us this year, but don’t disappear just yet because we have another New Testament lesson next week. But this week join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. We’re going to be visiting with Sister Joy Jones, who served as the Primary General President for five years in the church, and then join us next week. We’ll be back here for another followHIM Favorites.