Question
Gramps,
Presently we are all of different races and skin color. In the pre-mortal life were we all the same skin color? Question by a youth.
Celestial
Answer
Dear Celestial,
I must first compliment your parents on their taste in nomenclature. Your name is lovely and an admirable identifier to have associated with your life.
Presently, as you note, we have race and skin color that are genetic distinctions associated with physical bodies. Before we were born, we did not have skin, so talk of skin color would be nonsense. Yet the brother of Jared certainly saw something when he looked at the premortal Savior. “Behold,” says the Lord, “this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh” (Ether 3:16). It looks so similar to a physical body that the prophet comments on how much it resembles “flesh and blood” (3:8-9). No mention is made comparing the Lord’s spirit color with the prophet’s own.
In modern times, President Joseph F. Smith saw in vision an entire host of unembodied spirits awaiting resurrection. He calls out some notable names of those present. He notes a marked separation, but it has nothing to do with color or race, but with a division of righteous and disobedient. If spirits come in different colors, President Smith was more caught up in other details to notice.
Joseph Smith saw the Resurrected Lord
Joseph Smith saw the resurrected Lord, and again race is absent. The closest he gets to describing such is to state “his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun” (D&C 110:3). The prophet Daniel saw an angel (premortal spirit) and does describe it in terms that may include color. “His body also was like the beryl,” which is a light green gem, but I don’t think he was necessarily describing color, as the prophet goes on further to describe his guest. “his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass” (Daniel 10:5-6). So rather than light green “skin”, Daniel may be dealing with a well-tanned angel.
Those who have enjoyed the ministry of angels have been more pre-occupied with the accompanying glory and message (and I can’t really blame them) than with some theology of orders and races determined by spirit pigmentation (if such a word combination is other than nonsense).
Gramps
