Paul, in Athens, preaches from Mars’ Hill about the unknown god. Paul says that we are the offspring of God.
Acts 17:22–31
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
President Harold B. Lee said:
“. . . [M]ay I ask each of you . . . the question, ‘Who are you?’ You are all the sons and daughters of God. Your spirits were created and lived as organized intelligences before the world was. You have been blessed to have a physical body because of your obedience to certain commandments in that premortal state. You are now born at a time in the world’s history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created.
“Hear now the significant words of that powerful sermon to ‘The Unknown God’ preached by the Apostle Paul to those who were ignorantly worshipping images of stone and brass and wood: ‘God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, [now mark you this] and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us’ (Acts 17:24, 26–27).
“Here, then, again we have the Lord making a further enlightening declaration to Moses as recorded in the book of Deuteronomy: ‘When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel’ (Deuteronomy 32:8).
“Now, mind you, this was said to the children of Israel before they had arrived in the promised land, which was to be the land of their inheritance.
“Then note this next verse: ‘For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance’ (Deuteronomy 32:9).
“It would seem very clear, then, that those born to the lineage of Jacob, who was later to be called Israel, and his posterity, who were known as the children of Israel, were born into the most illustrious lineage of any of those who came upon the earth as mortal beings.
“All these rewards were seemingly promised, or foreordained, before the world was. Surely these matters must have been determined by the kind of lives we had lived in that premortal spirit world. Some may question these assumptions, but at the same time they will accept without any question the belief that each one of us will be judged when we leave this earth according to his or her deeds during our lives here in mortality. Isn’t it just as reasonable to believe that what we have received here in this earth life was given to each of us according to the merits of our conduct before we came here?”
(The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, ed. Clyde J. Williams [1996], 23–24.)
