Jesus Is Jehovah — The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
The God who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, who led Israel through the wilderness, who spoke to Isaiah — that was Jesus Christ. The Father is Elohim. They are two distinct persons, and the Old Testament is Jesus’s story.
The Understanding Restored
The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches a precise and coherent distinction: Jehovah (the divine name YHWH, rendered “LORD” in most English Bibles) is Jesus Christ in his pre-mortal capacity. Elohim is the Father. This distinction is consistent throughout LDS scripture and resolves interpretive problems that otherwise have no clean answer.
“We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold… His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun… I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father.”
Christ appears in the Kirtland Temple and identifies himself — not as the Father, but as the advocate with the Father. Two persons. One who was slain. One with whom he advocates. The distinction is not obscure. It is declared.
The Biblical Evidence
Jesus himself applies the divine name to his own person.
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad… Before Abraham was, I am.”
“I am” is not incidental grammar. Jesus is directly invoking Exodus 3:14 — “I AM THAT I AM” — the divine name God gave to Moses at the burning bush. The Jews who heard him understood exactly what he was saying. They picked up stones.
John then seals it explicitly:
“These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.”
John says Isaiah saw Christ’s glory. What did Isaiah see?
“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.”
Isaiah saw Jehovah. John says he saw Christ. Same person. The equation is not implicit — John makes it explicit. The God enthroned in Isaiah’s vision was Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4 — The Rock Was Christ
Paul does not leave this inference to chance. He names it directly in the context of the Exodus narrative:
“And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”
The Rock of Israel in the wilderness — Jehovah, the covenant God of the Exodus — was Christ. Paul says so without qualification. The God who led Israel out of Egypt, who gave the Law on Sinai, who sustained them in the desert — was Jesus Christ in his pre-mortal role.
Why This Matters
If Jehovah is Jesus Christ, then every covenant God made with Israel — with Abraham at Mamre (Genesis 18), with Moses at Sinai, with David in 2 Samuel — was made by Jesus Christ in his pre-mortal capacity. The covenant people of the Old Testament were Christ’s people before he was ever born.
His mortality was not the beginning of his ministry. It was the culmination of a ministry that had been ongoing since before the world began. The continuity of the gospel across all dispensations — from Adam to the Restoration — is held together by recognizing who Jehovah was.
This also resolves the Trinitarian problem definitively. In the Trinity framework, Father and Son are not truly distinct persons — they are modes or persons of one being. This means Jesus praying to the Father is God praying to himself. Jesus standing at the Father’s right hand (Acts 7:56) is God standing at his own right hand. Jesus being the advocate with the Father means God advocating with himself. The language of the scripture becomes incoherent.
Verdict
Jesus Christ is not a new God introduced in the New Testament. He is the God of the Old Testament who became flesh. He is Jehovah. He is the I AM of the burning bush. He is the Rock of the wilderness. He is the God Isaiah saw enthroned. He made every covenant the house of Israel has ever received.
The Restoration recovered this identity and restored the coherence it requires. The Father is Elohim. The Son is Jehovah. They are distinct. The scripture makes sense. The narrative holds together. The covenants are continuous.
And the God you worship when you read the Old Testament — if you are reading it correctly — is Jesus Christ.