The next related question I have is who made the covenant with Lehi in 1 Nephi 13:30 that, "the land which is choice above all other lands...his seed should have for the land of their inheritance"? This is another reference to the "Lord God."
In the temple today, I learned that without any shadow of a doubt, the word "Lord" can refer to God the Father. So, yes, it is plausible that here "Lord God" could refer to God the Father.
1 Nephi 14:8 asks, "Rememberest thou the covenants of the Father unto the house of Israel?" This seems to imply that God the Father made the covenants with the house of Israel, therefore it's reasonable that God the Father could mean the "Lord God."
1 Nephi 20:16 says, "Come ye near unto me; I have not spoken in secret; from the beginning, from the time that it was declared have I spoken; and the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me." Here Nephi is quoting Isaiah who is speaking Messianically, i.e. as if Jesus Christ is speaking. It seems pretty clear that Jesus Christ is referring to the other members of the godhead here, so the "Lord God" as Heavenly Father, and the Spirit as the Holy Ghost.
2 Nephi 6:9 says, "Nevertheless, the Lord has shown unto me that they [those who were at Jerusalem] should return again. And he also has shown unto me that the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, should manifest himself unto them in the flesh; and after he should manifest himself they should scourge him and crucify him, according to the words of the angel who spake it unto me." This is Jacob, Nephi's little brother, prophesying. It's very unambiguous here that the "Lord God" refers to Jesus Christ.
Then there's these verses in 1 Nephi 21:22-23 which exactly the same as Isaiah 49:22-24, which both start, "Thus saith the Lord God:" and later it is clarified that it is talking about the LORD, so Jehovah. Jehovah is always, always Jesus Christ. At least as far as I understand.
So these are just a handful of examples of how the words "Lord God" could mean either Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father or perhaps both. Agh!
I think the only way to get any kind of satisfactory answer about this is by gathering some data from searching the scriptures with a computer. I'm really glad I have this wordcruncher tool. I wish that I also had all of the standard works in one big, fat corpus so I could use other tools. But at least it allows me to do case-sensitive searches in word cruncher.
Search for 'Lord God'
Search for 'LORD'
Search for 'Lord' - not 'lord'
Perhaps cases of '. Lord' will really refer to lord and not Lord. Hmm.
There are probably other terms like Lord Omnipotent, Lord Almighty - I have not thought of all of them; maybe they are covered in 'Lord'.
There's also 'Lord ... God' - usually my/his/their/our etc.
It is going to take some work to try to figure out how to solve this problem. It is also going to require creating (i.e. getting my husband to create) a tool that exports the data into a spreadsheet. It is going to take some time.
So, to answer the question I was originally asking:
Probably in this particular verse "Lord God" refers to God the Father. Certainly the words "Lord God" elsewhere in the scriptures do refer to multiple members of the godhead. There are really only seven possibilities:
- God the Father
- Jesus Christ
- the Holy Ghost
- God the Father and Jesus Christ
- God the Father and the Holy Ghost
- Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
- All of them at the same time
The eighth possibility is unsatisfactory, and that is that the reference is ambiguous. It's unsatisfactory because:
- Ambiguity = unknowable. God is not unknowable. He is also not ambiguous. He is real.
- My understanding of God should not be ambiguous!
- Is it the understanding of the writer that makes it ambiguous?
- Is it the language of whatever translation that makes it ambiguous?
The final question is this: does it matter? Does it matter which specific member of the godhead is acting, being referenced or described since they are all perfectly united in harmony of purpose - since they are all "one" in this way?
Whether or not it matters to you, it deeply matters to me. I think it matters a lot. I really, really, really, really want to know the actual nature of God.
I know this is not the only way to discover it. I know it is not a perfect way to discover it. I know it is not a complete way to discover it.
But it is a way.
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