We’ve gone over this several times here but you seem to be knew so we’ll do it once again. Joseph was actually giving a speech at a funeral for a man name King Follet (I know odd name). He his intent was that if we know the true nature of God and our relationship to him it helps us accept death more easily. After some opening words he says;
“…First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heaven, is a man like one of you. That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today and you were to see the great God who holds this world in its orbit and upholds all things by his power, you would see him in the image and very form of a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God. He received instruction from and walked, talked, and conversed with him as one man talks and communes with another…..(see Gen 1:26)
But it is the simple and first principle of the gospel-to know for a certainty the character of God, that we may converse with him as one man with another. God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did, and I will show it from the Bible.
…..What did Jesus say? (Mark it, elder Rigdon!) Jesus said, "As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power." To do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious--in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the Bible.”
Joseph was referring to John 5 I’ll start with verse 17
….Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
This passage shows the Hebrew concept of being an agent. The son can be the agent of his father and in so doing he becomes equal to the father, his word is the same as his father’s. In this case they realized Jesus was calling himself the Son of God and so making him equal to God.
But Jesus stops them and says
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth…”
In other words no I’m not equal to the Father I can only do what he has shown me. He did say in John 14 “for my Father is greater than I.”
Joseph’s understood this to mean that somehow God the Father showed Jesus what he himself had done. Not hard thing to do if you command passed, present and future. Jesus was walking in the same steps of his Father before him.
“ For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. …Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself…”
In other words again; I’m going to die and bring about an atonement and resurrection thus being able to call mankind forth from the grave as my Father had done before me.
Now let’s go back to that quote from Hyrum Smith
“ for every Star that we see is a world and is inhabited the same as this world is peopled…..There was & is a first man Adam and also a Saviour in the Meredien of times, the same computing times and all things in order...."
The theory is that across the universe there are many planets all going through the same saving process we are, each one needs a savior.
Joseph Smith said that “God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did” So this mean that at one time God the Father was an eternal spirit like Jesus/Yahweh was. He played the role of a Messiah just as Jesus did, he died on a cross and took on the sins of his brothers and sisters on his planet. Three days later he rose from the grave just as Jesus did a fully resurrected immortal man.
“For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself..”