Adam's great part in the plan of redemption was to fall from the immortal state in which he first existed on earth and thus bring mortality and death unto the world.  This he did, bringing temporal and spiritual death into the world, from the effects of which deaths the atonement of Christ was foreordained as a ransom.  After the fall, Adam and Eve became the parents of all living.
    We are his descendants and there are no persons who have ever lived on earth who have not had this same ancestry.  "He is the father of the human family; . . . (the) head of the human family."
    Father Adam was one of the most noble and intelligent characters who ever lived.  He began his earth life as a son of God, endowed with the talents and abilities gained through diligence and obedience in preexistence.  He is the head of all Gospel dispensations, the presiding high priest (under Christ) over all the earth; presided over all the spirits destined to inhabit this earth, holds the keys of salvation over all the earth; and will reign as Michael, our prince, in eternity.
    He was baptized, married for eternity, for death had not yet entered the world, had the fullness of the gospel, and following 930 years of existence after the fall went in to the paradise of God to await a glorious resurrection with Christ and the righteous saints.  He has returned to earth in our day, bringing keys and authorities to the Prophet Joseph Smith, will soon preside at the great Adam-ondi-Ahman council, and finally will reign over his righteous posterity in the Patriarchal Order to all eternity.  - Joseph Fielding Smith