I agree that this is a doctrine well off the base and we should seek to save anyone who is lost. However, I do not even want to own deciding whether they or another are saved. That is His say, alone.
An easy test: sometimes in service we’ll restate corporately that we believe in Yeshua and in his blood which saved us. This for new believers in the congregation; but to me, if once true, always true. So I’m excited to say it again.
Someone who is lost, will not repeat the statement, unless they’re changing their mind ;}
What you don’t seem to get is that Mormonism is an entirely different animal.
I normally don’t go around stating who is saved and who is not, but in the case of Mormonism, it is impossible to accept the Christ of the Bible and remain Mormon. They are completely different. A false Christ leads to a false sense of Salvation.
It goes far beyond Mormons having different doctrine. They redfine simple words like Christ, Salvation, Heaven, God. So to the Christian who doesn’t know better will equate the LDS phrase “Jesus makes it possible for us to be saved” and think they mean the same thing as the Christian does, but in reality they don’t. A proper translation would be “Jesus, our elder brother, showed us how we (through the Mormon church) can obtain our own godhood in the Celestial Kingdom”. Not the same thing at all. Mormons believe that true salvation (not just resurrection which is universal) only comes through their works and membership in the Mormon church, not through faith in Jesus.
Here is a link to a good chart with Mormon vs. biblical terms. utlm.org/onlineresources/terminologymain.htm
Also, there is a tendency for mormons to lie or disemmble to make Mormonism seem more Christian. They call it ‘lying for the Lord’. Here is a post I have posted before about how they don’t answer questions or lie to non-Mormons.
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The LDS don’t do systematic theology. For years the closest thing was Bruce R. McConkie’s “Mormon Doctrine”. Now that has been thrown under the bus because some of his statements are embarassing to the LDS church even though they have not reputiated anything said in there and it was approved by the Prophet and Apostles and published by the main LDS publishing company (an LDS version of nihil obstat or imprimitur). The LDS use manuals, published every few years, on a rotation for Sunday School, Priesthood/Relief Society and their High School and College religion classes. They are also discouraged from researching on their own or reading old ‘primary sources’. Sadly, they are spoon fed theology in a manner that keeps them from looking too deep. My ‘crime’ as it were was going beyond the manuals given to me and actually trying to make sense and research LDS history and doctrine in order to prove the ‘antis’ were lying.
As to why I lied about LDS beliefs (or dissembled), there is a constantly used phrase/idea that comes down from the leadership of “every member a missionary”. It means that every member is to try to convert people to Mormonism. Couple that with the other oftused meme of “don’t do anything that makes ‘the Church’ look bad” and you have an interesting combination. The “why” gets down to these. It is easier to lie or omit things or twist words than it is to explain what the LDS really believe and risk losing a potential convert or have someone go away thinking less than glowing things about the LDS church.
Every member is expected to find ‘investigators’ (people who would be interested in converting who take the missionary discussions - similar to RCIA). There is also a lot of people who hear things about beliefs but don’t know enough to know what the LDS are saying, that they use different meanings for terms, even though the LDS usually know that Christians mean different things. A typical exchange could go like this...
non - LDS - “I have a lot of Mormon friends, and they are nice people, but don’t Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?”
LDS - No! We don’t believe that at all! Jesus is the only begotten Son of God! Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and they said that all other churches had some problems and Joseph needed to start a Church that was the same as the one when Jesus Christ was on the Earth. Why don’t you come over for dinner and we will have the missionaries talk to you? There is a set of 6 discussions that they give that shows what we believe.
non-LDS - “Well, ok, but I read somewhere that Mormons believe they will become Gods”
LDS - “That was probably written by someone who has a grudge against the Church. They probably are one of the ones who gets paid to badmouth the Church or someone who couldn’t live by the principles of the Church so they left or they were offended by someone in their ward.
Ok, lets parse this. Notice how many times “the Church” is used. For the LDS it is all about “the Church”. LDS ‘testimonies’ often start out with “I know the Church is true”.
Then there is the automatic denial that Jesus and Satan are brothers. We have seen it here on FR even. Now, all LDS know that their church teaches Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers. So why would you get a resounding “NO”? Because it makes their theology look silly. By stating “No” the LDS are lying to you, but they are thinking “Well they aren’t flesh brothers, just spirit brothers like we all are, Jesus is our Elder brother”. The other day an LDS came on one of these threads and stated “Jesus and Lucifer aren’t brothers, as if by Mary!”. Notice the subtlety of it. “As if by Mary” implying they aren’t physical brothers (which no one claimed). But they left out That Lucifer was the second born and Jesus was the firstborn of the spirit children.
Next we come to what would appear to be a rebuttal to the claim Jesus and Satan are brothers. “Jesus is the only begotten Son of God!” what they are not telling you is that they mean it in a literal sense. Jesus and Satan are SPIRIT brothers (like all of us) but Jesus is God’s physical son, God came down, had sex with Mary and conceived Jesus. So it isn’t a rebuttal at all and the LDS know that. They are intentionally twisting words to make you think they don’t believe Jesus and Satan are Spirit brothers.
Next Phrase - “Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and they said that all other churches had some problems and Joseph needed to start a Church that was the same as the one when Jesus Christ was on the Earth.” This is referring to the “First Vision” (of which there are several contradictory accounts) and the Great Apostasy. The LDS will tone down things said about other Christians. In the first vision account, Smith isn’t told that other churches ‘had problems’ he was told “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,104-1-3-4,00.html
“All wrong”, “Corrupt” and Creeds an abomination are not the same as “some problems” and the LDS know that. But they will soften it in order to not scare people off or to put the LDS church in a ‘better light’.
Next - about becoming Gods. Notice the LDS response is to go down a rabbit hole, rather than addressing the comment. Instead they lead the person to believe that the source was unreliable, or written by someone who had something to gain (money) or a former Mormon with a grudge. The question itself isn’t even addressed (lying by omission). It also causes the person to think that they might be wrong and that the LDS don’t believe that, even though the LDS person knows they do.
Finally, the invitation to meet with the missionaries. There is an assumption by many that these are people who know more about Mormonism than the average member and that isn’t true either. Most men and quite a few women serve LDS missions (I nearly did). They don’t have special knowledge. They also don’t tell you is the goal of those 6 discussions is to get you baptized Mormon and there is pressure put on you to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, make commitments and convert. Those 6 discussions aren’t just a summary of LDS beliefs, they are the requirements for conversion and that is their goal. But they don’t tell you that, they make it sound like this is just a friendly way of talking to knowledgeable people about what the LDS believe.
Also, there is the doctrine of ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ or “milk before meat”, that coverts are only told doctrines when they are spiritually ready to hear them. The missionary discussions are the barest of milk. You learn one set of things in them, and then after you convert you start to learn the rest of LDS theology. Then after a year of faithful membership (sometimes more) you get to go to the LDS temple and learn the ‘meat’ doctrines and are sworn to secrecy (used to have to swear blood oaths).
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Don’t fall into the trap of equating Mormonism in any way with any other type of Christian (or Christian claiming) group. I have spent much of the last 20 years since I left helping others see the errors of Mormonism, getting them to leave Mormonism and helping them transition into Christianity. The HARDEST thing for them to usually accept is that we can have a personal relationship with Jesus and that we are saved by our faith, not works.
Spend some time on the Mormon threads here and you will see how Mormons cannot in any way, ever be considered Christians or have a personal relationship with Jesus while remaining a faithful Mormon.
An easy test: sometimes in service we’ll restate corporately that we believe in Yeshua and in his blood which saved us.
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It’s not much of a ‘test’ if you redefine saved, yeshua, and the function of how his blood ‘saved’ us.
In Mormonism it could be easy to state but they will believe that Jesus (Yeshua) died (blood) on the cross only so we could be resurrected (saved). Mormons believe the ‘sin bearing’ took place in the Garden, not on the cross and that it only ‘kicks in’ after they have done all they can do (works, Mormon membership, temple rites, marriage, tithing, working on being perfectly moral). They turn Christ into a loan shark, he ‘loaned’ us his righteousness but we have to ‘pay him back’ in order to become Gods ourselves. THAT is LDS soteriology in a nutshell. (and I can give you a great LDS sermon aka “talk” by one of their Apostles that states what I said pretty clearly.