Posted on 11/05/2010 6:32:25 PM PDT by Colofornian
LDS Prophet Joseph Smith taught that God was once a mortal man:
"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. ...I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil,...
It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, ...and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did; ...you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another,... from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings. and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power" (History of the Church, Vol. 6, Ch. 14, p. 305-6).
LDS President Brigham Young declared that God was once a finite being:
"It appears ridiculous to the world, under their darkened and erroneous traditions, that God has once been a finite being" (Deseret News, Nov. 16, 1859, p. 290).
LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith said that God had a father, a grandfather, etc.:
"Our father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father" (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:47).
LDS President Joseph F. Smith taught that God was born as a mortal on some other earth:
"I know that God is a being with body, parts and passions...Man was born of woman; Christ, the Savior, was born of woman; and God, the Father was born of woman" (Deseret News, Church News, Sept. 19, 1936, p. 2).
LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie taught:
"The Father is a glorified, perfected, resurrected, exalted man who worked out his salvation by obedience to the same laws he has given to us so that we may do the same" (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 64)
LDS Apostle Melvin Ballard explained that God has a wife:
"For as we have a Father in heaven, so also we have a Mother there, a glorified, exalted, ennobled Mother" (As quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage, LDS Church manual, 1976, p. 129).
LDS Doctrine and Covenants promises the faithful LDS couple that they can achieve godhood in the same manner as God the Father:
"...if a man marry a wife, and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity,... they shall [have]...a continuation of the seeds [children] forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting,... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power,... and continuation of the lives,... [endless procreation of spirit children]" (Doctrine and Covenants Section 132:18-22)
LDS President Brigham Young taught that faithful Mormons can achieve godhood:
"Intelligent beings are organized to become Gods, even the Sons of God, to dwell in the presence of the Gods, and become associated with the highest intelligences that dwell in eternity. We are now in the school, and must practice upon what we receive" (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 245).
LDS President Joseph F. Smith said:
"We are precisely in the same condition and under the same circumstances that God our heavenly Father was when he was passing through this, or a similar ordeal" (Gospel Doctrine, p. 54).
As recently as 2007 both Apostle Boyd K. Packer and Dallen Oakes, during an interview for PBS, explained that God the father has a resurrected body. Apostle Packer stated:
"That vision [Joseph Smith's 1820 vision] taught us some things. We learned about the personality of God the Father, a resurrected Being, as part of our gospel." [link]
Apostle Oakes used the same term when he was interviewed:
"The first revelation received by Joseph Smith was the appearance to him of the Father and the Son embodied, separate, identifiable, tangible Beings who appeared to him in what we refer to as the First Vision. And that first revelation, concerning the nature of God as an embodied, glorified, resurrected Being, challenged the creeds of Christianity. Christianity describes God as a disembodied, incomprehensible, spiritual entity that fills the whole universe, and an indistinguishable Father and Son." [link]
LDS Apostle James E. Talmage taught that God progressed from a mortal to a god:
"We believe in a God who is Himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence; whose perfection consists in eternal advancement — a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow, whose glory it is their heritage to share. In spite of the opposition of the sects, in the face of direct charges of blasphemy, the Church proclaims the eternal truth: 'As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be'" (Articles of Faith, Ch. 24, p. 430-431).
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What the Bible Says About God
1. ALWAYS GOD - in the past as well as in the future.
"Art thou not from ever-lasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?" Hab. 1:12
"For I am the Lord, I change not." Mal. 3:6
"...from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Psa. 90:2
"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent." Num. 23:19
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,...who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever." Rom. 1:22-25
The LDS god started as a finite man and progressed to godhood.
2. ALWAYS HOLY - Both in the past and future.
"...a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." Deut. 32:4
"I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee." Hos. 11:9
"The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works." Psa. 145:17
"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." 1 John 1:5
"Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness." Psa. 119:142
The LDS god achieved holiness.
3. ALL KNOWING - Both in the past and in the future.
"Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? ... There is no searching of his understanding." Isa. 40:13, 14, 28
"Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite." Psa. 147:5
The LDS god had to learn everything.
4. ALL POWERFUL
"The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Rev. 19:6
"...his eternal power and Godhead." Rom. 1:20
The LDS god attained his power.
5. OMNIPRESENT
"The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that ye build unto me: and where is the place of my rest?" Isa. 66:1
"Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." Jer. 23:23-24
The LDS god can be in only one place at a time.
6. ACTED ALONE IN CREATION
"I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." Isa. 44:24
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psa. 33:6
"Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all." Neh. 9:6
The LDS god cooperated with the Council of Gods to create.
7. NO OTHER GODS
"I am he; before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour." Isa. 43:10-11
"I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God....is there a God beside me; yea, there is no God; I know not any." Isa. 44:6 & 8
"To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?...for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me." Isa. 46:5 & 9
"I am the Lord; that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another." Isa. 42:8
The LDS God has a father and mother, grandparents, brothers and sisters, etc.
For a more in-depth discussion of the LDS view of God and man:
Mormonism and the Threefold Problem of Progression: Examining the LDS Doctrine of Eternal Progression in Light of the Bible, Philosophy, and Science
A very common mistake is to confuse “what it takes to be saved (go to heaven)” and “how we are commanded to live”.
We are told to do many things, but these things are so that ONCE WE HAVE BELIEVED AND BEEN SAVED, we can please God and represent Him well.
If we don’t do them, our rewards will be lesser when we get to heaven.
I'm limited in my total knowledge, but I tend to use a system to seek discernment. If one has a sound foundation in the Gospel, many difficult questions open up for discernment which the natural mind would not see. I will try to confine my remarks to italics, for clarity.
From your post:
A couple things surface.
a. Jesus makes it very clear that only a few people will actually be allowed into heaven. [There are at least two groups of humans found in the scenes in Heaven: the Bride is one, and we know these are the body of believers who have 'kept their lamps trimmed, ready for the sudden calling out'; the witnesses at the marriage of The Lamb and the Bride are another group, and that group is described as so great a number that they can't be counted ... using the math of the ancient world. It is vital to note--according to the story Jesus related regarding being at the wedding without the proper garment--that both of these groups, and in fact any human who is in Heaven, will be there ONLY because Christ died for them. There is no residency in Heaven for a human that is not covered by the Blood of the Lamb of God.
b. He's talking about people who believe. Who else would be calling him Lord and try to make the case that they have known him. But the Lord casts them off anyway. [You are conflating different scenes in the future and thus becoming confused on the fundamentals. A wedding and a judgment seat are two very different scenes. Those at the judgment who plea that they did such great works in His name yet are told to depart He never knew them are the ones who believed their works would earn them God's Grace when it came to the judgment. The Bride of Christ will not be standing to be judged.]
c. His audience is believers.[In some scenes the audience is believers, but in other scenes His audience are those who plead they are believers based upon their works which they deem good enough. A believer is one who faiths (yes, as in a verb, an action word) in Jesus Christ as their Deliverer, their Savior, their Redeemer, the One Whom sends His Holy Spirit to dwell in them for the remainder of their life as a believer, a faither.]The question (with a couple parts)
1. 2000 years of christianity; and for 1700 yrs the entire western world were believers; so who's getting cast out?
2. Among all the believers for 2000 yrs.. who are the few?
3. Since your beliefs are the same as all theirs... what's the difference?
To answer your questions and have the answers be intelligible requires some fundamental beliefs upon which one relies when trying to discern the Truth in a morass of fiction. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of God's Grace in Christ Jesus, is that in these last days, God pours His Spirit into those who trust in His atonement for their unworthiness to be residents in His presence (see Philippians 3:20). I sincerely hope you have read this far, because here's the Gospel of Grace in a nutshell, opened up to receive the meat of the gift: No man can be good enough to generate the nature of God in the human soul/spirit; Jesus walked totally righteous before humankind because His seed--the Holy Spirit of God Almighty--remained within Him until the moment God withdrew His Spirit from Jesus so that Jesus could die the death of one accused IN OUR PLACE. But the justification of God is by faith, so God raised Him up from death, justified and the Holy Spirit again indwelling Him. By faith we too have that same Holy Spirit come into our human spirit, in order to renew our soul to conform to the image of God's Son. It is a lifelong process this conforming, this trans-formative process accomplished by our obedience to His urging as He changes our want to so that we become a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Now to your questions, with my feeble efforts to answer in blue ... and your questions are formidable, and need answering especially in light of the topic of this thread and subsequent exchanges, so thank you for asking them:
1. 2000 years of christianity; and for 1700 yrs the entire western world were believers; so who's getting cast out? Being believers and being trusters are two distinctly different things. As you've read, the demons believe and tremble.
First, the Cross of Christ, the Redemption of 'faithers', reaches back to Adam, it is not a mere 2000 years segment. How? By faith: faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Recall what Jesus told the Jews who questioned Him, that those patriarchs 'rejoiced to see His day'.
Second, those who trust, who 'faithe' (verb, 'to faithe') in the Promises of God are the believers, not just those who mouth a belief in Whom Jesus was or is. A true faither has a daily walk in which he or she relies upon the indwelling Holy Spirit to lead their transformation from a child of Adam to a child of God. On my profile page, I tried to explain this word 'faithing' because it is an action word not a noun, as Jesus taught it and Paul and others like James explained it.
A Jew, prior to the birth of Jesus, was faithing in the Promises of God by trying to meet the lofty, unreachable in human effort, standard of the Law, the ten commandments. So powerful was this drive to live up to the standards set in the Ten Commandments that Jews followed along behind Paul and Silas trying to get Christians to live by the laws also, a feat which no human of int he 'strength of their flesh' can accomplish. It takes the nature of God to exhibit the life of God, and a Christian accomplishes this only when he or she allows His nature within them to direct the behavior of them. But in Him we have Liberty! The yolk is easy, the burden light, if we use Paul's suggestions for walking in the Spirit.Paul explained this faithing of the patriarchs by referencing Abraham who lived before the Law was given. It was by faith that Abraham was found righteous, not by works of the Law which had not yet been given. Abraham's faith was exhibited in his actions. The Prophet Joel offered that someday God would put inside faithers His Spirit, a new Spirit. After the Cross, descendants of Adam could then be renewed from within, by the indwelling presence of God's Spirit.
On a side note: It is interesting to notice how human Abraham and Sarah were, in that they doubted for a time that God was going to fulfill His promise, so they used Hagar as a surrogate to beget Ishmael. But God did follow through with His promise to Abraham and Sarah, with the birth of Isaac. And this child was precious to Abraham because he was the living proof of God fulfilling His Promises.
2. Among all the believers for 2000 yrs.. who are the few? You can figure this one out based upon the faithing technique described in the first answer. The smaller of the two groups who show up in Heaven are the Bride of Christ. These are they who trimmed their lamps and remained ready. Jesus used the allegory of Jewish wedding process when He designated this group. It is these of whom Paul writes in his IThess4 passage referring to the calling out, the rapture of the Church. A second group--still few compared to all of humankind--will also be at the wedding feast which follows the wedding. This group will not be the Bride, but they will be in Heaven because God finds they faithe in God's Promises even if they did not accept the Holy Spirit in their human spirit while alive on earth (think those who never heard the Gospel preached by mouth or by reading the scriptures).
3. Since your beliefs are the same as all theirs... what's the difference? At this point, do you still wish to assert 'your beliefs are the same as all theirs'? I think you know there are profound fundamental differences.
Well, do you only talk to people who agree with you Stourme? Why are you here then? Go caucus something with Restornu.
Let me be the first to tell you that these words were WRITTEN in Greek!
When did THIS rule get written?
The first time in the entire history of FR that someone was whiney enough to complain about it. Pass the tissues please.
It was not the first time.
Those in the Telestial & Terrestrial Kingdom are saved by grace...
I know the words and how they are used can get confusing
Rev 22
6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Well, considering how the individual since that incident has squirmed, wiggled and did everything to divert the discussion away from the point where he was hammered by the scripture - it doesn't surprise me. Unfortunately, there is a cheese shortage to go with all the whine.
LOL resty - your posse would disagree with that - they have clearly stated that we must meet certain qualification to merit that grace. Perhaps y'all need to caucus to get your stories straight.
If what you say is true, that you believe your church is under His headship there is little any can say which can alter that "belief". But the facts do speak for themselves that the Christian community overall does not see the LDS as Christian. Only those in the LDS claim otherwise.... claiming and believing something does not make it so no matter how the LDS tries to reinvent itself to be more palatable to the Christian community...LDS continues to believe in that which opposes the basic tenants the Christian faith. Claiming belief in Christ? Islam believes as well, so does the enemy of men's souls...the question would then remain...which Christ?...LDS Christ is a counterfeit Christ masquerading and misleading those who follow...and will remain as such...the leadership welds much power and money and are not about to let that go..thus the membership will alaways be their "money generating machine" to sustain them.
I agree. When the truth began to dawn on me, I really started flailing around spiritually, and clinging to some childhood beliefs I didn't "really" believe and couldn't defend, but I held dear.
I had an ex-mormon give a similar account. When to walls start crumbling down, the urge is to curl up under the bed or pick up a sword and start slashing. Or alternating between the two.
I recognize it now as Satan's furious attempts to hang on.
So disagreeing with your theology is attacking? Aren’t you ready to defend your faith? I always am.
Excuse me? I’m not trying to marginalize you; you do that already by your unorthodox beliefs.
Rev 22
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Those who do the will of the Lord will enter into the Celestial Kingdom
And aside from the fact that the passage in Isaiah which has no name ‘Lucifer’ refers to a Babylonian king, not the devil,
At Bible study one time some one mentioned lucifer as being the devil, i told them that i was confused about that because God seemed to still be talking to the king, i was pretty unpopular after that, every one jumped on to me like ugly on an ape.
The point is, why did God call the king lucifer? and just what was he calling him? was he calling him evil which would be the same as the devil, or just a nick name?
This king wanted to be the most high and so did satan but that does not absolutly make lucifer the same as satan.
I just don,t know.
And that reminds me
I was listening to Vernon Mcgee years ago and heard him read a scripture from the old testament, he read it again, and then again, then he cleared his throat and said, I beg your pardon folks,( i don,t know what that means )
Mr, Mcgee was well known, not only in this country but in most of the world as a man of God yet he is the only preacher i have ever heard to admit there was something he did not know.
Then i think of people who have just barely gotten into the scriptures who will not admit there is anything they don,t know.
If you’re posting, you really ought to be paying. You can log off forever and still get your news here.
Really? And does that 'new rule' apply equally to everyone, or only to people of the LDS faith?
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