I had someone leave a comment yesterday here who I believe is LDS. If I am mistaken, I apologize. Part of it is that they spoke about how Christians treat other Christians and indicated LDS members by that other Christians part. Now I do agree that Christians don’t treat LDS members right often, but I cannot place LDS members as Christians in any sense of the word.
That is, of course, not to say anything against LDS members as people. We have the missionaries visiting us now and I think the world of these guys. They’re great guys and meeting with them is one of the highlights of my week. These are some guys I’d love to just hang out with sometimes. I do have great respect for their devotion and their willingness to be in evangelism. Take a note of this Christians! We could learn something from the Mormons and JWs on being out there in evangelism.
However, there are too many differences. The Mormon church would have to do a lot of reforming before they could be considered orthodox. (That’d also include dropping the BOM, the D&C, the teachings of Joseph Smith and their other prophets, etc. When that is dropped, it is a wonder what they would end up calling their denomination.)
Let’s start with the big one though. What about the doctrine of God. For starters, Christianity is monotheistic. We are monotheistic and Trinitarian however. The Trinity is rooted in monotheism. The one who refers to the Trinity as a belief in three gods simply does not know what the doctrine of the Trinity really teaches.
Yet Mormonism has the number of gods wrong even. Listen to what Mormon apostle Bruce McConkie says in his work, Mormon Doctrine. The following can be found in the section “God”:
There are three gods–The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost–who, though separate in personality, are united as one in purpose, in plan, and in all the attributes of perfection. [end quote]
Interestingly, when he gets to Godhead, he says:
Though each God in the Godhead is a personage, separate and distinct from each of the others, yet they are “one God” (Testimony of Three Witnesses in Book of Mormon), meaning they are united as one in the attributes of perfection. [end quote]
Which is it? How can you say “each God” and have one God? How can you say they are three gods and one God? Christianity has no problem. We see three different persons who are not one person. We also see that each fully partakes of the nature of God, but yet there is one God. No doubt, there is much difficult to understand in Trinitarianism, but the way to avoid that is not to go with heresy.
But what about this God who is there? Is he the same? Well, no. Let’s look at the famous “King Follett” sermon that Joseph Smith gave:
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.
In order to understand the subject of the dead, for consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how He came to be so; for 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, so that you may see.
These ideas are incomprehensible to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, 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; and I will show it from the Bible.
I wish I was in a suitable place to tell it, and that I had the trump of an archangel, so that I could tell the story in such a manner that persecution would cease forever. What did Jesus say? (Mark it, Elder Rigdon!) The scriptures inform us that 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. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it you do not believe the Bible. The scriptures say it, and I defy all the learning and wisdom and all the combined powers of earth and hell together to refute it. Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and 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, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, 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. And I want you to know that God, in the last days, while certain individuals are proclaiming His name, is not trifling with you or me. [end quote]
I urge the reader to read the rest here:
http://emp.byui.edu/ANDERSONKC/431readings_files/readings/Rel431ReadingFile.W2003/thekingfollettsermon.smith.htm
Thus, God is not God eternally. He eventually became God. As Lorenzo Snow, earlier Mormon president said “As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.” Philosophically speaking, there are so many problems with an infinite regress here and transversing an infinite that it’s unbelievable. Biblically, you have verses like Isaiah 43:10.
However, that’s not all….
In their Scripture, Doctrines and Covenants, we read in 130:22 that, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.”
Now I have not put up the whole verse for it’s not relevant, but anyone who wants to can do so! That way, they can be assured I have not taken things out of context.
Compare that though to John 4:24 saying that God is Spirit and note that when the Israelites made an idol to represent YHWH in Exodus, they did not make an image of a man.
Thus, the god of Mormonism I conclude is not the God of the Bible. Naturally, I’ve only scratched the surface here, but I think it has been shown enough for most to see. Now if Mormonism wants to show me in error, let them do so. They’ll have to do so from the Bible that has been accepted as orthodox for centuries and which writings alone I place my ultimate trust in.
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