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LDSGuy
Guest
yes, Catholics, Oneness Pentacostals, Jews, LDS, Muslims, various Hindus, etc. will answer yes to that.
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Stephen168
New member
The truth is so simple.
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ParkerD
Guest
Stephen,
Now that I understand you want simple, I’ll have a go at it:
Quote:
Originally Posted by amontoya
So then, we’re not “literally His children?”
That is an incorrect statement. I am my parents’ child, but the matter that makes up my physical body was not created by them, and the spirit that is a part of my being was not created by them either. Yet I and my siblings are “literally their children.”
We’re eternal spirits who were just hanging out in the pre-mortal existence until Heavenly Father “organized” us?
No. We became His spirit children, but the intelligence that is a part of each spirit was not created by Him out of nothing. Yet we are “literally His children.”
And Jesus was pre-eminent because his spirit looks like Heavenly Father’s physical body?
No. He “was more intelligent than they all.” He was pre-eminent in His intelligence, His knowledge, His faith, His obedience, His love. He was also the Firstborn in the spirit.
Now that I understand you want simple, I’ll have a go at it:
Quote:
Originally Posted by amontoya
So then, we’re not “literally His children?”
That is an incorrect statement. I am my parents’ child, but the matter that makes up my physical body was not created by them, and the spirit that is a part of my being was not created by them either. Yet I and my siblings are “literally their children.”
We’re eternal spirits who were just hanging out in the pre-mortal existence until Heavenly Father “organized” us?
No. We became His spirit children, but the intelligence that is a part of each spirit was not created by Him out of nothing. Yet we are “literally His children.”
And Jesus was pre-eminent because his spirit looks like Heavenly Father’s physical body?
No. He “was more intelligent than they all.” He was pre-eminent in His intelligence, His knowledge, His faith, His obedience, His love. He was also the Firstborn in the spirit.
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dianaiad
Guest
Excuse me, Rebecca, but since we believe that Jesus is Jehovah…
How do you figure that we ever believed that He was not ‘made a God’ until after His death?
It’s not new. I’m older than you and believe me, this is NOT new.
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dianaiad
Guest
We do not believe that they are, no. We believe that Jesus was Jehovah; one with the Father in purpose, but not in Person.
We believe that Jesus is, and was, God…but He is not the Father. We believe that the Holy Ghost is and was God, but He is not the Father nor the Son.
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dianaiad
Guest
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RebeccaJ
Guest
Why was Jesus exalted after His death? Because of His obedience?
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dianaiad
Guest
Not really. No religious question can be truly answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and no other explanation.
For one thing, the question that one person asks may not be the question another person actually SEES.
For instance, here’s a question that CAN be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’…but such a brief answer would be very deceiving–and not at all helpful.
Question: Do Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?
Answer: Yes.
Succinct? you betcha. Does it tell the entire story?
Nope…and from very long experience I can tell you that the people who ask that question are thinking very different things from the Mormon who answers it.
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dianaiad
Guest
the truth is never simple…because people will not allow it to be so, and use words to communicate it, and words always mask truth to one extent or the other.
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dianaiad
Guest
“Exalted?” What in the world…??? He received His resurrected body…but he was no more completely Himself then than He was before; Nobody can say that Jehovah was less than God.
But that He received His glorified body, the ‘first fruits’ of 'them that slept?" Yeah; part of the Redemption. There is a great deal of scripture describing Him: the whole point of the redemption was that He WAS obedient, and doing precisely what His Father asked of Him, and that He was willing to go through all that for us.
But I don’t think He would have been able to do it if He had not been Who He was in the first place…
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RebeccaJ
Guest
So you are saying that Jesus was an exalted being before His death?
This is not what JS taught in his King Follet sermon. He taught that your god was a man and earned exaltation, just as you believe any man can.
You also teach that Jesus was is a pre-mortal spirit just like any other spirit. WHEN was He exalted?
Stephen168
New member
But at a minimum the difference between parent and child is time/sequence. First there were my parents, then me, then my children. If we all arrived at the same time, then I don’t see how identical natures can be different. Everyone would be the same; no parents, no children.
Stephen168
New member
How did we become spirit children? I mean if all spirits (including God the father and Jesus) came into being at the same time, who/what made it happen?
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amontoya
Guest
Because, the passage stated that we, meaning the Father’s spirit children, which includes Jesus (and I’m assuming the Holy Spirit?), could not become “like our Heavenly Father” without “living in mortality with a physical body.”
How did we become His spirit children if we existed with Him from the beginning?
Again, how did we become spirit children, and how could Jesus be firstborn in the spirit if we all existed with Heavenly Father from the beginning?
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ParkerD
Guest
Stephen,
Joseph Smith taught that “the elements are eternal” (D & C 93:33), including spirit element/matter. (The concept that “all spirit is matter” is in D & C 130. “We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.”)
He also taught as quoted previously, that intelligences had no beginning. He said it’s a concept that mortal beings, who are aware of beginnings and endings and finite time, cannot grasp. I don’t pretend to grasp the concept, but God the Father and God the Son have always been far advanced beyond any level we could comprehend. From our vantage point, they have been God the Father and God the Son for an infinite amount of time in our past. They also observe our progress with joy, even though it is bumpy progress.
There are some things we are just not going to grasp in this life rationally. The Bible confirms this in several passages about God’s ways being “higher” than our ways.
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ParkerD
Guest
Amontoya,
Please see my reply above to Stephen, and my notes added to your quote.
Jesus and the Holy Spirit were “like our Heavenly Father” in the sense of being God without having lived in mortality. They were the second and third members of the Godhood, with all God’s power (meaning omnipotent), like-minded wills, infinite capacity of love, and complete unity because they comprehended all things.
But we could never become “like our Heavenly Father” or even remotely similar (such as having limited powers) although gaining a physical body, without Christ’s infinite atonement. This is why Christ condescended and became “God with us.” “No unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God.” He wants us to be joint-heirs with Him.
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zaffiroborant
Guest
Well this last paragraph is just is just confusing and the first one doesn’t seem to line up with the JS description of the nature of God.
And neither of your last two posts really answers the question.
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amontoya
Guest
I’m not sure what it is that you’re referring to as incorrect. Is it incorrect that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are spirit children with us, or is it only the Holy Spirit that isn’t a spirit child, or is it something else?
And I still don’t understand how we became Heavenly Father’s spirit children, if we existed eternally with Him.
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ParkerD
Guest
Amontoya,
We don’t know much about the Holy Spirit. What I meant was incorrect was what I understood as your implication that Jesus needed a physical body to be “like Heavenly Father” in His Godhood, his omnipotence, his omniscience, his perfect love. That would not be correct.
As to your second statement, neither do I. But I know, for example, that cells comprise my body, including stem cells with an amazing capability. I would suppose that we’re going to learn a great deal we don’t now know about intelligences and spirits and their relationship, in the next world (the spirit world) and after the resurrection. I’m OK with not knowing for now. I have no question that when I address my Father in Heaven, He is exactly that, the Father of my spirit and of all of our spirits.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
oh, from the same person who gloats about knowing what he’ll be doing every second of every day a million years from now and that somehow everyone else is defective for not.
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