How is it that a body is required for you to attain godhood, but for Jesus and the Holy Spirit it is not?
Why do LDS have such a problem with the Christian belief that God the Father is spirit?
Rebecca,
Once again I had a few minutes to spare, and thought I would see what questions are coming up here. Diana can soon answer also to add to my perspective, as follows:
As the Bible says, Jesus is the Firstborn of the Father–His first spirit Son, Who also possessed within His spirit the intelligence of One who could comprehend the truths of eternity far more quickly and completely than we could when we were later “born” as the Father’s spirit children. We don’t know what time difference there was between the Savior’s spirit birth and ours, but I assume it must have been millenia–such that when we were “born” as spirit children, we could sense and understand that here was an “older” Spirit who had already reached the point of having the same light, love, knowledge, power and goodness (meaning omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent even as the Firstborn spirit) as our Heavenly Father. We knew that He was our Heavenly Father’s son just as we were His children, yet that He was incredibly gifted because of His innate goodness and intelligence. We knew that He was indeed a God, in the spirit likeness of His Father and having the likeness of power and love of His Father. We weren’t like that at all. We were like infants, needing to progress in a different way than Jehovah (the pre-mortal Christ) was able to become God the Son as a spirit. We had no way to do it without a “Plan” for our Salvation and Exaltation that would allow for our progress without needing us to pay the penalties for our mistakes all along the way.
The Holy Spirit holds a special place in the Godhood, still with omnipotence but with a function of testifying to our hearts of truths of eternity so that when we hear them, if in spiritual “tune” we will recognize the promptings of the Holy Spirit to our hearts and minds and spirits, and respond. Perhaps He will receive a body in some eternal future, but what is at issue here and now is what we will do with the “hidden knowledge” He has both the capacity and the willingness to provide us if we are willing to listen. But He doesn’t shout, show signs or wonders–He speaks to our heart and mind by a “voice of perfect mildness”, the “still, small voice.”
I don’t think LDS members or leaders “have a problem” with your beliefs in the Trinity and God the Father as Spirit only. Just because we don’t share those beliefs, doesn’t mean we “have a problem” with a different set of beliefs. You could look back at what I wrote to Lamb of God Girly on the subject.
But we do think that an understanding that Heavenly Father has a body allows us to conceive and understand that our body is a wonderful gift to us, a temple, a gift that we should reverence and respect. We can also picture this loving Father in our mind’s eye knowing that He does indeed look (in a perfect way) “like us”, that we were indeed created in His image–that that is not just a figure of speech in the Bible, but literally true. With that conviction in our hearts, we can act more strongly and without hesitation in keeping our bodies sacred and our minds as pure as we can possibly strive for.
These things I know to be true by that “voice of perfect mildness” that has reverbrated those truths into every fiber of my being, and every feeling of my heart.
