LDS beliefs about Jesus Christ?

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There is alot to acknowledge, Parker, that Sacred Scripture has a certain framework and consistency that is all interconnected, that is supported by events of the Jewish people…and that these people are particularly aware of their own particularity as a people. In essence, they maintain the symbols and signs of their given culture.
So far nothing has come up in America pertaining to any lost tribe of Israel.

The other side of this is seeing that we are all lost without Christ.

(I also note that alot of images pertaining to Masonry often point to Egypt and Turkey, symbols used by Islam—the sword, the star and crescent…Egypt pertains to exile.)

It goes back to the understanding of Christ that He is the Alpha and the Omega…and there isn’t any other revelations coming. The Holy Spirit always guides, enlightens, and corrects.

I don’t see the purpose of any new book that uses means as Smith did to find out new and superior truths. It makes me think of this web this morning that came on, the Gnostic gospels…and it is calling on all priests and ministers to join them. And that this Gnostic Christ will come this very month…El-Ral…stay tuned.
 
I found this site…drawing from the ‘Gnostic Gospels’…that the early Catholic Church surpressed…

Here is another Christ coming in May…www.ra-el.org/evidence.html

I am leery of secret knowledge that cannot stand up to public scrutiny…the same with new insights about Christ, after the fact…
 
It is something that I find profoundly different as a Catholic, this understanding that God acts in the world in ways that build on our nature. Having been the Creator of that nature, of course He understands we exist in communities of cultures, families, traditions and we are fallible.

Compared to my experience in Mormonism, where our fallible nature, our cultural way of life, our traditions, are somehow separate from God.

There is no “great apostasy”, there is God, working in the world in our lives, where we are at, and who we are being, at every moment. This is made abundantly clear in Jesus Christ, who did not wipe away hundreds of years of human culture and history, but instead, fulfilled it. God became Man, and dwelled among us.

Jesus Christ is the Light Of The World. This light does not dim, it grows brighter. The Mormon message is that the Light Of The World could not stay lit, dimming further and further until all was dark.

I have no idea why anyone would want to believe such a thing about Our Lord and God.

Peace.
 
The Holy Father speaks of different kinds of soils…a mystery…

I found that link pretty scary, and gnosticism, outside of disbelieving in the real presence and the Sacred Banquet, is what the early church had to contend with.

I shared this on another thread, but John Paul II’s ‘Threshold of Hope’, is answering alot of issues that come up with discussions of Catholicism and other denominations or religions.

John Paul II is very non-compromising when it comes to Jesus Christ and other beliefs.
 
ParkerD said:
I understand that you would have a strong desire to uphold the Bible’s teachings, including those verses in Matthew 5 and Matthew 11. Yet Luke, as the writer of Acts, had no hesitation in describing certain leaders among the people–Agabus, Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul (Paul)–as “prophets” (Acts 11:27 and 13:1)…
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The point of this thread is that no one, either Christian or LDS, should be confused one bit that the LDS faith has introduced a new god, and new Jesus and a new spirit to the world. Not one of them is the eternal, self-revealed and self-apparent God of Israel. They are nothing alike. 100% different in substance.

The LDS simply believe in a human “Jesus” that is not worthy of worship - a “son of God” that is apparently unworthy of being god of his own planet. Is this not correct?
 
po18guy said:
The point of this thread is that no one, either Christian or LDS, should be confused one bit that the LDS faith has introduced a new god, and new Jesus and a new spirit to the world. Not one of them is the eternal, self-revealed and self-apparent God of Israel. They are nothing alike. 100% different in substance.

The LDS simply believe in a human “Jesus” that is not worthy of worship - a “son of God” that is apparently unworthy of being god of his own planet. Is this not correct?
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No they believe Christ is 100% god. Which is confusing bc does that make them polytheists? Bc they believe he is separate from the Father.
 
So, then the foundation of Christ in the Mormon sense is not the same then as in the Christian sense.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Becoming 100% god, having been born a demigod who progressed.
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This gets confusing, doesn’t it? What about the rest of us, who were not even born demigods? Why do we get all the perks of Christ, in the long run? Why does god’s own son have to progress? I’m gonna need a wall chart…
 
RebeccaJ said:
It is something that I find profoundly different as a Catholic, this understanding that God acts in the world in ways that build on our nature. Having been the Creator of that nature, of course He understands we exist in communities of cultures, families, traditions and we are fallible.

Compared to my experience in Mormonism, where our fallible nature, our cultural way of life, our traditions, are somehow separate from God.

There is no “great apostasy”, there is God, working in the world in our lives, where we are at, and who we are being, at every moment. This is made abundantly clear in Jesus Christ, who did not wipe away hundreds of years of human culture and history, but instead, fulfilled it. God became Man, and dwelled among us.

Jesus Christ is the Light Of The World. This light does not dim, it grows brighter. The Mormon message is that the Light Of The World could not stay lit, dimming further and further until all was dark.

I have no idea why anyone would want to believe such a thing about Our Lord and God.

Peace.
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Great post Rebecca. I’ve never thought of that way but you are absolutely right in your analysis. The light went out until Joseph Smith arrived on the scene, as if God were dependent upon man to keep it lit.
👍
 
po18guy said:
This gets confusing, doesn’t it? What about the rest of us, who were not even born demigods? Why do we get all the perks of Christ, in the long run? Why does god’s own son have to progress? I’m gonna need a wall chart…
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You’d better start with the progression of the Father (who was “once as we are now”). Where in the heck did He come from? :confused:
 
SteveVH said:
You’d better start with the progression of the Father (who was “once as we are now”). Where in the heck did He come from? :confused:
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A planet “nigh unto Kolob” which “is set nigh unto the throne of God”…or so Mormon scripture states.
🤷
 
KathleenGee said:
So, then the foundation of Christ in the Mormon sense is not the same then as in the “Christian” sense.
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Kathleen,

Based on the exclusivity with which you view the term, then that is correct since it is evident from your other posts that the word is interchangeable in your mind with “Catholic” sense, and since Latter-day Saints believe and know that Jesus was really and truly the son of Mary and really and truly the Son of God, through her having been overshadowed by the Holy Ghost and having conceived a son through miraculous and divine means while remaining a virgin.

Thus the Bible is absolutely correct in saying He was the son of David, because he was a literal descendant of King David; and it is absolutely correct in saying He is the Son of God, because He is the literal Son of God the Father, born on this earth in the flesh as God with us, Emmanuel.

A reader and believer in the literal words of the Bible understands these concepts, and understands that God the Father had the power to provide the world His Perfect Son, and the Son taught that this was literally true about Himself, and that indeed the Father loves us and provided for His loving grace through sending His Beloved Only Begotten Son to this earth to ransom us. It is simply not hard to understand that He is fully God, and yet that He “descended below all things”. (Maybe hard for some, I suppose.)
 
SteveVH said:
Great post Rebecca. I’ve never thought of that way but you are absolutely right in your analysis. The light went out until Joseph Smith arrived on the scene, as if God were dependent upon man to keep it lit.
👍
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A friend pointed this out, while we were discussing what it means to encounter God in the world.
 
KathleenGee said:
So, then the foundation of Christ in the Mormon sense is not the same then as in the Christian sense.
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I think ParkerD’s response to your post makes it clear that the Mormons have no understanding of the Incarnation.
 
ParkerD said:
It is simply not hard to understand that He is fully God, and yet that He “descended below all things”. (Maybe hard for some, I suppose.)
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I’m interested how you understand the Mormon view of Jesus as being born ‘fully God’, in light of your church’s teaching that he was special, by the fact that he was the only human born a half-deity?

“There was in Palestine a couple, Joseph and Mary. They lived in Nazareth. They had traveled, evidently, from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to pay a tax that had been decreed by the Roman Emperor. That was the ostensible purpose. She, heavy with child, traveled all that distance on mule-back, guarded and protected as one about to give birth to a half-Deity. No other man in the history of this world of ours has ever had such an ancestry—God the Father on the one hand and Mary the Virgin on the other.”

“He lived in a lowly home, the only man born to this earth half-Divine and half-mortal. He dwelt among the most lowly, taught among them, did his works among them.”

Source

I find it interesting the use of the term “Holy Trinity” in that document. The first time I have seen it in a Mormon teaching source…seems they are never content to leave anything uncorrupted.
 
RebeccaJ said:
I’m interested how you understand the Mormon view of Jesus as being born ‘fully God’, in light of your church’s teaching that he was special, by the fact that he was the only human born a half-deity?

“There was in Palestine a couple, Joseph and Mary. They lived in Nazareth. They had traveled, evidently, from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to pay a tax that had been decreed by the Roman Emperor. That was the ostensible purpose. She, heavy with child, traveled all that distance on mule-back, guarded and protected as one about to give birth to a half-Deity. No other man in the history of this world of ours has ever had such an ancestry—God the Father on the one hand and Mary the Virgin on the other.”

“He lived in a lowly home, the only man born to this earth half-Divine and half-mortal. He dwelt among the most lowly, taught among them, did his works among them.”

Source
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Rebecca or anyone else,

While it is true that Jesus was “fully God” in the sense of having power over death and having omnipotence and omniscience while He walked the earth during His ministry beginning in AD 30, and thus had power to lay down His life and to resurrect Himself by taking up His body again–He also had the quality of being “subject to temptation but giving no heed to it”, as distinct from God the Father who would of course not be “subject to temptation”.

Christ “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin”, and thus “we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;” (Hebrews 4:15) If He had not had the opportunity and the capability of doing something wrong, but yet did no wrong thing and was completely perfect and without sin, then His mission on earth would be less marvelous because one would say, “Of course He could do that–He was God.” So there is a partial emphasis in the kind of statement that President Clark made, to express the quality that Paul was expressing–that He had the temptations in front of Him, but gave no heed to them. He could have sinned, but did not, by His own free will choice.

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:” (Isaiah 53:7) If He had not had the capacity to feel the kinds of wounds that mortal men feel, this prophecy of Isaiah would not be true.

I would have chosen a different mode of expression than President Clark used in that talk and would have highlighted that there would not be such an English language term as “half-Divine” because to be “Divine” at all is to be “Divine” entirely, but the concept of Christ being able to feel our pains, our anguishes, our heartaches, and to actually be tempted and yet give no heed to the temptation, means that He descended below all things and has the magnitude of compassion which He has because of having felt our pains, anguishes, heartaches, and the awful punishment for our sins.
 
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