Question about a finer point of Mormon doctrine.

[IHeartAquinas]

It is my understanding that Mormonism denies that God and Christ were one and the same. Mormons believe that God took a wife and Christ has a god-like “mother.” This aside (as I could be wrong about the god-like, non-Marian mother), I am fairly certain that Mormonism teaches, like JW, that Christ is a separate being altogether from God.

That being said, how does this mesh with 3 Nephi :14?

(Jesus said) Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.

This passage obviously equates God the Father as being the same essence and same person as Christ the Son. I know there are a few very devout Mormons on this site, and I would appreciate if one or some could either give me an apologetic explanation (similar to the apologetical theme of this entire website) or correct me if I am altogether mistaken on this particular belief of Mormonism.

Thanks!

PS–the version of the Book of Mormon I’m using as reference is the 1981 edition copyrighted by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Also, for reference, the section in the beginning followed by the testimonies of the various witnesses states “This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith.” Nowhere does it say whether these corrections were inserted before 1981 or specifically for the 1981 printing, so I must assume it was the latter (as I received this copy new last summer, and the latest copyright is 1981). I beg pardon in advance from any Mormon who decides to answer this question if the passage cited is different from an earlier edition.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

Mormon teaching is that Heavenly Father (God) and his goddess wife produce endless numbers of spirit- children, Adam and Eve and Jesus and his brother, Satan, among them. Adam and Eve were the first to come to Earth. Then, the people on earth needed a savior, so Heavenly Father asked for volunteers among his spirit-children, and Jesus and Satan both said “Send me.” Heavenly Father chose Jesus to come to earth, which made his brother Satan angry, which started a war in heaven. Heavenly Father himself was once a man.

This is from Gospel Principles, an easy-to-read publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, 1988, pp. 15-16, 29. It is a manual of instruction in Mormonism. It says: “. . . Man (including Jesus and Satan) as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body,” quoting founder Joseph Smith.

God had intercourse with Mary and that’s how Jesus came to earth. Mormons dispute this, but that was what Mormonism originally taught. Mormon doctrine has changed through the years since its origination in 1831.

“Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived, and born in the normal and natural course of events . . .” Mormon Doctrine, p. 742, quoted in A Tale of Two Cities, The Mormons - Catholics, Rev. William Taylor, The Little Red Hen, Pocatello, Idaho, p. 20.

Christian? Uh uh.

 

[Jerusha]

No, it is in chapter 11 in the 1830 version:

"11:13 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying:
11:14 Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands, and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.
11:15 And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one, until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes, and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety, and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets that should come. "

2think.org/hundredsheep/bom1830/iiinep.shtml

 

[ParkerD]

It is my understanding that Mormonism denies that God and Christ were one and the same, and that Mormons believe that God took a wife and Christ has a god-like “mother.” This aside (as I could be wrong about the god-like, non-Marian mother), I am fairly certain that Mormonism teaches that Christ is a separate being altogether from God.

That being said, how does this mesh with 3 Nephi 11:14?

This passage obviously equates God the Father as being the same essence and same person as Christ the Son. I know there are a few very devout Mormons on this site, and I would appreciate if one or some could … correct me if I am altogether mistaken on this particular belief of Mormonism.

Thanks!

1 Heart Aquinas,
Thanks for your kind thoughts and question.
There are probably many people who may run across a passage such as that in the Book of Mormon and misunderstand since there are some foundational beliefs that one would need to have clear in their mind about LDS (Mormon) teachings concerning Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and Their roles. They are significantly different than JW beliefs, so it would be well to view Mormonism as nothing similar to the JW religion.

The LDS belief is that Jesus Christ is the same Person as Jehovah, the Great I AM. Jehovah was His name in the pre-mortal world before He came to earth, and was the name used by Him as He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and He or the Holy Ghost gave revelations to all the prophets. So He is the God of Israel. When Jesus told the Jewish leaders that He was “I AM”, and they got so upset, then it is because they realized that He was saying He was Jehovah. “Before Abraham was, I AM.” That is what He told them.

He received the assignment and the glory from God the Father to direct and participate in the creation of this earth and to visit this earth from time to time before His birth, and also to come to this earth and be born of Mary so that He could have an earthly body instead of having only a spirit body, and thus be able to experience the pains and suffering of mortality and be “slain for the sins of the world” and then be resurrected.

So when John wrote in John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.”–then John was writing with an understanding that Christ was Jehovah, the Word who had become “made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”

Christ was the Only Begotten Son of the Father through His birth on this earth through being the Son of Mary also. He was also the First Born Son of the Father in the pre-mortal world where we all lived and where we knew Jehovah as God the Son in that pre-mortal world. He loved us with perfect love there, just as He loved us with perfect love while He served on this earth and while He atoned for our sins during the Passion.

Christ is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is Alpha because He was perfect and was God the Son in the Beginning of the works of Heavenly Father in relation to this Universe and this earth. He is Omega because He will be the Triumphant Savior and Redeemer for eternity and will cast out Satan from this earth, and will Finish the works of Heavenly Father with respect to our salvation in Supreme Triumph over the adversary and over the powers of death and hell.

If you will stop reading here and get out your Bible and read Matthew 21:33-42, and really think about the words “certain householder” in verse 33 realizing that those words are used in the parable to depict the role of God the Father, who planted a vineyard (this earth), and built a tower (the scriptures), and let the vineyard “out to husbandmen” (earthly stewards meaning the Pharisees at that point but also the earlier house of Israel), then sent his servants (the prophets) to receive the fruit of it. The husbandmen rejected the prophets as depicted in verses 35-36. Then the Father sent His Son as depicted in verse 37 saying “They will receive my son.” But instead, the husbandmen plotted to kill the son and “seize on his inheritance.”

That parable shows the role of God the Father as the One who sends His Son into the world, and They are Separate Persons with a like purpose and a like Unity (Oneness) and a like intent or Will. Christ is literally God with Us, who has always been “like unto God” because He has always been perfect as the First Born spirit Son of God.

The role of a Mother in Heaven is not extremely clear in LDS teachings, since it is not contained in any LDS scriptures but is alluded to in some talks and writings by leaders. Some people draw conclusions from those talks and writings, but since they are not scripture those talks and writings may be drawing incomplete or slightly inaccurate conclusions about Her role, including from the beginning of the pre-mortal period when Jehovah was the First Born spirit Son. We don’t know the birth process for a spirit. Prior to being a spirit, there is an individual identity which has been defined as an “Intelligence”, and Christ as Jehovah was the supremely greatest Intelligence from whom God formed spirit sons and daughters.

A Heavenly Mother was a nurturer of the spirit sons and daughters of God the Father, but since Christ was always perfect and always God the Son as a spirit, His need for a nurturer is not clear at all, in my mind. But when you may hear that the LDS believe Jesus is “our Elder Brother”, then you can understand that it is because we believe we are all spirit sons and daughters of God, He being the First Born.

The Oneness of God the Father and God the Son is in their complete Unity, Purpose, and Will since Christ says “Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever.”

 

[Jim_Dandy]

1 Heart Aquinas,

The LDS belief is that Jesus Christ is the same Person as Jehovah, the Great I AM. Jehovah was His name in the pre-mortal world before He came to earth, and was the name used by Him as He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and He or the Holy Ghost gave revelations to all the prophets. So He is the God of Israel. When Jesus told the Jewish leaders that He was “I AM”, and they got so upset, then it is because they realized that He was saying He was Jehovah. “Before Abraham was, I AM.” That is what He told them.

"–then John was writing with an understanding that Christ was Jehovah, the Word who had become “made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”

ParkerD, I’ve edited your post to highlight only the claim that Jesus is Jehovah.

By combining the vowel signs of ‘Adho.nay and ‘Elo.him,’ marked by the Masorettes, with the four consonants of the Tetragrammaton, the pronunciations Yeho.wah’ and Yehowih’ were formed. Yeho.wah’ was the basis for the Latinized form, “Jehova(h).” The first recorded use of the name Jehovah came from a thirteenth century Spanish monk, C.E. Raymundus Martini, a member of the Dominican Order, who used it in his book Pugeo Fidei in the year 1270. But it was a mistake.

Hebrew scholars generally favor “Yahweh” as the most likely pronunciation.
Bruce Metzger, translator of the Revised Standard Version, who criticizes the KJV’s misusage of Jehovah, wrote in the RSV Preface:

*The form “Jehovah” is of late medieval origin; it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it by the Masoretes but belonging to an entirely different word … The word “Jehovah” does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew. The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church. *

The Mormon claim that Heavenly Father is God and Jesus is a separate God and the Spirit is a separate God establishes that Mormons are not monotheists (not to mention that men, too, can be exalted to Godhood and that Heavenly Father was selected as the God of Earth by a Council of Gods). Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic religions. Therefore, Mormonism is not Christian.

Peace be with you, Jim

 

[ParkerD]

ParkerD, I’ve edited your post to highlight only the claim that Jesus is Jehovah.

By combining the vowel signs of ‘Adho.nay and ‘Elo.him,’ marked by the Masorettes, with the four consonants of the Tetragrammaton, the pronunciations Yeho.wah’ and Yehowih’ were formed. Yeho.wah’ was the basis for the Latinized form, “Jehova(h).” The first recorded use of the name Jehovah came from a thirteenth century Spanish monk, C.E. Raymundus Martini, a member of the Dominican Order, who used it in his book Pugeo Fidei in the year 1270. But it was a mistake.

Hebrew scholars generally favor “Yahweh” as the most likely pronunciation.
Bruce Metzger, translator of the Revised Standard Version, who criticizes the KJV’s misusage of Jehovah, wrote in the RSV Preface:

*The form “Jehovah” is of late medieval origin; it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it by the Masoretes but belonging to an entirely different word … The word “Jehovah” does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew. The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church. *

The Mormon claim that Heavenly Father is God and Jesus is a separate God and the Spirit is a separate God establishes that Mormons are not monotheists (not to mention that men, too, can be exalted to Godhood and that Jesus Christ was selected as the God of Earth by a Council of Gods). Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic religions. Therefore, Mormonism is not Christian.

Peace be with you, Jim

Jim Dandy,
I certainly don’t disagree that Judaism at the time of Christ was a monotheistic religion. That is one of the reasons the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus’ message. (I am supposing you know that.) (I also agree that “Jehovah” is a translation of a Jewish word that is pronounced differently as you noted.)

If I have understood correctly, Catholics (at least some Catholics) believe that God the Father is a Separate Person from God the Son, who is a Separate Person from the Holy Ghost. Mormons believe that also, and that They are One just as Christ expressed that They are.

Mormons believe the truthfulness of Paul’s teachings that “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Mormons believe that the world will be judged by “that man whom he hath ordained;” Who is truly the Son of God who came to earth and lived separately from His Father and prayed to His Father as we should.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

Jim Dandy,
I certainly don’t disagree that Judaism at the time of Christ was a monotheistic religion. That is one of the reasons the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus’ message. (I am supposing you know that.) (I also agree that “Jehovah” is a translation of a Jewish word that is pronounced differently as you noted.)

If I have understood correctly, Catholics (at least some Catholics) believe that God the Father is a Separate Person from God the Son, who is a Separate Person from the Holy Ghost. Mormons believe that also, and that They are One just as Christ expressed that They are.

Mormons believe the truthfulness of Paul’s teachings that “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Mormons believe that the world will be judged by “that man whom he hath ordained;” Who is truly the Son of God who came to earth and lived separately from His Father and prayed to His Father as we should.

Hello, ParkerD!

Since the LDS Church teaches that God was once a man – an “exalted man” – just as each and every Mormon male may be “exalted” and become a god exactly like God, it is quite impossible that Mormons believe in the Trinity as Catholics do. Mormons believe that Heavenly Father had spirit children, one of whom was Jesus and another was his brother, Satan. This is stunning to any Christian. The Christian God does not have have spirit children with his goddess wife, and Satan is a fallen angel, not Jesus’ brother.

Trinity is a term used to denote the central doctrine of the Christian religion. God, who is one and unique in his infinite substance or nature, is three really distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The one and only God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet God the Father is not God the Son, but generates the Son eternally, as the Son is eternally begotten. The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but a distinct person having his divine nature from the Father and the Son by eternal procession. The three persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial (having the same substance) and deserve co-equal glory and adoration. (*Modern Catholic Dictionary, John A. Hardon, S.J.) *

It is unthinkable for a Jew or a Catholic to believe that God is a man. “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in Truth” John 4:24 RSV. The KJV also reads, God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." God was not once a man like us. He has existed eternally as Spirit, before he created the universe and everything in it out of nothing. Our God is not one of many gods who came together in the “Council of Gods” and decided who would be the Earth God, as Joseph Smith taught.

The Mormon “Trinity” consists of three distinct Gods: The Father and two of his “spirit children” called the Son and the Holy Ghost. These are united in one “Godhead,” a term implying unity of understanding and purpose (not three persons having the same substance within the One God). By “substance” is meant the same essence, the same reality. Substance is the quality of a thing as it is in itself.

Your Gods are three separate beings; our God is Three Persons in One Being. It’s a great mystery, but God has revealed this about Himself.

Joseph Smith found it necessary to change John 4:24 and following in his “Inspired Revision of the Authorized (King James) Version.” He left out the part that says “God is Spirit.”

Peace be with you, Jim

 

[soren1]

Hello, ParkerD!
Joseph Smith found it necessary to change John 4:24 and following in his “Inspired Revision of the Authorized (King James) Version.” He left out the part that says “God is Spirit.”

Peace be with you, Jim

Smith didn’t leave that verse out, he changed it to “for unto such God hath promised his Spirit.” Even so, Mormon’s don’t overlook this verse. A few years ago, for instance, Pres. Gordon Hinckley attempted an exegesis of this verse in a First Presidency Message, In These Three I Believe, where he says:

*I remember the occasion more than 70 years ago when, as a missionary, I was speaking in an open-air meeting in Hyde Park, London. As I was presenting my message, a heckler interrupted to say, “Why don’t you stay with the doctrine of the Bible which says in John, ‘God is a Spirit’?”

I opened my Bible to the verse he had quoted and read to him the entire verse:

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

I said, “Of course God is a spirit, and so are you in the combination of spirit and body that makes of you a living being, and so am I.”

Each of us is a dual being of spiritual entity and physical entity. All know of the reality of death when the body dies, and each of us also knows that the spirit lives on as an individual entity and that at some time, under the divine plan made possible by the sacrifice of the Son of God, there will be a reunion of spirit and body. Jesus’s declaration that God is a spirit no more denies that He has a body than does the statement that I am a spirit while also having a body.

I do not equate my body with His in its refinement, in its capacity, in its beauty and radiance. His is eternal. Mine is mortal. But that only increases my reverence for Him. I worship Him “in spirit and in truth.” I look to Him as my strength. I pray to Him for wisdom beyond my own. I seek to love Him with all my heart, might, mind, and strength. His wisdom is greater than the wisdom of all men. His power is greater than the power of nature, for He is the Creator Omnipotent. His love is greater than the love of any other, for His love encompasses all of His children, and it is His work and His glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His sons and daughters of all generations (see Moses 1:39).*

This interpretation is, up to a point, defensible from the Greek. The word for Spirit, pneuma is not preceded by an article, and for another reason involving Greek syntax it can (but need not) be interpreted qualitatively rather than substantially. The simple sentence Pneuma ho Theos can be grammatically translated as “God is spiritual.” This would not prove Pres. Hinckley’s dualistic reading, but it could be made to harmonize with it.

Yet even if you can translate it that way, should you? It would be a poor heckler indeed who could not refute Pres. Hinckley’s answer, which indeed ignores the context far more seriously than he claims the heckler did. The discussion in which this sentence is found is about divine omnipresence. The Samaritan woman tries to get Jesus into the debate over whether God should be worshipped in Jerusalem or Mt. Gerazim. Jesus responds by saying that the Samaritans “worship you know not what.” Here is talking about the God’s nature, his what-ness, so to speak. The reason the woman even has to ask where God should be worshipped is because she is thinking of him materialistically, as if God were bound in time and space. By revealing god’s nature as Spirit, Jesus answers her question by dissolving it, undercutting the error that prompted the original question. Because God is Spirit, the answer to her question “Where is God?” is clear from the answer to “What is God?” If we were to take “God is Spirit” as a statement of God’s dual nature, (remembering that spirit is Mormonism is also a material substance, limited in time and space) Jesus’ response would provide no answer to the questions requested in his dialogue with the woman.