The murder of Mormons at the hand of a man on Sunday, September 28 was a horrific event. It horrifies me to consider what these people went through during this attack.
The bravery of members within the congregation is laudable. People were shielding children from gunfire using their own bodies. The whole thing is gut wrenching.
As a pastor, I have been in many church services. I hope and pray that our church never goes through something like this. But I hope that I would act with that kind of courage if it does.
So I am filled with grief over this event.
At the same time, however, Mike Lee has decided to talk about Mormons being Christian in the wake of this tragedy. To be fair, I believe this came out of some exchanges on Twitter. I like the Senator from Utah. Our values align quite often. But Mormons truly are a different religion. And to claim that they are not is a dangerous thing.
Here is one of the many posts he made on this topic.
He is not lying here when he states that he believes that he is a Christian. Neither is he lying when he states that he believes that he believes in Jesus. It’s just that the Mormon Jesus is not the Jesus that lived in history. The Mormon Jesus is a figment of their imagination.
An Era of Heresy
A lot was happening in America when Mormonism was created. From around 1833’s through 1870’s there was a dissatisfaction with the status quo that birthed The Church of Christ, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons. And if we extend this time period out to 1910, the Pentecostal movement is included.
This was the time of the Restoration Movement. The Church of Christ, with its Pelagian views was created by Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone in an attempt to restore “true Christianity”. They began in the early 1800’s and formalized in 1833. Jehovah’s Witnesses, with its modern day Arian views, were created by Charles Taze Russel in the 1870’s with his Bible Study Societies. They formalized in the 1880’s. They also believed themselves to be restoring “true Christianity”. And in the 1830’s, there was the founding of Mormonism by Joseph Smith. And guess what, they also claimed to be restoring “true Christianity”.
I’m only going to discuss one problem. That’s important for me to say because there are a lot of them. As I’ve already mentioned, The Church of Christ is thoroughly Pelagian in their thoughts on humanity. That’s a major problem and heresy from long ago. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in the Trinity. They are essentially modern day Arians, another heresy from the early days of Christianity. And Mormons are, well, a lot of things. But I’d argue that they are essentially polytheistic in their belief system. Because of this they can’t be considered Christian in any real sense of the word. And on top of that, they don’t believe in the Jesus of Scripture.
Much like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons have their own authoritative material. I will not discuss the strange occurrence of it coming to be, or even Joseph Smith. My goal here is to simply show that their beliefs lie well outside of Christianity. I am writing to prove to you that they believe in a different Jesus.
Mormons Are Polytheists
Christians have believed that God is Triune since its beginning. The Doctrine of the Trinity, though difficult to comprehend, has been understood to be non-negotiable.
God is one being or essence and that there are three persons in the one being or essence of God. This is possible because God is spirit and does not exist as we do. There are not more gods than one. Christians have always been monotheists.
The Church has confessed this for thousands of years and it was formally put into the Athanasian Creed since around the year 500.
That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
It is not so with the Mormon. They do not believe God’s of one essence. They believe that God is three distinct persons. They believe that the Father and Son exist differently than the Spirit.
This is from their website. “Doctrine and Covenants 130:22.
“22 The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.”
So, in the Mormon view, God is not of one essence and being. As different as that is, Mormons hold to an eternal progression of gods.
On the Mormon’s own website we read this,
In the sermon, Joseph taught about divine nature and eternal progression. He countered the long-standing theological tradition that treated God as wholly different than humanity. He explained that “if men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend themselves.”3 He taught that God “was once as one of us” and that “all the spirits that God ever sent into the world” were “susceptible of enlargement,” having the capacity to become like God in the eternities.4Joseph also taught that a core part of each person is coeternal with God, comparing this divine core to a ring, without beginning or end.
The idea is that God was not always God. They believe God was once a human, like us. And that there are many “gods” that have gone through this same process. As is stated later I. That same article,
Since 1844, the Church has continued to teach the core doctrines that Joseph presented in the King Follett discourse and to view the plan of salvation in light of the truths Joseph Smith taught about humankind’s premortal existence, mortal experience, and divine eternal potential.
I want to mention here that I am not pulling these things from non-Mormon sources. All these citations are from the Latter Day Saints own material. Click on the link above and see it for yourself.
They Don’t Believe in Jesus
Sure, they say they believe in Jesus, but the Jesus they believe in is not the Jesus Christian’s believe in. This is not Jesus, who is revealed to us in the pages of Scripture and that then church has confessed for thousands of years.
Mike Lee said in the post above, that Mormons believe in Jesus and that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, that Jesus is the Creator. To that we would agree. And if that’s all Mormons had to say, there would be nothing to say on this. But Mike Lee and any other Mormon does not believe that God the Son is one essence or being with the Father.
Think about what was said above. If Mormons believe the Father and Son have physical bodies and are not of the same essence, then they do not believe in the same Jesus that is confessed in the pages of the Bible and has been confessed by the Church for over 2,000 years.
As Jesus Himself said,
“I and the Father are one.””
John 10:30 ESV
And everyone that heard this phrase understood what Jesus meant. He wasn’t saying that He was separate from the Father and hoped to one day achieve His likeness. He and the Father were already one and have always been one. So they tried to kill Jesus.
“The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.””
John 10:31-33 ESV
The Jews believed Jesus to be committing blasphemy for claiming to be God…not a god…but God.
Mormons believe Jesus to be a separate being and not God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity. And again, this is a belief that lies well outside of Christianity.
Why Do I Care?
Why does it matter what Mormons believe about Jesus?
It matters because they deceive people into believing in something else. They pull people away from the only message that can save. They pull people into Hell itself, so of course it’s something worth talking about.
Who we believe Jesus to be matters. As Jesus said,
“I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.””
John 8:24 ESV
Jesus is Yahweh, God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity who laid down His life for our sins.
And those who believe something else about Jesus, no matter how well intended, will die in their sins.
Leave a Reply