ANOTHER GOSPEL?

    A number of years ago there was a popular saying that went something like this: "I know you think you understood what you thought I said, but what you heard was not what I meant." We remember smiling in recognition of the problems we have communicating with one another. For decades Protestants and Catholics have faced a serious problem when talking to their LDS friends about Christianity and the Bible. This was especially brought to our attention recently as we read a speech by Theodore M. Burton, a Mormon General Authority. He recounted a conversation he had with a young stewardess while traveling on a plane to New England:

    "She told me that she had recently been converted from her former manner of living and was now 'saved.'... she was now a 'born-again Christian.'... She said, '...I am now on the path of eternal life.'... she said, 'I have felt a marvelous spiritual change come over me which has purged all evil from my soul.'... '...I've had a sanctification experience, not through any work that I or any other person has done for me, but a work of grace whereby Jesus has pardoned my sins and promised me eternal life. I don't need any formal church organization to accomplish this....' She added that she had truly been reborn spiritually. From her words, I knew she did not understand what is meant by being 'born again' nor what is termed the second birth." (The Ensign, (Mormon Church News Monthly Magazine) Sept. 1985, p. 66)

    Later in his speech, Elder Burton observed: "When people of the world speak of being 'saved,' they refer to being saved from death to rise in the resurrection." (p. 68) Burton's comment demonstrates that he did not understand what the young woman was saying. When Christians speak of being 'born again' or 'saved' they are referring to eternal life, not just resurrection. Mormons divide 'saved by grace' and 'eternal life' into separate conditions, Christians do not. Bible verses such as 1 John 5:12-13 and John 3:16-17 portray faith in Christ as the necessary act to receive eternal life. When Christians talk about 'being saved' or 'born again' they understand that to include everlasting life in God's presence. Mormonism, however, teaches one can be resurrected to a part of heaven �?they divide it into three parts �?but still not have eternal life! Latter-day Saints believe the only ones enjoying eternal life will be those who have been both baptized into the LDS Church (born again) and married in one of its temples. Spencer W. Kimball, 12th president and prophet of the LDS Church, taught:

    "Only through celestial marriage can one find the strait way, the narrow path. Eternal life cannot be had in any other way. The Lord was very specific and very definite in the matter of marriage." (Deseret News,  (Mormon Church News Monthly Magazine)  Nov. 12, 1977, Church Section).

    In his speech, Theodore M. Burton maintains salvation by grace is that "which Jesus Christ gives to every person who has lived on the earth, and is independent of the works we do. But to be exalted to eternal life and to be able to live the kind of life that God the Eternal Father lives requires not only the gift of grace that Jesus gives to all mankind through his atonement, but that gift coupled with our own obedience and conformity to all the requirements of righteous living prescribed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Exaltation, or the eternal life Jesus spoke about, comes from a partnership with Jesus Christ, which begins in the ordinance of baptism, by which we are reborn, and is developed through a lifetime of righteous living." (The Ensign, Sept. 1985, p. 68-69) Elder Burton also says this on page 68 of the same article: "Thus, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, together with the proper ordinances performed in the proper manner by proper authority and coupled with obedience to the laws and commandments of God, we can be saved from spiritual death and can be exalted to live in the presence of God the Eternal Father."

    Thus we see how differently Mr. Burton and the stewardess were approaching the words "eternal life." Traditionally, Christians have insisted that God revealed all things necessary for eternal life in the Bible, citing such verses as John 20:30-31: "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." Mormonism, on the other hand, goes far beyond the Bible to the revelations of Joseph Smith for its final word on doctrine.

    The language barrier goes very deep and stems from the fact that Mormons have such a totally different concept of God and humans that it colors all their theological statements. In an official LDS handbook titled,  Achieving a Celestial Marriage,

Mormonism declares its belief in a God who was once a human on another earth, along with his wife, and that they are now resurrected beings who have achieved Godhood:

    "The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that man is an eternal being, made in the image and likeness of God. It also holds that man is a literal child of God and has the potential, if faithful to divine laws and ordinances, of becoming like his heavenly parent.... God is an exalted man who once lived on an earth and underwent experiences of mortality.... The progression of our Father in heaven to godhood, or exaltation, was strictly in accordance with eternal principles,... His marriage partner is our mother in heaven. We are their spirit children, born to them in the bonds of celestial marriage....

    " 'God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man,...' (Smith, Teachings, p. 345.)...

    "Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until He has arrived at the point where He now is (Orson Hyde, JD, 1:123.)"  (Achieving a Celestial Marriage,  1976, page 129).

What Is The JD ?

The Journal of Discourses is a 26 volume compilation of LDS presidents and apostles sermons, covering about 35 years. There were several men who were officially assigned by the LDS Church to record the talks. Volume one of the series contains a letter from the LDS First Presidency (Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards), dated June 1, 1853, authorizing the publishing of the sermons:

    Another LDS manual holds out the hope to faithful LDS that they, too, can one day be Gods over their own earths:

    "Exaltation is eternal life, the kind of life that God lives.... We can become Gods like our Heavenly Father. This is exaltation.... Those who live the commandments of the Lord and receive eternal life (exaltation) in the celestial kingdom... will become gods.... They will have their righteous family members with them and will be able to have spirit children also. These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father. They will be an eternal family."  (Gospel Principles,  Published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1986, pages 289-290)

    Mormonism maintains God and man are the same species and part of an eternal procession of men becoming gods. Included in this concept is an innumerable host of parent-gods, grandparent-gods, etc., extending back into the past. Christianity, on the other hand, sees God as unique, holy, eternally existing as God from all ages past as well as future. Christians have cited such passages as the following to support this belief:

    "... I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

    "I, even I, am the Lord and besides me there is no saviour." (Isaiah 43:10-11)

    "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Numbers, 23:19)

    Writing in Galatians 1:8, the Apostle Paul declared: "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." The reader will remember that in our lead article we quoted President Joseph F. Smith as claiming that "an angel of God, with a drawn sword, stood before him [Joseph Smith] and commanded that he should enter into the practice of that principle [i.e., polygamy], or he should be utterly destroyed, or rejected." Joseph Smith also told this same story to Mrs. Lightner when he tried to persuade her to enter into the practice. While it is possible that Joseph Smith made up this story just to talk young women into going into plural marriage, Paul's warning in Galatians would lead us to conclude that if such "an angel" did, in fact, appear with "a drawn sword" in hand it would have to be from the wrong source. Paul also warns that "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14)

    While the present Mormon leaders have given up the idea that exaltation comes from plural marriage, as we have already shown, they still maintain that "Eternal life cannot be had any other way" than through celestial marriage in a Mormon temple. In other words, they still cling to the same revelation which Joseph Smith gave to establish polygamy  (Doctrine and Covenants,  Section 132. 

 This is clearly some "other gospel" than what we find in the Bible. Jesus Himself proclaimed that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:15) Moreover, the Apostle John declared: "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." (1 John 5:13)

Tanner's Records***

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