grape_nephi
9th November 2006, 10:17 AM
I have been working on a book over the past couple of years dealing with the Articles of Faith. The following is on the First Article. If there is interest I will also post the introduction and the other chapters.
<b>1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.</b>
At first glance Christians may look at the 1st article and say "it appears that Mormons believe in the same trinity that I do”. However, the Godhead of Mormonism is not the same as that of the Bible, or even of the Book of Mormon, one of the scriptures of the Mormon church. This section is written from the perspective of Modern Christianity. Mormons may state that they are a restoration of the primitive Christian church but this will be discussed later. What helps in understanding Mormonism is to see how it differs from mainstream Christianity.
One of the earliest official statements by Christians on the godhead is given in the Nicene Creed. The creed was written and canonized during the 4th Century. The creed is as follows:
“We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Even earlier than the Nicene Creed is the writing of Clement of Rome. Clement was the fourth Bishop of Rome and wrote an epistle to the Corinthians at the very end of the first century. Chapters 46 and 58 have some of the earliest references to the trinity. In chapter 58, Clement states:
“. . . As surely as God lives, as Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Ghost also (on whom are set the faith and hope of God’s elect, . . .” (Early Christian Writings, p 47)
The primary difference between Mormon and Christian belief in the trinity is the Mormon belief that the trinity is three gods and not one; a triad and not a trinity. Multiplicity of gods is a key element in Mormonism.
In the Journal of Discourses Vol 6 Page 4 (1844) Joseph Smith stated "you have to learn to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, - namely, by going from one small degree to another". The Bible teaches that there is only one God and that God is a spirit. The Book of Mormon also teaches this. The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon states in Alma 22:8-11:
22:8 And now when Aaron heard this, his heart began to rejoice, and he saith, Behold, assuredly, as thou livest, O king, there is a God.
22:9 And the king saith, Is God that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem?
22:10 And Aaron said unto him, Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he created all things, both in Heaven and in earth: believest thou this?
22:11 --And he saith Yea, I believe that the Great Spirit created all things, and I desire that ye should tell me concerning all these things, and I will believe thy words.
Even though the Bible and the Mormon’s own scripture, the Book of Mormon, states that God is a spirit, by 1840 Joseph Smith is beginning to teach that God the Father has a body:
“The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also;” (Doctrine & Covenants: Section 130:22)
Joseph Smith’s conception of the godhead changed over time. However, if one is to believe the veracity of the First Vision account, Smith’s description of the godhead should have remained constant. Twenty years after his supposed first vision (where he was said to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ), in the Lectures on Faith he stated the following about God the Father:
“the Father being a personage of spirit, glory, and power, possessing all perfection and fullness”.
A personage of spirit, not a man; no body. This agrees with the definitions out of the Book of Mormon, which also agrees with the Bible. If Smith had seen God the Father with a body he would have taught this in the Lectures on Faith. Another problem with the first vision account is the multiplicity of different versions that exist. The latest version of the first vision account is what the Mormon Church uses today. Prior accounts indicated varying reasons why Smith went to pray and reported differing numbers and types of visiting personages. As stated earlier, if the first vision actually occurred the story would not have changed; the nature of God would have been consistent and unchanging.
During the fourth century CE the Christian church held a number of councils that discussed the nature of God and Christ. These councils were trying to address a number of heresies. One of these was Arianism which taught that Christ was less than God. Another was Nestorianism which made God two persons, that is God as human and God as divine. Nestorianism also taught that Mary was not the mother of God but only the mother of the “human” Jesus. It was at this time that the definition of the Trinity was formalized.
Another facet of Mormonism is the way in which Mary conceived Jesus, resulting in the Virgin Birth. Mormon Doctrine teaches that God, because he has a body of flesh and bones, actually had intercourse with Mary to impregnate her and cause the birth of Jesus. Mary was betrothed to Joseph. I do not recall in any scripture, Christian or Mormon, that indicates that God and Mary were married. Would not this be at the least fornication on God's part? And if we are children of God couldn’t this also be viewed as incest? Brigham Young (second Prophet of the Mormon Church) stated "Jesus our Elder Brother was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven." (Journal of Discourses Vol 1, page 51, 1852). This also shows the belief by Brigham Young, second prophet of the Mormon Church, that Adam was God. Bruce R. McConkie, who was a member of the First Council of the Seventy (later a Mormon Apostle) stated,"Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers," (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, page 547.)
To fully understand the conception of Jesus, we must look not only to the New but to the Old Testament. To understand the conception I will analyze Luke 1:31-35:
Lu:1:31: And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
Lu:1:32: He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
Lu:1:33: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Lu:1:34: Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
Lu:1:35: And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The key to understanding is with the italicized words. The first is come upon. The meaning of this from the original is “to supervene : i.e. arrive, occur, (fig.) Influence (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, 1904). This term is not used in the Biblical sense of a man knowing a woman, but only in the sense of approaching unto. The next word is overshadow. This comes from the Greek word episkiazo which means to cast a shade upon or envelope in a haze of brilliancy. It may also mean to invest with preternatural influence. The same word occurs four other times in the New Testament (Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:34, Acts 5:15). In Acts 5:15 the word is used to describe the act of Peter’s shadow overshadowing sick people on the street. Using these examples we may easily see that the Holy Spirit “cast a shade” or worked a miracle upon Mary. The Angel Gabriel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would approach her and overshadow her and that she would conceive without knowing a man. The language that the Angel would have used would have been that spoken by Mary (Miriam in Hebrew), which would have been Hebrew or Aramaic. In these languages the word for Spirit (ruah) is feminine. In Genesis 1:2 it reads “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” In this verse both the noun, Spirit (ruah), and the verb, moved (merachaphot), are feminine in the Hebrew. Mary would have known that this feminine Presence of the divine would by the Power of the Highest cause her to miraculously be with child. There would be no thought in her mind that the Holy Spirit was masculine. In reading the account of the virgin birth there is no indication that anything external was to be placed within her. Mary herself conceived. It was a miracle.
The Bible and the Book of Mormon concur on this. This is also confirmed in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 verse 18 and in the Book of Mormon in 1st Nephi 11:18-19 (1830 Edition).
Matthew 1:18: Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
1st Nephi 11:18 And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of flesh.
1st Nephi 11:19 And it came to pass I beheld that she was carried away in the spirit; and after that she had been carried away in the spirit for the space of time, the angel spake unto me, saying,
look!
1st Nephi 11:20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
1st Nephi 11:21 And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father!
As stated previously, the nature of God is a fundamental difference between Mormonism and Christianity. The Mormon God is an anthropomorphized monarchic deity. The act of making God man removes the infinite from his character. God should be the answer to man’s finitude. He should not be the prime example of finitude. As a youth in the Mormon Church I was taught that as man is God once was. This removes God from the realm of the divine and reduces him to the level of the profane or secular. “Many confusions in the doctrine of God and many apologetic weaknesses could be avoided if God were understood first of all as being-itself or as the ground of being.”
“The usual theological motif of the kingdom of God became in early Mormonism a dominant symbol which influenced the growth of belief in a multitude of kingdoms. It was not a single reality , but an ever arching frame enclosing smaller and subsidiary kingdoms. In other words, there was no total and complete identification of the kingdom of God with the awaited kingdom of Christ.”
The Mormon kingdom of God motif conceptualizes the systematic theological idea of the monarchic God. A god who sits at the pinnacle of a hierarchy of divine beings. In speaking of the Welsh Mormons and the views on Mormonism in the United Kingdom Douglas Davies states “ Some of these would have been strange to the ears of mainline churches. Jesus Christ, for example, is said to be “one and the same person” as Jehovah. The one being the New Testament equivalent of the other in the Old Testament, (1914:8). There is little justification offered for assertions like this, they are simply made rather than argued. The interesting aspect of that particular identification lies in the aligning of New Testament with Old. Whereas most orthodox believers interpret Christ as the incarnate Son who advances the divine work into the future, this Mormon reworking of doctrine regresses the Christ into such a close association with the God of the Old Testament as to merge their identity. But there is an additional subtlety within Mormon theology which alters the apparent meaning of this linkage. For God who has dealings with mankind in the Old Testament was thought by some, and notably by Brigham Young, to be none other than Adam. So to link the Christ with both Jehovah and Adam left opportunity for a higher and less involved God. But Mormons differ much over interpretation of deity, especially in the later nineteenth century. To a large extent it was a problem of bringing systematic order to a large and mixed body of vaguer sayings of Joseph Smith and other leaders.”
This teaching that Jesus is one and the same as Jehovah is central to Mormonism. However, this doctrine is not substantiated by the Bible. The Hebrew word for God is Elohim. Jehovah means Lord. Isaiah 43:14 states:
“Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], the King of Israel, Their Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no god [elohim] but Me... I foretold you and you are My witnesses. Is there any god [elohim], then but Me?”
This points to the fact that Elohim and Jehovah are the same individual. An even more telling example of this is from Deuteronomy 6:4:
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord [Jehovah] is our God [Elohim], the Lord [Jehovah] alone.”
The term “Lord God” [Jehovah Elohim] is used throughout the Old Testament and shows that these terms are interchangeable. They do not indicate two different beings or personages. This verse from Deuteronomy is an oft quoted verse and is known as the “shema” or the observation. This verse is a foundation for Judaism as it proclaims the monotheistic belief of the Jews. Jesus, as reported in Mark 12:28-34, when asked what the greatest commandment was, quoted this scripture in Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Here we see an example of scripture interpreting scripture and Jesus using the same terms Lord and God as referring to the same individual.
Another difference in the nature of God is shown in the creation story. Mormon teachings about the creation, specifically from the Mormon temple ritual, teach that God used pre-existing matter to create the earth. The following is from the Mormon Temple ritual:
THE CREATION--FIRST DAY
ELOHIM: Jehovah, Michael, see: yonder is matter unorganized, go ye down
and organize it into a world like unto the worlds that we have hereunto
formed. Call your labors the First Day, and bring me word.
JEHOVAH: It shall be done Elohim. Come Michael, let us go down.
MICHAEL: We will go down, Jehovah.
JEHOVAH: Michael, see: here is matter unorganized. We will organize it
into a world like unto worlds that we have heretofore formed. We will
call our labors the First Day, and return and report.
MICHAEL: We will return and report our labors on the First Day, Jehovah.
JEHOVAH: Elohim, we have been down as thou hast commanded, and have
organized a world like unto the worlds that we have heretofore formed,
and we have called out labors the First Day.
ELOHIM: It is well.
This harkens back to Gnostic teachings and to some early Christian writers such as Theophilus of Antioch and Justin Martyr. These early writers believed that pre-existent matter (in the manner of the Greek Platonists) was used to create the earth and that the earth was not created ex nihilo (out of nothing). Early church opposition to Gnostic beliefs (that the God who created the earth was a lesser being, typically called the demi-urge and that pre-existing matter was used in the creation process) forced a consideration and discussion on the topic. Early Christian writers such as Tertullian (2nd to 3rd century) wrote that the creation was good and did not inherently arise from the nature of pre-existant matter. By the 4th century Christian theologians stated that God created the spiritual and natural worlds and by the council of Florence (1442) it was established that the Earth was created ex nihilo.
The idea of creation from something pre-existent allows for the introduction of evil into the world from an outside source. Creation ex nihilo puts full control of the world with God and places him before it. It removes the question of where did the matter come from if God did not create it. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being” (John 1:1-3). Reducing God to one who simply organized matter again removes God from the divine and sets him with the mundane. Christian theology acknowledges God as God. That all comes out of him and nothing was made or existed prior to his creating it. All was initially created good and it was only through the disobedience of Adam that a taint came upon the goodness of creation. The Biblical emphasis upon the goodness of creation (refer to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament) shows us that sin is and was not present in God’s design and did not enter in from pre-existing matter but from the sin of Adam.
<b>1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.</b>
At first glance Christians may look at the 1st article and say "it appears that Mormons believe in the same trinity that I do”. However, the Godhead of Mormonism is not the same as that of the Bible, or even of the Book of Mormon, one of the scriptures of the Mormon church. This section is written from the perspective of Modern Christianity. Mormons may state that they are a restoration of the primitive Christian church but this will be discussed later. What helps in understanding Mormonism is to see how it differs from mainstream Christianity.
One of the earliest official statements by Christians on the godhead is given in the Nicene Creed. The creed was written and canonized during the 4th Century. The creed is as follows:
“We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Even earlier than the Nicene Creed is the writing of Clement of Rome. Clement was the fourth Bishop of Rome and wrote an epistle to the Corinthians at the very end of the first century. Chapters 46 and 58 have some of the earliest references to the trinity. In chapter 58, Clement states:
“. . . As surely as God lives, as Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Ghost also (on whom are set the faith and hope of God’s elect, . . .” (Early Christian Writings, p 47)
The primary difference between Mormon and Christian belief in the trinity is the Mormon belief that the trinity is three gods and not one; a triad and not a trinity. Multiplicity of gods is a key element in Mormonism.
In the Journal of Discourses Vol 6 Page 4 (1844) Joseph Smith stated "you have to learn to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, - namely, by going from one small degree to another". The Bible teaches that there is only one God and that God is a spirit. The Book of Mormon also teaches this. The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon states in Alma 22:8-11:
22:8 And now when Aaron heard this, his heart began to rejoice, and he saith, Behold, assuredly, as thou livest, O king, there is a God.
22:9 And the king saith, Is God that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem?
22:10 And Aaron said unto him, Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he created all things, both in Heaven and in earth: believest thou this?
22:11 --And he saith Yea, I believe that the Great Spirit created all things, and I desire that ye should tell me concerning all these things, and I will believe thy words.
Even though the Bible and the Mormon’s own scripture, the Book of Mormon, states that God is a spirit, by 1840 Joseph Smith is beginning to teach that God the Father has a body:
“The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also;” (Doctrine & Covenants: Section 130:22)
Joseph Smith’s conception of the godhead changed over time. However, if one is to believe the veracity of the First Vision account, Smith’s description of the godhead should have remained constant. Twenty years after his supposed first vision (where he was said to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ), in the Lectures on Faith he stated the following about God the Father:
“the Father being a personage of spirit, glory, and power, possessing all perfection and fullness”.
A personage of spirit, not a man; no body. This agrees with the definitions out of the Book of Mormon, which also agrees with the Bible. If Smith had seen God the Father with a body he would have taught this in the Lectures on Faith. Another problem with the first vision account is the multiplicity of different versions that exist. The latest version of the first vision account is what the Mormon Church uses today. Prior accounts indicated varying reasons why Smith went to pray and reported differing numbers and types of visiting personages. As stated earlier, if the first vision actually occurred the story would not have changed; the nature of God would have been consistent and unchanging.
During the fourth century CE the Christian church held a number of councils that discussed the nature of God and Christ. These councils were trying to address a number of heresies. One of these was Arianism which taught that Christ was less than God. Another was Nestorianism which made God two persons, that is God as human and God as divine. Nestorianism also taught that Mary was not the mother of God but only the mother of the “human” Jesus. It was at this time that the definition of the Trinity was formalized.
Another facet of Mormonism is the way in which Mary conceived Jesus, resulting in the Virgin Birth. Mormon Doctrine teaches that God, because he has a body of flesh and bones, actually had intercourse with Mary to impregnate her and cause the birth of Jesus. Mary was betrothed to Joseph. I do not recall in any scripture, Christian or Mormon, that indicates that God and Mary were married. Would not this be at the least fornication on God's part? And if we are children of God couldn’t this also be viewed as incest? Brigham Young (second Prophet of the Mormon Church) stated "Jesus our Elder Brother was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven." (Journal of Discourses Vol 1, page 51, 1852). This also shows the belief by Brigham Young, second prophet of the Mormon Church, that Adam was God. Bruce R. McConkie, who was a member of the First Council of the Seventy (later a Mormon Apostle) stated,"Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers," (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, page 547.)
To fully understand the conception of Jesus, we must look not only to the New but to the Old Testament. To understand the conception I will analyze Luke 1:31-35:
Lu:1:31: And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
Lu:1:32: He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
Lu:1:33: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Lu:1:34: Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
Lu:1:35: And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The key to understanding is with the italicized words. The first is come upon. The meaning of this from the original is “to supervene : i.e. arrive, occur, (fig.) Influence (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, 1904). This term is not used in the Biblical sense of a man knowing a woman, but only in the sense of approaching unto. The next word is overshadow. This comes from the Greek word episkiazo which means to cast a shade upon or envelope in a haze of brilliancy. It may also mean to invest with preternatural influence. The same word occurs four other times in the New Testament (Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:34, Acts 5:15). In Acts 5:15 the word is used to describe the act of Peter’s shadow overshadowing sick people on the street. Using these examples we may easily see that the Holy Spirit “cast a shade” or worked a miracle upon Mary. The Angel Gabriel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would approach her and overshadow her and that she would conceive without knowing a man. The language that the Angel would have used would have been that spoken by Mary (Miriam in Hebrew), which would have been Hebrew or Aramaic. In these languages the word for Spirit (ruah) is feminine. In Genesis 1:2 it reads “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” In this verse both the noun, Spirit (ruah), and the verb, moved (merachaphot), are feminine in the Hebrew. Mary would have known that this feminine Presence of the divine would by the Power of the Highest cause her to miraculously be with child. There would be no thought in her mind that the Holy Spirit was masculine. In reading the account of the virgin birth there is no indication that anything external was to be placed within her. Mary herself conceived. It was a miracle.
The Bible and the Book of Mormon concur on this. This is also confirmed in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 verse 18 and in the Book of Mormon in 1st Nephi 11:18-19 (1830 Edition).
Matthew 1:18: Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
1st Nephi 11:18 And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of flesh.
1st Nephi 11:19 And it came to pass I beheld that she was carried away in the spirit; and after that she had been carried away in the spirit for the space of time, the angel spake unto me, saying,
look!
1st Nephi 11:20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
1st Nephi 11:21 And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father!
As stated previously, the nature of God is a fundamental difference between Mormonism and Christianity. The Mormon God is an anthropomorphized monarchic deity. The act of making God man removes the infinite from his character. God should be the answer to man’s finitude. He should not be the prime example of finitude. As a youth in the Mormon Church I was taught that as man is God once was. This removes God from the realm of the divine and reduces him to the level of the profane or secular. “Many confusions in the doctrine of God and many apologetic weaknesses could be avoided if God were understood first of all as being-itself or as the ground of being.”
“The usual theological motif of the kingdom of God became in early Mormonism a dominant symbol which influenced the growth of belief in a multitude of kingdoms. It was not a single reality , but an ever arching frame enclosing smaller and subsidiary kingdoms. In other words, there was no total and complete identification of the kingdom of God with the awaited kingdom of Christ.”
The Mormon kingdom of God motif conceptualizes the systematic theological idea of the monarchic God. A god who sits at the pinnacle of a hierarchy of divine beings. In speaking of the Welsh Mormons and the views on Mormonism in the United Kingdom Douglas Davies states “ Some of these would have been strange to the ears of mainline churches. Jesus Christ, for example, is said to be “one and the same person” as Jehovah. The one being the New Testament equivalent of the other in the Old Testament, (1914:8). There is little justification offered for assertions like this, they are simply made rather than argued. The interesting aspect of that particular identification lies in the aligning of New Testament with Old. Whereas most orthodox believers interpret Christ as the incarnate Son who advances the divine work into the future, this Mormon reworking of doctrine regresses the Christ into such a close association with the God of the Old Testament as to merge their identity. But there is an additional subtlety within Mormon theology which alters the apparent meaning of this linkage. For God who has dealings with mankind in the Old Testament was thought by some, and notably by Brigham Young, to be none other than Adam. So to link the Christ with both Jehovah and Adam left opportunity for a higher and less involved God. But Mormons differ much over interpretation of deity, especially in the later nineteenth century. To a large extent it was a problem of bringing systematic order to a large and mixed body of vaguer sayings of Joseph Smith and other leaders.”
This teaching that Jesus is one and the same as Jehovah is central to Mormonism. However, this doctrine is not substantiated by the Bible. The Hebrew word for God is Elohim. Jehovah means Lord. Isaiah 43:14 states:
“Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], the King of Israel, Their Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no god [elohim] but Me... I foretold you and you are My witnesses. Is there any god [elohim], then but Me?”
This points to the fact that Elohim and Jehovah are the same individual. An even more telling example of this is from Deuteronomy 6:4:
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord [Jehovah] is our God [Elohim], the Lord [Jehovah] alone.”
The term “Lord God” [Jehovah Elohim] is used throughout the Old Testament and shows that these terms are interchangeable. They do not indicate two different beings or personages. This verse from Deuteronomy is an oft quoted verse and is known as the “shema” or the observation. This verse is a foundation for Judaism as it proclaims the monotheistic belief of the Jews. Jesus, as reported in Mark 12:28-34, when asked what the greatest commandment was, quoted this scripture in Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Here we see an example of scripture interpreting scripture and Jesus using the same terms Lord and God as referring to the same individual.
Another difference in the nature of God is shown in the creation story. Mormon teachings about the creation, specifically from the Mormon temple ritual, teach that God used pre-existing matter to create the earth. The following is from the Mormon Temple ritual:
THE CREATION--FIRST DAY
ELOHIM: Jehovah, Michael, see: yonder is matter unorganized, go ye down
and organize it into a world like unto the worlds that we have hereunto
formed. Call your labors the First Day, and bring me word.
JEHOVAH: It shall be done Elohim. Come Michael, let us go down.
MICHAEL: We will go down, Jehovah.
JEHOVAH: Michael, see: here is matter unorganized. We will organize it
into a world like unto worlds that we have heretofore formed. We will
call our labors the First Day, and return and report.
MICHAEL: We will return and report our labors on the First Day, Jehovah.
JEHOVAH: Elohim, we have been down as thou hast commanded, and have
organized a world like unto the worlds that we have heretofore formed,
and we have called out labors the First Day.
ELOHIM: It is well.
This harkens back to Gnostic teachings and to some early Christian writers such as Theophilus of Antioch and Justin Martyr. These early writers believed that pre-existent matter (in the manner of the Greek Platonists) was used to create the earth and that the earth was not created ex nihilo (out of nothing). Early church opposition to Gnostic beliefs (that the God who created the earth was a lesser being, typically called the demi-urge and that pre-existing matter was used in the creation process) forced a consideration and discussion on the topic. Early Christian writers such as Tertullian (2nd to 3rd century) wrote that the creation was good and did not inherently arise from the nature of pre-existant matter. By the 4th century Christian theologians stated that God created the spiritual and natural worlds and by the council of Florence (1442) it was established that the Earth was created ex nihilo.
The idea of creation from something pre-existent allows for the introduction of evil into the world from an outside source. Creation ex nihilo puts full control of the world with God and places him before it. It removes the question of where did the matter come from if God did not create it. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being” (John 1:1-3). Reducing God to one who simply organized matter again removes God from the divine and sets him with the mundane. Christian theology acknowledges God as God. That all comes out of him and nothing was made or existed prior to his creating it. All was initially created good and it was only through the disobedience of Adam that a taint came upon the goodness of creation. The Biblical emphasis upon the goodness of creation (refer to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament) shows us that sin is and was not present in God’s design and did not enter in from pre-existing matter but from the sin of Adam.