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APOLOGETICS |
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The Pre-Mortal Christ of Mormonism
By
Marvin W. Cowan |
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In
a previous article we compared the Mormon Jesus to the
Biblical Jesus and showed that Mormonism teaches many
things about "Jesus" that cannot be found in the Bible.
When an LDS missionary told me that he was a Christian
and that he believed Jesus Christ is the Son of God and
his Savior I asked, "Is the Jesus you believe in the
literal spirit son of God the Father and a
Heavenly Mother in a pre-mortal spirit world?" He
replied, "Yes."
So, I asked if that Jesus was
literally the spirit brother of Lucifer and
all other spirits born to the Heavenly Father and
Mother in the pre-mortal spirit world and who
were later born on earth with physical bodies. He again
answered, "Yes."
Then, I asked if that Jesus
became a god by obeying all of the same laws and
ordinances of the gospel by which he and other Mormons
can ultimately become gods. He again said, "Yes."
I assured him that I didn’t question his
sincerity or his right to believe anything he wanted to
about "Jesus." But I also told him that the Jesus he had
described was not the Jesus of the Bible and that it was
the Jesus of the Bible who declared, "I am the
way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto
the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).
He insisted that there is only one Jesus.
So, I asked him to read 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 where the
apostle Paul told the Corinthian Church that he was
afraid they would be deceived just like Eve was
deceived by Satan if someone came to them
preaching another Jesus or another spirit
or another gospel because they would tolerate it
or even accept it. That context shows that accepting
a different Jesus may lead to accepting a
different spirit and a different gospel. And Paul
made it very clear in Galatians 1:7-8 that those who
accept or teach a different gospel are accursed.
The LDS missionary’s answers above
weren’t just his own ideas, they are LDS doctrine as the
following quotations show:
God the
Eternal Father, our Father in Heaven, is an
exalted, perfected, and glorified Personage having a
tangible body of flesh and bones (Doctrine and
Covenants [D. & C.] 130:22). The designation
Father is to be taken literally; it signifies that
the Supreme Being is the literal Parent or Father of
the spirits of all men (Heb. 12:9). All men, Christ
included, were born as His children in
pre-existence [pre-mortal life] (D. & C. 93:21-23;
Moses 1; 2; 3; 4; Abraham 3:22-28). This is the reason
men are commanded to approach Deity in prayer by
saying, "Our Father which art in heaven." (Mormon
Doctrine, p. 278, by LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie)
Under the direction of the LDS General
Authorities, Milton R. Hunter of the LDS First Council
of the Seventy wrote The Gospel Through the Ages.
It says,
The holy
(LDS) scriptures give an account of a great council
which was held in the spirit world before man
was placed on the earth. This meeting, known as the
Council in Heaven, was presided over by God our
Eternal Father; and those in attendance were His sons
and daughters … The principal purposes of the
great gathering were to consider carefully the problem
of the eternal progression of man and to present to
the assembled throng the "Great Plan of Salvation."
The law of growth or progression is one of the eternal
laws of life. All other laws contribute to it. Our
Eternal Father has attained His position of
exaltation and Godhood by obedience to the great
law of progression… God the Eternal Father,
who was the supreme intelligence at the great council,
being more intelligent and more powerful than all the
rest of the group combined, desired that His
spirit-children should attain the same degree of glory
that was then His… Our Heavenly Father proposed as
the center of the plan of salvation that one of His
sons be appointed to be the Savior of the
world… Only in and through His name could men be
brought back into the presence of their Heavenly
Parents… In that assembled throng there was "one
like unto God." This glorious personage volunteered to
be the Savior of the world, humbly declaring "Father,
Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever."
Thereupon the Father accepted His offer and
foreordained Him to this great mission. This
individual, while acting as the mediator, was none
other than Jehovah of the Old Testament, and
when He lived in mortality He was Jesus Christ of
the New Testament. Michael the archangel,
commonly known to us as Adam, was appointed to be
the first mortal man; and Eve, a spirit of comparable
brilliance and faithfulness, was assigned to be his
helpmate—the "mother of all mortals." Abraham,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joseph Smith and others of the holy
prophets were foreordained to positions of leadership
in their respective dispensations, and Mary was chosen
to be the mother of the Son of God… The appointment
of Jesus to be the Savior of the world was contested
by one of the other sons of God. He was called
Lucifer, son of the morning. Haughty, ambitious, and
covetous of power and glory, this spirit-brother of
Jesus desperately tried to become the Savior of
mankind. (The Gospel Through the Ages, pp.
12-15).
Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie said,
Christ… is
the Firstborn of the Father. By obedience and devotion
to the truth He attained that pinnacle of
intelligence which ranked him as a God, as the
Lord Omnipotent, while yet in His pre-existent
state [pre-mortal life] (Mormon Doctrine,
p. 129).
LDS scripture declares that those who
fail to get married for all eternity (in an LDS temple)
"are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever."
It also says that those who marry a spouse "by my word
which is my law, and by the new and everlasting
covenant… Then shall they be gods" (D. & C.
132:17-20). According to LDS doctrine, Christ had to
have been married (by the power of the LDS priesthood in
a Mormon temple) in His pre-mortal life or He couldn’t
have become a God as Mormonism says He did (see
Mormon Doctrine, p. 482). Such doctrines are not
found in the Bible and are just plain heresy to Bible
believing Christians.
For those who would like to read more on
this subject from a Christian perspective, we suggest
The Trinity by Edward Henry Bickersteth, published
by Kregel Publications of Grand Rapids in 1963. Our next
article will discuss the LDS view of Christ on this
earth.
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Copyright 2006, Ankerberg Theological Research Institute |
