Are
Mormons Christians?
A
Land Before Time …
The Story of Mormon Pre-Existence
By Douglas K. Hollen
A long time ago, near the star Kolob, God and his many wives produced spirit children, “All men and women are…literally the sons and daughters of Deity…Man, as a spirit was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the
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eternal mansions of the father
prior to coming upon the Earth in a temporal [physical] body.” (Joseph
F. Smith, The Origin of Man, Improvement Era, Nov.
1909, pp. 78, 80) as recorded in Gospel
Principles pg. 11.
Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints (LDS Church), would call this the 1st Estate.
They would teach that as spirits, we possessed the seed of godhood
and as we grew, we gained knowledge and we served our Father God. We lived with our heavenly parents in a celestial
home, yet, as all good parents, they wanted us to progress to be like
them – to become gods. In order
to do this, we would need to overcome good and evil in the flesh. For this purpose, Earth was created. |
 Joseph Smith |
Satan, also our older brother, was
chosen to tempt us with evil. Yes, the Mormons teach both Jesus Christ and Satan are children
of God and since they also teach we are all spirit children of God and his
wives, then we all are at least half brothers of both Jesus and Satan – same
Father God, different mothers – remember, they also teach God had many wives.
I
digress. The short story I have just told is what the LDS Church teaches as the
origin of man, the reason for our existence and the beginning of the path to
godhood. I find it hard to believe they
are spending millions of dollars to claim to be ‘Christian,’ yet they teach
such clearly non-biblical doctrine.
The Bible clearly teaches Christ is the only begotten son of God – He has no heavenly brothers: “For God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John
Once we have chosen to follow Christ and receive His free gift of salvation through His shed blood on the cross for our sins: ”For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Romans 5:6-10)
Then we are born into His kingdom: I Peter 1:18-23 (v. 18) “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; (v. 19) But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: (v. 20) Who [Christ] verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, (v. 21) Who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. (v. 22) Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: (v. 23) Being born not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
Looking
back to verse 19, it is obvious the ‘Who’ in verse 20 is speaking of Christ,
the ONLY Son of God and refers to Christ, not man in the pre-existence. Since the Bible
would teach Christ is God and is an eternal being, this is an acceptable
doctrine. There is one God, one Son, and
one Spirit and the three are one! And
God is the only one to pre-exist this world.
At that time we are adopted into the family of God as sons: ”That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:7) and “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, than an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:4-7)
The
question is: ”Why would the Bible teach ‘adoption’ if we were already natural sons of God? The answer is simple…it wouldn’t! We are born in sin and adopted into the
family of God by way of the cross, through the blood of the Lamb (Christ).
In
conclusion, this doctrine of the LDS Church serves two purposes: first to de-deify
God and exalt man and second to explain the ‘unexplainable.’ We often see cults trying to ‘fill in the
blanks’ for the many things that people perceive as ‘mysteries’ of the Bible.
Thus, three quick tests of a cult: (1.) How do
they treat God? Do they de-deify Him?
(2.) How do they treat man? Do they
exalt him? (3.) Do they add to or take away from the Scripture? Or, do they take it at face value as the Word
of God?
Witnessing Point
Try to get your Mormon friends to explain
the preexistence/agency. Ask them to
explain how man may become a god (depending on the setting of your conversation
and how many conversations you may have previously had with your friend, these
are not doctrines they always readily admit to, or discuss in their attempt
to look like mainstream Christianity), then show them from the Bible who the one true God really is and
that He is a jealous God with no other gods that have gone before Him and
none will come after Him as He stated in Isaiah
43:10. You can explain that the account of creation in Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created…” There is no discussion of man coming from elsewhere
(the preexistence). There is also no
basis for the idea that God wanted man to exist in a sinful world so that
he could overcome evil through his free will (agency). When God had finished with His creation in Genesis 1:31, the Bible says, “And God saw everything He had made, and behold it was
very good…” Earlier in that same chapter (verse 27) we were reminded that
man was created in God’s image (without sin).
It wasn’t until Adam and Eve made a deliberate choice to sin that they
experienced punishment for sin, separation from God and expulsion from the
Garden of Eden. Prior to that, they
had fellowship with a sinless, holy God in the garden.
Remember,
the key to witnessing to Mormons is simply to get them to commit to a doctrinal
belief then counter with an accurate, in-context response from the Bible. Once you have established the
authority of the Bible, you can lead
them, through the cross, to a new life in Christ (this is often a lengthy
process and rarely happens in a one-time meeting). In order to be effective, you will need to
know God’s Word. Spend 1% of your time
studying what Mormons believe and 99% of your time in the Bible. Remember, I Peter
3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the
hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”
