Are Mormons Christians?

The Fall … A Curse or a Blessing?

By Douglas K. Hollen

Whether they’ve grown up in Sunday School, or just have a distant awareness of ‘religion,’ most people have at least heard of Adam and Eve and their sin in the Garden of Eden. Often times this ancient Bible story is even fodder for comedic jokes about Eve eating ‘the apple.’ The true weight of this story; however, is no laughing matter.

Mormons too know the story of Adam and Eve, but their spin on the story turns everything we’ve ever studied in the Bible about the Fall of man on its head!

For those of you who read my article, A Land Before Time … The Story of Mormon Pre-Existence, we’re going to do a little review for the sake of those who didn’t. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church) teaches we were all born to god and one of his goddess wives in the pre-existence. In addition, they teach 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, this Earth was created.    According to LDS teachings, Adam (who they also believe is Michael the Archangel – Doctrine and Covenants [D&C] 27:11) and Eve were very noble children of God in the pre-existence. “He [Adam] was chosen to lead the righteous battle against Satan.” (Gospel Principles. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ©1997 pg. 31) Adam and Eve were sent here to populate and control the Earth, “And I, God, blessed them, and said unto them: Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the Earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth.” (The Pearl of Great Price, Moses 2:28)

LDS members are taught this progression from the pre-existence to mortality is necessary in the process of ‘Eternal Progression.’ Eternal Progression is a topic for another day, but in a nutshell, when you peel back the layers of the proverbial ‘onion,’ Eternal Progression is the process of becoming a god. They teach that the Fall was necessary, because only through the Fall do we have the opportunity to gain eternal life. See this quote from Gospel Principles, pg. 33 to grasp a better vision of how your Mormon friends view the fall of man: “Some people believe Adam and Eve committed a serious sin when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. However, latter-day scriptures help us understand that their fall was a necessary step in the plan of life and a great blessing to all of us. Because of the Fall, we are blessed with physical bodies, the right to choose between good and evil, and the opportunity to gain eternal life.”

Additionally, Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the Seventy said this in his message, Atonement: All for All, during the April 2004 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: “The Fall was not a disaster. It wasn’t a mistake or an accident. It was a deliberate part of the plan of salvation. We are God’s spirit ‘offspring,’ sent to Earth ‘innocent’ of Adam’s transgression. Yet our Father’s plan subjects us to temptation and misery in this fallen world as the price to comprehend authentic joy. Without tasting the bitter, we actually cannot understand the sweet. We require mortality’s discipline and refinement as the ‘next step in [our] development’ toward becoming like our Father.”

Does the Bible really teach us this? Or, once again, are we seeing in spite of all of their efforts to appear ‘Christian,’ the LDS Church teaching heresy rather than Christianity? Let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say.

To clearly understand the significance of the Fall, we must understand the nature of a holy and just God who cannot tolerate sin. It is nothing short of blasphemy to claim a holy God intended sin and the Fall as a blessing to us, when He created the world and said, in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good…” In fact, quite the opposite is true. Genesis 3:15–24, we see God systematically cursing and administering punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve: (1) Eve would have sorrow in conception and childbirth, and her husband would rule over her (2) Adam would have difficulty tilling the ground in order to eat (3) They were banished from the Garden of Eden and God put angels at the gates to prevent their re-entry (4) The process of death began (Genesis 2:17 had promised, “…for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”)

It is before this holy God that Moses “hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God,” as he stood before the burning bush in Exodus 3:6. Before this same God, Isaiah said, “…Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). God does not look lightly at sin, and when man gets a clear vision of himself before holy God, he has the same reaction that the prophets of old had – unworthiness. Isaiah summed it up best in Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and our iniquities like the wind, have taken us away.”

The good news, however, is God provided a way out of our fallen state. Romans 3:23 states, “the wages of sin is death…” That’s what happened at the Fall – death, or mortality began. We, in our sinful state could do nothing to satisfy God’s standard of holiness. But the second half of that verse is the hope God gave us in Christ, “…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jesus Himself spoke on the subject in John 3:17-18, “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Our LDS friends are correct – man has a free will to choose. Where they are incorrect is in teaching because of the Fall, we now choose between good and evil. The Bible teaches because of the Fall, we are incapable of choosing good. Therefore, our choice is to remain in our unholy, fallen, sinful state, or accept the free gift of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ which satisfies in full the requirements of a holy and just God. In Romans 5:6-10 we see can see that Christ’s substitutionary death (on behalf of a fallen sinner) reconciled us to God and that His blood saved us from the wrath of God. His victory over death is our promise of eternal life (not our progression to godhood) -- “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.”

Witnessing point: A sales trainer once told me the key to success in sales is the 80/20 rule. Listen 80% of the time and only talk 20% of the time. The idea in sales is simple: get the client talking, listen to their needs, concerns, goals and objectives. For example: “You said you need _________. Our product does that.” Now in witnessing you are not selling, you’re explaining the free gift of salvation, but both are a form of persuasive speech. In both cases, you should be listening 80% of the time, but you still want to control the direction of the conversation through your line of questioning.

Keep in mind, your goal is to help them admit they are hopelessly lost. Then you can share with them the biblical account of the Fall, and the blessed hope we have in Christ. They must admit they have a need before they will be willing to accept Christ as the solution.

Douglas K. Hollen is a financial consultant and is attending Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. God is in the process of using Doug’s investment planning business to support and underwrite his “eternity planning” business – taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Mormon people. He is available to speak at your church or small Bible study group about the dangers of Mormonism. Please contact him at 314-691-5418 for scheduling.