What Mormons Believe by Robert M. Bowman Jr

Author:Robert M. Bowman Jr. [Bowman Jr., Robert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2012-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

A Biblical Response

Mormons do not accept the evangelical approach of basing all church doctrine on the Bible alone. However, they appeal heavily to the Bible, along with their uniquely LDS scriptures and modern revelation, to support many of their distinctive beliefs. For that reason, it is both helpful and important to contrast the teachings of Mormonism with those of the Bible.[20]

God is not an exalted man. The linchpin of LDS theology is its view of the divine. According to Mormon doctrine, God was a man who attained exaltation to godhood and whose spirit offspring can potentially become gods with similar powers and glory. They can even become the creators and gods of their own offspring, starting the cycle all over again, ad infinitum. In sharp contrast to this view, the Bible speaks of the Lord, the God of Israel, as the only God for all ages: “Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me” (Is 43:10).

According to the Bible, the Lord did not become God by a process of exaltation but has always been God (Ps 90:2; Is 43:13; Rom 16:25-26; 1 Tim 1:17). He is by nature not flesh but transcendent spirit, not limited to any location (Is 31:3; Jn 4:20-24). The universe cannot contain God (1 Kings 8:27; Is 66:1; Acts 7:48-49). At the same time, God is present everywhere (Ps 139:7-10; Acts 17:28) and fills all things (Jer 23:23-24). Whenever the Bible does describe God in physical language, it is clear that the language is figurative. For example, the Bible says that heaven is God’s throne and the earth his footstool (Is 66:1; Mt 5:34-35; Acts 7:49), but no one (I hope) thinks that God is literally a gigantic man tens of thousands of miles tall. Joseph Smith wouldn’t have been able to see more than his big toe!

In defending their belief that Heavenly Father was originally a man, Mormons often point out that Jesus was a man, and this didn’t prevent him from having divine characteristics. But this comparison overlooks a crucial difference. In Mormonism, the Father was a man who became God. In the Bible, the Son, Jesus Christ, was God and yet became a man (Jn 1:1, 14; Phil 2:6-7). Orthodox Christians do not object to the idea of God having a physical body as an abstract possibility removed from context. They object to the idea of God as a physical being who became exalted to Godhood.

God has no heavenly wife and kids. The Bible, of course, does not speak of a Heavenly Mother. (For that matter, neither do any of the LDS scriptures and neither did Joseph Smith.) And the idea that human beings preexisted in heaven as God’s spirit children is clearly unbiblical. First, not all human beings are God’s children (Jn 8:44). Christians are called “sons of God,” but this sonship is an adoptive status granted only to believers in Christ through the new birth effected by the Spirit (Jn 1:12-13; Rom 8:14-17; Gal 3:26–4:7; 1 Jn 3:1-2; 5:1-2).

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