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Joseph Smith beheld the Father and the Son

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  • #16
    Originally posted by seven7up View Post
    It is not improper, because we believe that Jesus was fully Deity/God before even entering mortality. So, we see in these passages that people saw God.
    It IS improper because Jesus was talking about not being able to see the Father, and your proof that Joseph saw the Father was that the Son was seen by a few Jews. I believe Jesus.


    This was a distortion from the Pharoah, who claimed that ONLY the Pharoah had the image of the divine, and all the other people did not. This was a misuse of the language by false religions, because in reality all man kind has the same image.
    Egyptian usage PREDATES the Hebrew language by centuries!!


    Depends on the vision. If there is a figurative interpretation given, well, there you go. However, if you take a passage like, Exodus 24: 9-11, it is quite straightforward:

    "Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, "
    That was a vision, not a physical visitation. Or are you suggesting that there was a section of sapphire pavement hovering literally just above them?

    It does not make much sense to claim that they did not actually see God.
    Then was Jesus wrong when He said "NO ONE has seen the Father"?

    Just like the Book of Mormon account from the Brother of Jared, they were likely seeing the pre-Incarnate Christ. This is an anthropomorphic account, just like the experience that Moses had. Essentially what they were seeing was the same that Peter, James and John saw at the Mount of Transfiguration, where they saw the glory of God.
    The glory of God is not God Himself. It is a manifestation of His presence, like the blue flame above the cherubim in the ark of the covenant.

    Exodus 40:34-35 ESV

    Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.


    No one has seen the Father because man kind has been separated from Him due to the Fall and sin. THAT is the reason that no man has seen the Father.
    Except Joseph Smith, right?

    However, as I previously addressed from the Chapter 1 in the Book of Hebrews, Jesus is an exact copy/imprint of God the Father.
    And I showed that did not mean physical attributes.


    Peter had the keys of the kingdom. John likely worked within the church like the other Apostles until he reached the age when he was going to die (and he appears to have outlasted the others). Then he would be "changed" into an immortal and glorified body "in the twinkling of an eye", rather than tasting death. We do not know what John has been doing after that, but we do not suspect that he was performing ordinances for the Church.
    The Apostles were all performing "ordinances" of the church, including baptizing. John supposedly held the Melchizedek Priesthood as only one of four Apostles supposedly left on earth, and would have seen the church fall into apostasy. Yet he did nothing about it? And remember, your claim was that there wasn't anyone with the AUTHORITY to perform them, not that they simply weren't.


    All we have are very limited accounts. Consider how much history must have occurred during the length of time represented by the book of Genesis.
    Consider that Genesis lists some rather mundane details as well, yet only one mention of supposedly one of the most important things any believer can possess? Sorry, but not buying it.

    Yet we have relatively very, very little information about that time period. The first book in the Old Testament only gives minimal details of what occurred over almost two and a half thousand years. The more detailed history that we have in the Bible only begins when Moses came upon the scene. You know that.
    And again, even in the more detailed accounts, there is only one mention of someone holding the Melchizedek Priesthood hundreds of years later? The single most important ordinance of the church after baptism?
    That's what
    - She

    Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
    - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

    I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
    - Stephen R. Donaldson

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