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God Was Once a Mortal Sinner????

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  • God Was Once a Mortal Sinner????

    Do Mormons really believe this? And if they do, wouldn't Jesus who is perfect be higher than the Father?
    I am Punkinhead.

    "I have missed you, Oh Grand High Priestess of the Order of the Stirring Pot"

    ~ Cow Poke aka CP aka Creacher aka ke7ejx's apprentice....

  • #2
    Here's a page where some Mormons say God definitely sinned, most are hesitant but say it's possible. I would assume they imply Jesus also sinned.

    http://godneversinned.com

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by ke7ejx View Post
      God Was Once a Mortal Sinner???? Do Mormons really believe this? And if they do, wouldn't Jesus who is perfect be higher than the Father?
      What God was doing prior to the Creation is speculation. Teachings about God the Father's mortal life stem from what is called "the King Follett discourse". Very little information is provided, but the small amount of information that is given does not point to God the Father as being a sinner.

      In the above mentioned sermon, Joseph Smith wanted to preach about who and what God is.

      What kind of being is God? What is He like? If you were to see God, what would God look like? That is what Joseph Smith is getting at. He wanted to dispel the concepts of God which say that God is some kind of literally omnipresent substance which literally fills the entirety of existence. He wanted to explain that God is not "wholly other" like modern Christianity teaches. So, near the beginning of the King Follett sermon, Joseph says:

      "In the first place, I wish to go back to the beginning--to the Creation. That is the starting point if we are to be fully acquainted with the mind, the purposes, and the decrees of the great Elohim who sits in yonder heavens. We must have an understanding of God himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, it is a hard matter to get right."

      So, if we misunderstand God and God's relationship to the Creation from the beginning, then incorrect interpretations of scripture will follow after that. This is why in previous discussions on this forum I have stressed the the importance of rejecting Ex Nihilo creation (i.e. creation out of nothing), because so many erroneous conclusions come from that false premise, and Joseph rejects Ex Nihilo in this same sermon. But concerning the nature of God, Joseph says:

      "I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer the question in his own heart what kind of a being God is. What kind of a being is God? Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen him, heard him, communed with him? Here is the question, perhaps, that will from this time forth occupy your attention. The apostle [John] says, "This is life eternal"--to know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent... I want you all to know God, to be familiar with him. And if I can bring you to him, all persecutions against me will cease; you will know that I am his servant, for I speak as one having authority."

      Joseph Smith claimed to have seen both God the Father AND Jesus Christ as distinct personal beings. He believed that he was chosen by God to reveal the true nature of God to the world.

      "God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heaven, is a man like one of you. That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today and you were to see the great God who holds this world in its orbit and upholds all things by his power, you would see him in the image and very form of a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God. He received instruction from and walked, talked, and conversed with him as one man talks and communes with another. " (emphasis added)

      Now, critics of the LDS church will just take the first sentence here out of context. They will say that Mormons believe that God is like one of us in every sense. In context you can see that is not what Joseph Smith is saying. He explained here what he means. He means that God is a personal Being with hands, feet, head, etc. We are created in the image of God and if we were to see Him and talk to Him we could related to one another in that way. In the Garden of Eden, God literally was walking and talking with God, exactly as the History of the Old Testament describes it. Moses had a similar experience, when "The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend." (Exodus 33:11) Or when the elders of Israel saw God, "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." (Exodus 24)

      Joseph Smith is expressing this same concept in this sermon. If you were to ask Moses or the elders of Israel, what kind of being does God look like, they would describe "the image and very form of a man." So, it is here that Joseph Smith expresses the idea that God the Father, at some point in eternities past, lived in a human mortal body like we have, and then obtained a resurrected body in the same way that Jesus Christ obtained a resurrected body here on Earth. Joseph explains what he meant quite clearly:

      "What did Jesus say? Jesus said, "As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power." To do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious--in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the Bible."

      Now, let's look for some context of the verse that Joseph Smith is referring to in John chapter 5, whereby the Jews accuse Jesus and Jesus responds by discussing the resurrection,

      18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

      19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, “Amen, Amen I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

      20 For the Father loveth the Son and showeth Him all things that He Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

      21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.


      Many Mormons/LDS who have studied the King Follett discourse understand that Joseph Smith was teaching that Jesus Christ was given revelation from God the Father who provided visions of how God the Father was the Creator/Christ/Savior in previous Creation. Indeed, when Jesus says, "Amen, Amen" and then begins to speak, the Savior is saying Amen to a revelation that he had just received from God the Father.

      Just a couple verses later, Jesus returns to the topic of resurrection,

      24 Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth My Word and believeth in Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.

      What does it mean to pass from death unto life in this verse? It means resurrection from the dead:

      25 “Verily, verily I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.

      26 For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself,


      Joseph Smith was teaching that God the Father has life in Himself, meaning that He is a resurrected Being. When the prophet Joseph said that God is a man like us, he was saying that God the Father is a man like us in the same sense that Jesus Christ is a man like us. Again, this is why Joseph said:

      "God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did, ...

      What did Jesus do? Why, I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom I shall present it to my Father so that he obtains kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt his glory. And so Jesus treads in his tracks to inherit what God did before."


      This is why many LDS/Mormons speculate that Jesus Christ will be the "God the Father" of the NEXT creation and it is an eternal pattern. To answer your second question, Jesus is not higher than God the Father. To answer the other poster's question, it is clear in LDS doctrine that Jesus Christ never sinned, so I don't know where he comes up with this "assumption" which LDS never, ever make.

      As you can see, there is nothing here that points to the idea that God was once a sinner. In fact, it points more toward Jesus doing here what God the Father had already done elsewhere. However, some have argued that if the Atonement really does erase the effects of sin, is it really as if the sins never occurred at all? Or, in the next life will the effects of sin be apparent in those who are resurrected to eternal life? If the latter is your belief, are you denying the power of Christ's sacrifice for us? Those are the issues being dealt with in that kind of speculative discussion, but as you can see, the King Follett discourse does not go anywhere near addressing those kinds of questions.

      Joseph Smith was indicating that God the Father was a man in the same way that Jesus Christ was a man. The view expressed by this Mormon prophet is the same that I have discussed previously on this forum, namely that Jesus Christ has the exact nature and being as God the Father, but they are distinct from one another. They are not the same being, but instead Jesus, as a perfect Son, is the is the exact same kind of being, who is "one" with God the Father in the Biblical sense as described in John chapter 17. Furthermore, we see that one of Christ's missions on Earth was to show the world exactly what kind of Being God the Father is, in every sense, "in these last days [God the Father] has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And [Jesus] who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

      This is also what Jesus means when he says, "If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him." (John 14:7) He does not mean that Jesus and God the Father are the same person. He is saying that He is a perfect representation of the kind of being and nature of God the Father in every sense.

      I hope I have provided what you are looking for, which is the origin of Mormon/LDS views on this topic along with some further explanation.

      -7up
      Last edited by seven7up; 10-28-2014, 12:05 PM.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by JohnnyP View Post
        Here's a page where some Mormons say God definitely sinned, most are hesitant but say it's possible. I would assume they imply Jesus also sinned.

        http://godneversinned.com
        Despite the fact that the original sermon from Joseph Smith points to God the Father as being a "Christ" on another Earth in eternity past, allow me to expound a little on exactly why LDS will often allow for the possibility of God having sinned in a mortal life.

        LDS/Mormons truly believe in the power of Christ's atonement. It is believed that the sacrifice of the Savior can make it as if the sin never occurred at all. In the next life, if we have been cleansed by the blood of the lamb, we will not be weighed down by past sins; the sin and the effect of the sin is absolutely gone. So, often when asked the question about whether or not God sinned in mortality in eternity past, the Mormon/LDS will interpret that as, "do you believe in the power of Christ's atonement?"

        Because of this strong sense of the genuine reality of forgiveness, justification, sanctification , etc. in LDS doctrine, the answer to that question must be left open. If the atonement is really effective, then it doesn't matter. For example, on that web site you provided we find these statements:

        God is God, he possesses all the attributes of godliness and perfection, and as far as I know, he's been God forevermore. What we are to understand by Joseph Smith's statement and Lorenzo Snow's statement, and beyond what is made by those two people, I know not. I wish I could say more, but that's all my answer." Robert Millet, 2007 Interfaith Dialog

        "Before he received his exaltation, he lived on a world and it's possible [that God sinned]. But he also could have been a savior on his world as Jesus is a savior on this world. And therefore he could have lived a sinless life, and therefore not have. So we don't have his records. We don't have information about his life. So we don't know... There's no doctrine statement by the Church about his life." Craig Ray, Foundation for Apologetics and Information Research

        -7up
        Last edited by seven7up; 10-28-2014, 12:51 PM.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by seven7up View Post
          What God was doing prior to the Creation is speculation. Teachings about God the Father's mortal life stem from what is called "the King Follett discourse". Very little information is provided, but the small amount of information that is given does not point to God the Father as being a sinner.

          In the above mentioned sermon, Joseph Smith wanted to preach about who and what God is.

          What kind of being is God? What is He like? If you were to see God, what would God look like? That is what Joseph Smith is getting at. He wanted to dispel the concepts of God which say that God is some kind of literally omnipresent substance which literally fills the entirety of existence. He wanted to explain that God is not "wholly other" like modern Christianity teaches. So, near the beginning of the King Follett sermon, Joseph says:

          "In the first place, I wish to go back to the beginning--to the Creation. That is the starting point if we are to be fully acquainted with the mind, the purposes, and the decrees of the great Elohim who sits in yonder heavens. We must have an understanding of God himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, it is a hard matter to get right."

          So, if we misunderstand God and God's relationship to the Creation from the beginning, then incorrect interpretations of scripture will follow after that. This is why in previous discussions on this forum I have stressed the the importance of rejecting Ex Nihilo creation (i.e. creation out of nothing), because so many erroneous conclusions come from that false premise, and Joseph rejects Ex Nihilo in this same sermon. But concerning the nature of God, Joseph says:

          "I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer the question in his own heart what kind of a being God is. What kind of a being is God? Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen him, heard him, communed with him? Here is the question, perhaps, that will from this time forth occupy your attention. The apostle [John] says, "This is life eternal"--to know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent... I want you all to know God, to be familiar with him. And if I can bring you to him, all persecutions against me will cease; you will know that I am his servant, for I speak as one having authority."

          Joseph Smith claimed to have seen both God the Father AND Jesus Christ as distinct personal beings. He believed that he was chosen by God to reveal the true nature of God to the world.

          "God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heaven, is a man like one of you. That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today and you were to see the great God who holds this world in its orbit and upholds all things by his power, you would see him in the image and very form of a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God. He received instruction from and walked, talked, and conversed with him as one man talks and communes with another. " (emphasis added)

          Now, critics of the LDS church will just take the first sentence here out of context. They will say that Mormons believe that God is like one of us in every sense. In context you can see that is not what Joseph Smith is saying. He explained here what he means. He means that God is a personal Being with hands, feet, head, etc. We are created in the image of God and if we were to see Him and talk to Him we could related to one another in that way. In the Garden of Eden, God literally was walking and talking with God, exactly as the History of the Old Testament describes it. Moses had a similar experience, when "The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend." (Exodus 33:11) Or when the elders of Israel saw God, "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." (Exodus 24)

          Joseph Smith is expressing this same concept in this sermon. If you were to ask Moses or the elders of Israel, what kind of being does God look like, they would describe "the image and very form of a man." So, it is here that Joseph Smith expresses the idea that God the Father, at some point in eternities past, lived in a human mortal body like we have, and then obtained a resurrected body in the same way that Jesus Christ obtained a resurrected body here on Earth. Joseph explains what he meant quite clearly:

          "What did Jesus say? Jesus said, "As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power." To do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious--in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the Bible."

          Now, let's look for some context of the verse that Joseph Smith is referring to in John chapter 5, whereby the Jews accuse Jesus and Jesus responds by discussing the resurrection,

          18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

          19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, “Amen, Amen I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

          20 For the Father loveth the Son and showeth Him all things that He Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

          21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.


          Many Mormons/LDS who have studied the King Follett discourse understand that Joseph Smith was teaching that Jesus Christ was given revelation from God the Father who provided visions of how God the Father was the Creator/Christ/Savior in previous Creation. Indeed, when Jesus says, "Amen, Amen" and then begins to speak, the Savior is saying Amen to a revelation that he had just received from God the Father.

          Just a couple verses later, Jesus returns to the topic of resurrection,

          24 Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth My Word and believeth in Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.

          What does it mean to pass from death unto life in this verse? It means resurrection from the dead:

          25 “Verily, verily I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.

          26 For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself,


          Joseph Smith was teaching that God the Father has life in Himself, meaning that He is a resurrected Being. When the prophet Joseph said that God is a man like us, he was saying that God the Father is a man like us in the same sense that Jesus Christ is a man like us. Again, this is why Joseph said:

          "God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did, ...

          What did Jesus do? Why, I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom I shall present it to my Father so that he obtains kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt his glory. And so Jesus treads in his tracks to inherit what God did before."


          This is why many LDS/Mormons speculate that Jesus Christ will be the "God the Father" of the NEXT creation and it is an eternal pattern. To answer your second question, Jesus is not higher than God the Father. To answer the other poster's question, it is clear in LDS doctrine that Jesus Christ never sinned, so I don't know where he comes up with this "assumption" which LDS never, ever make.

          As you can see, there is nothing here that points to the idea that God was once a sinner. In fact, it points more toward Jesus doing here what God the Father had already done elsewhere. However, some have argued that if the Atonement really does erase the effects of sin, is it really as if the sins never occurred at all? Or, in the next life will the effects of sin be apparent in those who are resurrected to eternal life? If the latter is your belief, are you denying the power of Christ's sacrifice for us? Those are the issues being dealt with in that kind of speculative discussion, but as you can see, the King Follett discourse does not go anywhere near addressing those kinds of questions.

          Joseph Smith was indicating that God the Father was a man in the same way that Jesus Christ was a man. The view expressed by this Mormon prophet is the same that I have discussed previously on this forum, namely that Jesus Christ has the exact nature and being as God the Father, but they are distinct from one another. They are not the same being, but instead Jesus, as a perfect Son, is the is the exact same kind of being, who is "one" with God the Father in the Biblical sense as described in John chapter 17. Furthermore, we see that one of Christ's missions on Earth was to show the world exactly what kind of Being God the Father is, in every sense, "in these last days [God the Father] has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And [Jesus] who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

          This is also what Jesus means when he says, "If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him." (John 14:7) He does not mean that Jesus and God the Father are the same person. He is saying that He is a perfect representation of the kind of being and nature of God the Father in every sense.

          I hope I have provided what you are looking for, which is the origin of Mormon/LDS views on this topic along with some further explanation.

          -7up
          Jeff Lindsey sums up the issue by saying:

          In conclusion, let me reiterate that the Church does not teach that any member of the Godhead, which is represented as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, has ever sinned. In fact, in the Lectures on Faith, the Prophet Joseph makes it clear that one cannot have "faith unto salvation" if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin.


          So, since you are a sinner who needs to be redeemed, you can never be a god and offer salvation to your offspring since you are not "perfect and free from all error and sin".
          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

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by seven7up View Post
            Despite the fact that the original sermon from Joseph Smith points to God the Father as being a "Christ" on another Earth in eternity past, allow me to expound a little on exactly why LDS will often allow for the possibility of God having sinned in a mortal life.

            LDS/Mormons truly believe in the power of Christ's atonement. It is believed that the sacrifice of the Savior can make it as if the sin never occurred at all. In the next life, if we have been cleansed by the blood of the lamb, we will not be weighed down by past sins; the sin and the effect of the sin is absolutely gone. So, often when asked the question about whether or not God sinned in mortality in eternity past, the Mormon/LDS will interpret that as, "do you believe in the power of Christ's atonement?"

            Because of this strong sense of the genuine reality of forgiveness, justification, sanctification , etc. in LDS doctrine, the answer to that question must be left open. If the atonement is really effective, then it doesn't matter. For example, on that web site you provided we find these statements:

            God is God, he possesses all the attributes of godliness and perfection, and as far as I know, he's been God forevermore. What we are to understand by Joseph Smith's statement and Lorenzo Snow's statement, and beyond what is made by those two people, I know not. I wish I could say more, but that's all my answer." Robert Millet, 2007 Interfaith Dialog

            "Before he received his exaltation, he lived on a world and it's possible [that God sinned]. But he also could have been a savior on his world as Jesus is a savior on this world. And therefore he could have lived a sinless life, and therefore not have. So we don't have his records. We don't have information about his life. So we don't know... There's no doctrine statement by the Church about his life." Craig Ray, Foundation for Apologetics and Information Research

            -7up
            Why did you skip McLelland's comment?
            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

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
              Jeff Lindsey sums up the issue by saying:

              In conclusion, let me reiterate that the Church does not teach that any member of the Godhead, which is represented as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, has ever sinned. In fact, in the Lectures on Faith, the Prophet Joseph makes it clear that one cannot have "faith unto salvation" if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin.


              So, since you are a sinner who needs to be redeemed, you can never be a god and offer salvation to your offspring since you are not "perfect and free from all error and sin".
              oopsie, shot in the foot again. Those silly mormons.

              Comment


              • #8
                [QUOTE=Bill the Cat;112662]Jeff Lindsey sums up the issue by saying:

                In conclusion, let me reiterate that the Church does not teach that any member of the Godhead, which is represented as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, has ever sinned. In fact, in the Lectures on Faith, the Prophet Joseph makes it clear that one cannot have "faith unto salvation" if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin.


                Well, one can argue that the atonement did make an individual "perfect and free from all error and sin." Nevertheless, I agree with Jeff Lindsay's opinion on this matter. All of the teachings on this stem from Joseph Smith, who indicated that God the Father was a Christ.

                The implications of this, in my view, are these:

                Jesus Christ will be "God the Father" of a new creation, and those who are exalted here will be the "hosts of heaven" under the reign of our Lord and Savior. Jesus will be the "God of gods", or the "head God" , or the "God above all other gods" in that new creation. None of us will be providing salvation in the new creation, but instead Jesus will as the new Father, through another eternally spiritually perfect Firstbegotten and then Only begotten Son, precisely as we have seen in this creation.

                -7up

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  oopsie, shot in the foot again. Those silly mormons.
                  How so Sparko? Please explain.

                  -7up

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by seven7up View Post
                    How so Sparko? Please explain.

                    -7up
                    Bill already did. You are a sinner. Therefore you can never be a God that offers salvation according to your own doctrines. "one cannot have 'faith unto salvation' if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin."

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                      Why did you skip McLelland's comment?
                      I did not re-quote many of the comments on the web site. For starters, I have never heard of "McLelland". I don't know who he is or what he does and I am not familiar with any of his work.

                      Second, I addressed that comment and other comments like it generally. Again, many LDS feel obligated to be open to the idea of the Father having sinned in eternity passed, because we feel that the power of the atonement is absolute.

                      -7up

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        7up: How so Sparko? Please explain.

                        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                        Bill already did. You are a sinner. Therefore you can never be a God that offers salvation according to your own doctrines. "one cannot have 'faith unto salvation' if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin."

                        And I replied. Please read my comments, think about what I wrote, then maybe you will have something of significance to contribute to the conversation. These snide comments about "silly Mormons" do not advance the discussion in any way, and that is essentially all I get from you.



                        -7up

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by seven7up View Post
                          7up: How so Sparko? Please explain.




                          And I replied. Please read my comments, think about what I wrote, then maybe you will have something of significance to contribute to the conversation. These snide comments about "silly Mormons" do not advance the discussion in any way, and that is essentially all I get from you.



                          -7up
                          You said you agreed with Jeff Lindsay when he said, "In conclusion, let me reiterate that the Church does not teach that any member of the Godhead, which is represented as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, has ever sinned"

                          and went on to say that "Prophet Joseph makes it clear that one cannot have "faith unto salvation" if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin. "

                          1. Never sinned, ever.
                          2. One cannot have faith unto salvation unless he can trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin (see #1)

                          3. You have sinned. You will always have been a sinner, no matter what. Therefore you can never offer salvation to anyone as a God because they can't have faith unto salvation in you.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            You said you agreed with Jeff Lindsay when he said, "In conclusion, let me reiterate that the Church does not teach that any member of the Godhead, which is represented as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, has ever sinned"

                            and went on to say that "Prophet Joseph makes it clear that one cannot have "faith unto salvation" if one cannot trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin. "

                            1. Never sinned, ever.
                            2. One cannot have faith unto salvation unless he can trust that God is perfect and free from all error and sin (see #1)

                            3. You have sinned. You will always have been a sinner, no matter what. Therefore you can never offer salvation to anyone as a God because they can't have faith unto salvation in you.

                            I replied already. In my reply, I explain that:

                            1) For those who are open to the possibility of God having sinned in eternity past, being "free from error and sin" does not necessarily imply that one never had past sins that have been erased and the individual has been perfectly cleansed and glorified.

                            2) In my opinion, I myself do not believe that those have sinned in the past will provide salvation for others.

                            -7up

                            P.S. I have a question for you. In YOUR theology, do you believe that "You have sinned. You will always have been a sinner, no matter what." ?

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by seven7up View Post
                              I replied already. In my reply, I explain that:

                              1) For those who are open to the possibility of God having sinned in eternity past, being "free from error and sin" does not necessarily imply that one never had past sins that have been erased and the individual has been perfectly cleansed and glorified.

                              2) In my opinion, I myself do not believe that those have sinned in the past will provide salvation for others.

                              -7up
                              I don't know of anyone other than Jesus who has never sinned on earth so the conclusion is the same: none of you mormons will be gods.

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