Mormonism, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, claims to be a part of biblical Christianity. In our city of Maricopa in Arizona, just as in the Phoenix valley and all over the world, Mormonism is gaining ground. Hence you might wander what Mormons believe and how you can talk to them about your faith and the Bible.
As we compare the Bible versus the tenants of this religious group, it will become apparent that Mormonism is not biblical Christianity since it has a different God and a different Gospel. When evangelizing Mormons, we need to open the Bible and let it speak to convict sinners of its truth and clear message of salvation.
In this first post in our series, we compare the God of Mormonism with the biblical teaching on the nature of God. We will focus on the fact that Mormonism teaches that God is an exalted man.
Teaching of Mormonism: God is a man
It may surprise you to learn that Mormonism affirms that God is an exalted man. In their circle, they hear that God was not always divine but used to be a man who died and was resurrected to become God. Consider this quote for the founder Joseph Smith:
“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! . . . I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute this idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. . . It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself did; and I will show it from the Bible . . . Here, then, is eternal life-to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power."[See Thomas V. Morris, Our Idea of God:An Introduction to Philosophical Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 119-38; and Ronald H. Nash, The Concept of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), pp. 73-83, 305-6]
In the Mormon's document called Doctrine and Covenant, a clear claim of the nature of God as human is also made: "The Father has a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man’s” [Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22]. However, God is not a man, according to the Holy Bible.
Biblical Teaching: God is not a man, He is spirit
The Bible rejects the teaching that God is human or material, rather, as we shall see, the Old and New Testaments repeatedly reveal that God is spirit, that is immaterial. The Scripture says: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19, ESV). This statement is as clear as it gets. God is wholly other and unlike humans with all our limitations and flaws.
Further, the Bible explicitly says that God is not like us, and that man will be judged by God: “These things you have done, and I kept silent; You thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes. “Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Psalm 50:21-22, NKJV).
Now Mormons would respond that the Bible has many verses saying that God has body parts. We read of “the hand of the Lord” (Isaiah 62:3), the tablets of stone of the ten commandments being “written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18), “the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8) and so on. Doesn’t that prove that God has a body?
No, it does not. This is metaphorical language called an anthropomorphism which is to use human expressions to convey to us, mortals, things that we can understand. Hence, when Isaiah 59:1 speaks of the “hand of the LORD [which] is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear”, we understand that our God is near, able and willing to save us.
Similarly, when Psalm 91:4 states that God “will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge”, we know that God is not a bird. The figure of speech of zoomorphism is used to speak of God’s care in clear and beautiful words of love. God is our rock and our strong tower. God is light. Scripture is full of such metaphors, and we should recognize them and the genre of biblical passages to properly interpret the Bible.
How does the Bible describe God then, if not as a man? Well, Jesus answered that question when He said to the Samaritan woman in John 4: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). She wanted to know where to worship God, on a mountain in Samria or in the Jewish Temple (4:20-21), and Jesus said neither, because God is spirit, that is a spiritual and immaterial being.
Note that the text does not say that "God is a spirit" but "God is spirit", because is not like an angel, he is God and different from created being. God is spiritual and omnipresent, and therefore Jesus responded that it is not where we worship God that matters, but how. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Elaborating on the fact that “God is Spirit”, we also remember that when Jesus was resurrected, His disciples though that He was a ghost a spirit, so he told them to give Him food to eat and encouraged them to touch him. He said: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). Here is the simple truth, God is spirit and spirits have neither flesh nor bones, unlike man.
Jesus is the God-man and as such He has a human nature, but this is not so for the Father and the Spirit. This is the whole point as to why the incarnation (the Son put on humanity) happened to have a mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). Claiming that God is man is blasphemy, but God will forgive the repentant sinner who comes in faith to Him through the biblical Christ.
A Few More Verses for Further Meditation
God is not human, is He spirit and the Father of all spirit-beings: “Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?” (Hebrews 12:9).
God is not a visible and temporal man: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).
God is not a man, by the divine Son of God manifested God on earth (the incarnation): “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16).
God was not once a man, for He does not change: “For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob” (Malachi 3:6).
God is not a man, is the Savior of men through the God-Mand Jesus Christ: “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
Blessings in Christ,
Jonas Croissant
Pastor-Elder
Acts Church of Maricopa
Contact & Sunday service information: https://www.actschurchmaricopa.com/location
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