False Teaching: Mormonism Notes
God
- “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” - Joseph Smith, The Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith, p. 59
- “Three separate personages—the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—comprise the Godhead. As each of these persons is a God, it is evident, from this standpoint alone, that a plurality of Gods exists.” – Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 576
- “…all men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.”- The First Presidency, “The Origin of Man,” Improvement Era 13, no. 1 (Nov. 1909): 78.
- “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret…I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man. …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 that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see…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 to 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.” – Joseph Smith, The King Follet Discourse
- “As Man is, God once was; As God is, so Man may become.” – Lorenzo Snow
Jesus
- His humanity is to be recognized as real and ordinary—whatever happen to Him may happen to any of us. The Divinity of Jesus and the Divinity of all other noble and stately souls, in so far as they, too, have been influenced by a spark of Deity—can be recognized as manifestations of the Divine. – Joseph Smith, King Follet Discourse
Salvation
- Repentance must involve an all-out, total surrender to the program of the Lord. That transgressor is not fully repentant who neglects his tithing, misses his meetings, breaks the Sabbath, fails in his family prayers, does not sustain the authorities of the Church, breaks the Word of Wisdom, does not love the Lord nor his fellowmen. … God cannot forgive unless the transgressor shows a true repentance which spreads to all areas of his life.
To return to sin is most destructive to the morale of the individual and gives Satan another hand-hold on his victim. Those who feel that they can sin and be forgiven and then return to sin and be forgiven again and again must straighten out their thinking. Each previously forgiven sin is added to the new one and the whole gets to be a heavy load.
Eternal life hangs in the balance awaiting the works of men. This progress toward eternal life is a matter of achieving perfection. Living all the commandments guarantees total forgiveness of sins and assures one of exaltation through that perfection which comes by complying with the formula the Lord gave us. In his Sermon on the Mount he made the command to all men: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48.) being perfect means to triumph over sin. This is a mandate from the Lord. He is just and wise and kind. He would never require anything from his children which was not for their benefit and which was not attainable. Perfection therefore is an achievable goal.
- Spencer Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness - For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. – 2 Nephi 25:23
Authority
- Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews? – 2 Nephi 29:6
- But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. – Doctrine and Covenants 9:8
