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~~  Biblical Christianity and Mormon Christianity  ~~

"They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Acts 17:11

 

Word of God

Mormonism

Personality of the Godhead

God
   In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth Genesis 1:1).
   He is God; there is none else beside him (Deuteronomy 4:35).
   God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
   For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).
   Go. . . and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).
Jesus was baptized; the Spirit descended; the Father spoke (Matthew 3:16-17).
   Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech (Genesis 11:7).
   From the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me (Isaiah 48:16).		    We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost (Articles of Faith, 1).
   This cannot rationally be construed to mean that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one in substance and in person (Talmage, Articles of Faith, p.40).
   There are three Gods. . . separate in personality, united in purpose, in plan, and in all attributes of perfection (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 670).
   God is an organized being just as we are who are now in the flesh. He is a progressive being, and possesses the capacity of eternal increase. Perhaps once a child and mortal like ourselves (Gospel Doctrine, p. 64; AF, p. 529; Journal of Discourses, 1:123).
   The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's (Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22).
   God is not omnipresent . . . cannot be "physically present in more than one place at a time" (Talmage, DC p. 48).
   Every man who reigns in celestial glory is a god to his dominions (McConkie, MD, p. 322).
   There never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds (Young, Discourses, pp. 22-23).
   Each god, through his wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters (Pratt, The Seer, 1, no 3, p.37).
   The doctrine of a plurality of Gods is prominent in the Bible. The heads of the Gods appointed our God for us (Teachings of the Prophet Jos. Smith, pp. 370-72).
   The eternal Father is a progressive Being. . . the capacity of eternal increase (Talmage, DC, p. 529).

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ
   In the beginning was the Word, . . . and the Word was God (John 1:1).
   When as His mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy spirit (Matthew 1:18).
   Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Isaiah7:14).
   God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory (1 Timothy 3:16).
   And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amoung us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
   No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him (John 1:18).
   And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection form the dead (Romans 1:4).
   And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain (1 Corinthians 15:17).
   Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25).
   This same Jesus . . . shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven (Acts 1:11; cf. John 14:3; 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18).		    Among the spirit children of Elohim, the firstborn was and is Jehovah or Jesus Christ, to whom all others are juniors (Smith, GD, p, 70).
   By obedience and devotion He attained to the pinnacle of intelligence which ranked him as a God, even in his preexistent state (McConkie, MD, p. 192).
   Jesus Christ was the executive in the work of creation, aided by Michael (or Adam), Enock, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, James, John, Joseph Smith, and others (McConkie, MD, p. 169).
   He was born of the virgin Mary. Elohim is literally the Father of the Spirit and of Jesus Christ, and also of the body (Talmage, DC, p. 466).
   He is essentially greater than all others, by reason of His unique status in the flesh as the offspring of a mortal mother and an immortal, or resurrected and glorified Father.
   He died on the cross, rose again, and is coming again in power and glory to set up his kingdom on earth (Talmage, DC, p. 472).

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit
   When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth. . . he shall testify of me (John 15:26)
   When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement (John 16:8).
   When he, the Spirit of truth, is come he will guide you into all truth (John 16:13).
   The Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, . . . he shall teach you all things (John 14:26).
   His spirit that dwelleth in you (Romans 8:11).
   Be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; see also 1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 3:16).
   But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Romans 8:9; see also vv.14, 16).
   There is none righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10).
   For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
   If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us ( 1 John 1:10).
   Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgressions of the law ( 1 John 3:4).
   All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death ( 1 John 5:17).
   Whatever is not of faith is sin ( Romans 14:23).
   Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin (James 4:17).		    The Holy Ghost is "a personage of Spirit." He does not have a body of flesh and bones, like the Father and the Son (DC, 130:22).
   He is "the influence of deity, the light of Christ, or of Truth" (Smith, GD, p.60)
   He "can only be in one place at one time" although he "emantes from Deity" like "electricity, or the universal ether . . . which fills the earth and the air, and is everywhere present" (McConkie, MD, pp. 359,753).
   Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy (II Nephi 2:25).
   Adam deliberately and wisely chose (to touch the forbidden tree) and partook of the fruit (Talmage, DC, p. 65).
   Adam cried, "Because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy" (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 5:10-11).
   We ought to consider the fall of our first parents as one of the great steps to external exaltation and happiness (Mormon Catechism).
   We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression (AF, 2).

Redemption

Redemption And Salvation
   We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7).
   Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things . . . but with the precious blood of Christ ( 1 Peter 1:18-19).
   Unto him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us a kingdom of priests unto God and his Father (Revelation 1:5-6).
   Without shedding of blood is no remission (Hebrews 9:22).
   Made peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:20).
   This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God . . . For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified
(Hebrews 10:12, 14).		    We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel (AF, 3).
   The first principles and ordinances of the gospel are: Faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; repentance; baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost (AF, 4).
   Even the unbeliever, the heathen, and the child who dies before reaching the years of discretion, all are redeemed by the Savior's self sacrifice from the individual consequences of the Fall (Talmage, p. 58).
   Included are "beasts, fowls of the air, and fishes of the sea" (DC, 29: 23-25).
   The resurrection of the body (of every living thing) is one of the victories achieved by Christ through His atoning sacrifice (Talmage, p. 58).
   They who believe not your words, and are not baptized in water in my name, for the remission of their sins . . .shall be damned (DC, 84:74).
   Baptism is . . . the very gateway into the kingdom of heaven, an indispensable step in our salvation and exaltation (Bennett, Why I Am A Mormon, p. 124).
   Baptism by proxy for the dead is a major activity. "The Saints are . . . redeeming their (unbaptized) dead from the grasp of Satan" (Morgan, Plan of Salvation, p. 8).
   Celestial marriage is the gate to an exaltation in the highest heaven within the celestial world (McConkie, MD, p.118).
   Those who attain the highest sphere, the Celestial, will "have spirit children in the resurrection, in relation to which offspring they stand in the same position that God our Father stands to us" (MD, p. 257).
   The second sphere, the Terrestrial, will be inhabited by "accountable persons who die without law" or who "did not accept the gospel" or with LDS who "were not valiant" (MD, p. 784).

Salvation

  
   Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house (Acts 16:31).
   But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name (John 1:12).
   He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the.... only begotten Son of God (John 3:18).
   He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life (John 3:36).
   Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
   For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God--not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
   Justified freely . . . through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).
   Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth (Romans 10:4).		  

Retribution

Retribution
   The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
   Those who sleep in the dust . . . shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2)
   And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).
   And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God . . . And the dead were judged out of those things. . . written in the books, according to their works (Revelation 20:12).
   The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven . . . in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel . . . ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction (2 Thessalonians 1: 7-10).
   If thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter lame into life than, having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched (Mark 9:45).		    Most of the adult people who have lived since Adam (having rejected Christ and lived wickedly) will go to the "Telestial Kingdom" (MD, p. 778).
   Perdition is for Satan, and the Sons of Perdition, angels who rebelled with him. Also for men who commit the unpardonable sin (Talmage, DC, p. 410).
   "Endless punishment" is "God's punishment" and may endure for "one hour, one week, or one year, or an age" (Morgan, The Plan of Salvation).

"They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures
daily, whether those things were so." Acts 17:11