Pastor Jeff has posted his latest video discussing the contents of the Book of Mormon, in which he focuses mainly on the book of Mosiah, with a passing reference to a few very short preceding books. I will be commenting selectively on a few highlights that he seems to find controversial. At around 10.10 minutes into the video he makes the following observation:
“Then he [King Benjamin] starts to make a series of statements that as I was reading, just to be completely honest with you, it felt very Evangelical to a certain extent. He is making statements, you will see right here for example in verse 5:”
Mosiah 3:
5 For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.
“And he continues to really describe this ministry of Jesus. But the terminology that is used there, where Jesus is omnipotent; which we hold on to pretty tightly, when it comes to a Trinitarian view, of God being all-powerful. That is one of the quintessential key characteristics of who God is, that there is nothing too difficult for him, and that within his character he has the ability to do whatever he desires to do, which is why he was able to create all things, being outside of the universe, having power and sovereignty over it, while he does have the ability to do exactly what is necessary to bring salvation to fallen mankind; and that in the same passage it is talked about him being “from eternity to eternity,” which is the idea of him being eternal, and all of these things being attributed specifically to God becoming man, or dwelling in a tabernacle of clay, dwelling among men. It sounds very much like the eternal God, the eternal Jesus, a Jesus that at no point didn’t exist, that he wasn’t begotten in the heavenly realms, but that he has always been God; and even getting into chapter four, as Benjamin sort of concludes these words, …”
I have already discussed the Trinitarian language found in the Book of Mormon, and in other modern scriptures of the Church, in an earlier reply to him which can be seen here; therefore it is not necessary to discuss it at great length in this post. I will only here reiterate that according to modern revelation, the divine attributes of infinity, eternity, and everlastingness etc., are attributes that can be acquired. For example, concerning those who are deified, or attain godhood, it says:
Doctrine and Covenants 132:
20 Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.
That may sound counterintuitive to us: but that is due to the limitations of human intuition. For example modern revelation teaches that God exists outside of time:
Alma 40:
8 Now whether there is more than one time appointed for men to rise it mattereth not; for all do not die at once, and this mattereth not; all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men.
If that is a property that can be acquired by man (and there is no reason that it shouldn’t be), then acquiring the divine attributes of infinity, eternity, and everlastingness by man cannot be such a farfetched idea. If man can be made to exist outside of time as God does, then acquiring those divine attributes by man cannot be such an impossible occurrence. Moving on, at around 14:40 minutes into the video he makes the following observation regarding the scriptural meaning of being the “children of God”:
“… and Benjamin says something in response to their willingness to receive these words, that I want to touch on just for a second, because it highlights a distinction between Latter-day Saint doctrine and mainstream Christianity; and it is in this statement here:”
Mosiah 5:
7 And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.
“So that is a question I have, because as I have communicated before, mainstream Christianity doesn’t necessarily believe that we are automatically the sons and daughters of God; that there is not an adherence, or widely taught belief that there was a pre-existence, that we are the actual offspring of God. But he created us in his image, and we in our fallen state are natural enemies of God; but when we put our faith in him and obey, it sounds a lot like Benjamin 5:7, where because of one’s obedience, you are then adopted, or you become sons and daughters of God. You can see that in verses like John 1:12, that says, “But as many as received him,” talking about Jesus, “to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them the believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Or another passage here in Ephesians 1:4, talking about those who are in Christ are blessed:”
Ephesians 1:
4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
“So we teach in mainstream Christianity that we are his sons and daughters because we are adopted as heirs to the blessings that we receive through Christ; that we aren’t inherently, automatically, the sons and daughters of God. So that is something that jumped out to me there.”
The reason for that is that Evangelical Christians take a very shortsighted and myopic view of scripture. They are only interested in those bits of the Bible that support their shortsighted interpretations, and turn a blind eye to the rest. The bits of scripture that he has overlooked are the following:
Job 1:
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
Job 2:
1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.
In these verses those disembodied, spiritual creatures, whoever they are—including Satan, who is an enemy to God—are identified as “sons of God”. Likewise in Genesis 6:1-4, those unregenerate, sinful humans are identified as sons of God:
Genesis 6:
6 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
In Isaiah, God identifies the rebellious, unregenerate children of Israel as his children:
Isaiah 1:
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
And many more such examples in the Old Testament:
Deuteronomy 14:
1 Ye are the children of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
Psalm 82:
6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
Isaiah 63:
16 Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.
Isaiah 64:
8 But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Malachi 1:
6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Malachi 2:
10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
In John 10:33-36, Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 in support of identifying himself as the Son of God; and in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 3 verse 38, Adam is identified as a “son of God” by direct descent, not by virtue of some kind of “regeneration”:
Luke 3:
38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
And in Acts 17:28-29 Paul identifies the Gentile Greeks at Mars’ Hill as the “offspring” of God:
Acts 17:
28 For in him [God] we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
What is his explanation for these? The short answer is that in the scriptures, words are used with more than one shades of meaning. There is one sense in which all of mankind are the children of God by virtue of being created in his image. There is also another sense of the term in which only those who are regenerated through faith in Jesus Christ are considered the children of God. These two different senses are not mutually exclusive. Each is valid and true within its own context. You don’t mix them up. Evangelicals are so shortsighted and myopic in their interpretation of scripture that they can’t reconcile the two. It has to be either one or the other. It can’t be both. LDS theology is based on what all of scripture says, not just on a tiny bit of it that might suit our purpose, as is the case with Evangelicalism. His next observation, at 19.02 minutes into the video, is with reference to a quote from Isaiah which occurs in Mosiah chapter 14, which he comments on as follows:
“In chapter 14 he gets a little bit more Messianic, and he begins to quote Messianic Prophecy from Isaiah 53. One of the things that is sticking out to me, that tends to reinforce what I am observing from my perspective as an anachronism, or something that just doesn’t seem chronologically correct, is in a case like this where there is a quoting of Isaiah 53, and it literally is from verse 1 to verse 12 in Isaiah 53. In fact, the verse numbers actually match in the Book of Mormon, as they do in Isaiah; and you might be asking, why is that sticking out at me? Well, because it wasn’t until well into Medieval times, just past Medieval times, that chapter and verses even existed in the Bible. Those weren’t inspired. That was added later on by scribes and people who are trying to preserve the scriptures, and wanting to make it easier to make references. And even in this passage in Isaiah is 503, it is part of a larger prophetic utterance, where there is not necessarily clear breaking points. In fact there are a lot of people through the years who have been critical in some of the chapter and verse subdivisions in the Bible, because whoever was making those decisions, wasn’t necessarily always starting and stopping chapters or verses, in natural breaking points when it comes to sort of the flow of thought. So this is a perfect example. Isaiah 53 is 12 verses, and I just find it curious that Mosiah here somewhere around 200 BC is quoting a chapter from the Bible, and following the exact chapter markings and verse markings that wouldn’t even exist for another 1500 or 2000 years.”
The answer to that is that the Book of Mormon was not revealed with any chapter and verse divisions, including the Isaiah quotes. Those chapter and verse divisions were added later—and for the same reasons that they were added to the Bible—for convenience, and for ease of reference. And the chapter and verse divisions of the Isaiah quotes in the Book of Mormon are made to match those of the Bible for the same reasons: for convenience, and ease of reference with the Bible. The text of the Book of Mormon was not revealed to Joseph Smith that way, with chapter and verse divisions. They were added much later for the reasons given. And the verse divisions of the Isaiah quotes are made to match the Bible for the same reason. He might also be interested to know that the Isaiah quotes found in the Book of Mormon are not identical to the ones in the KJV. In some of the lengthier quotes, the variations can be quite considerable. See here for examples. In the case of the Isaiah 53:1-12 quote, the variations are not quite as extensive as in some of the other quotes, but they are not altogether insignificant either. I have attached a PDF file which can be downloaded from here, indicating all the variations. If you download the PDF and view it in a browser, it can be enlarged to see the variations more clearly. The crossed out bits are the original KJV version, and the text highlighted in red are the Book of Mormon variants. At 20:41 minutes into the video he picks up on the doctrine of the Trinity again as follows:
“There is a couple other spots in the previous chapter, chapter 15, as Abinadi is continuing to prophesy, talking about the Incarnation. This gets a little bit more theological, but he does make some statements that to me do sound very Trinitarian, when it says:”
Mosiah 15:
1 And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.
2 And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—
3 The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—
4 And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.
5 And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people.
“That sounds very much like the Son of the Father are being talked about as one, as the one God, and leads to maybe even some confusion I have, that when I talk to Latter-day Saints, they believe that Jesus is God, the Heavenly Father is God, but they still state, there is only one God. At some point, even the Latter-day Saint understanding starts to sound kind of Trinitarian to me. If not Trinitarian, then polytheistic, which a lot of Latter-day Saints come back and tell me, No, we are not polytheistic. So I still have some work to do to really understand a Latter-day Saint understanding of the Godhead, and why it is any more or less confusing than a Trinitarian view.”
I have highlighted the significant bits in the Mosiah 15 quote for him to think about. The doctrine of the Trinity taught in Mosiah 15 is not the same as the Trinitarian theology of Evangelicalism. They are worlds apart. He needs to study them very carefully indeed to appreciate their significance and difference.
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