Francine

I have encountered difficulties from LDS members on another forum for questioning doctrines that do not appear in the KJV Bible, or the Book of Mormon, or Doctrine & Covenants, or the Pearl of Great Price. So if this doctrine only appears in a hymnal I cannot comment.

1 Peter 3:19 says "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison". This seems to indicate that the prison existed before Calvary for those souls who died prior to the coming of the gospel of Christ. Now that salvation has come through the shed blood of Christ, it doesn't make sense that the prison would continue to exist and be filled with spirits, for then Christ would have to continually preach. This is what he established the Church to do on Earth: Preach to all nations.

The Heavenly Mother doctrine must be Advanced Mormonism. I have only read the KJV and the BoM.

This is perhaps one of the obstacles for me to convert to the CoJCoLDS. I can never believe your doctrine that Jesus was married and had children. This makes for a good movie (The DaVinci Code) but poor theology.

The Baptism of Blood and the Baptism of Desire have the example of the Good Thief as their generating principle. Other people seize on the example of the Good Thief as a loophole in the doctrine that baptism is required for salvation, as though God, the very source and dispenser of grace, is bound by the normative means by which he brings that grace to men.

Historically, conversion to Christianity was a longer process than just saying "Jesus come into my heart as my Personal Lord and Savior." It took from one to three years and culminated during Holy Week with baptism and the laying on of hands to confer the Holy Spirit. If the catechumen died of natural causes or accidents during that long process before baptism, they were considered to have been saved by their desire to come into the Kingdom of God. Catechumens who were put to death by opponents to Christianity before their water baptism were said to have gone through the baptism of blood.

Let's cut to the chase. Do you hold that men are able to come to the Tree of Life by their own efforts, and it does not require an initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit to convict their hearts and move them to conversion?

You misunderstand me. I said Jesus did not commit his wife into John's safekeeping, only his mother. If Jesus was married, he would have made arrangements for his wife. It is written (Matthew 19:12) For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

A murderer's life is worth just as much as the victim's life. We all deserve death for our sins. That's precisely why God came in the flesh to die as propitation for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).

Yes, because he seemed to be familiar with Christ's teaching that the Kingdom of God was at hand. He said "Remember me when you come into your Kingdom." Since Christ didn't preach his gospel on the cross, the thief must have heard Christ prior to his execution. He might even have been one of the 72 disciples, and was captured in a general sweep when Christ himself was arrested, and the 12 went into hiding.

It is possible the thief on the Cross was a follower of Jesus who was forgiven for his sins but still had to answer to the human authorities for his crimes (and indeed likely, considering the "love" the Jews had for people who were part of the Way). There is also the principle that God binds humans to his plan of salvation, but this does not in turn bind God.

Christ not only expects it, he teaches that it must accompany belief for salvation. Mark.16:[16] He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The context of the verse is a discussion by Paul to the Gentiles of the gifts of the spirit, beginning with the power restraining those who have the spirit from blaspheming Christ, and then affirming that no one even testifies to Christ's Lordship without the same spirit. In verse 9 Paul says, "To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit". He is saying that the very faith that brings us to the foot of the Cross comes from the Spirit of God, and therefore by His sovereign initiative.

1Cor.12:[3] Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

Then you allow for the existence of Christians who never get baptized, since your definition of Christian becomes only one who gives mental assent to various doctrines. The Church becomes important when the baptism is not performed using the Trinitarian formula of Matthew 28:19.

The initiative in election belongs to God, who calls sinners to avail themselves of the appeal to a clean conscience through baptism into his Son's Church. Sanctification is then a lifetime process of cooperating with the grace of God through obedience, prayer and good works which makes men objectively holy and fit to enter the New Jerusalem.

Christians are all baptized persons who firmly believe that God sent his only Son to redeem sinners by his obedience unto death on a cross.

Because Jesus identified with us sinners (he had to, in order to make the atonement efficacious), he submitted to the Father's plan for saving sinners, which includes water baptism. This is what he meant when he told John the Baptist that he must fulfill all righteousness.

The hard part is discerning who is telling the truth when they claim that God is speaking to them. 2 Cor. 11:[3] But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. [4] For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

There is no record in the Scriptures that Paul of Tarsus was married in the temple, or that he was ever married. If this is the case, does that mean we may expect to find the Apostle to the Gentiles consigned to the Terrestrial Kingdom in the life to come?

Does this mean you believe Jesus, the Word made flesh, the begotten Son of the most High Living God, by whom all things were made, would have only attained to the Terrestrial Kingdom unless he were married during the 33 years he lived among us on Earth?

While on the cross, Jesus committed his mother into the custody of John the Apostle, but not any wife.

The post I was responding to said: Those that are spiritually rich and wise in spirit will be the first to come to the table that is before us...After Jesus comes in his power, those that are "spiritually" poor, lame, blind and deaf will also come to his table. The way I read this is that the rich and wise get to enjoy the Banquet of Christ now, and sometime after Christ comes in power, the poor will get to enjoy the scraps.

You believe that God adopts us if we become born again, as quid pro quo, something in payment for something. I believe we are born again because God adopts us, gratis, on the house.