How many Gods DO we believe in?

[zil]

15 minutes ago, Grunt said:

WHAT!?!?!

God the Father = Elohim

Jesus Christ = Jehovah

Jesus Christ has been the mediator between God and men from the very beginning of creation.

[bytebear]

"Jesus the Christ" goes over the life of Christ, but not from his birth in Bethlehem, to his death, resurrection and ascension, but from the creation of the world all the way to the final judgement. 

Edited December 2, 2017 by bytebear

[Blossom76]

4 hours ago, zil said:

God the Father = Elohim

Jesus Christ = Jehovah

Jesus Christ has been the mediator between God and men from the very beginning of creation.

Off topic so I apologise but you can please explain what you mean when you say Jesus Christ is Jehovah? I'm fairly new to this so forgive me if this is something well known in the LDS community.

[Jane_Doe]

13 minutes ago, Blossom76 said:

Off topic so I apologise but you can please explain what you mean when you say Jesus Christ is Jehovah? I'm fairly new to this so forgive me if this is something well known in the LDS community.

(Actually not off-topic)

Christ is Jehovah, the great I AM.  Before being born of Mary, He spoke through the burning bush, lead the people of Israel, created the Earth, etc.  He has always been our mediator with the Father.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Jane_Doe

[Bad Karma]

31 minutes ago, Blossom76 said:

Off topic so I apologise but you can please explain what you mean when you say Jesus Christ is Jehovah? I'm fairly new to this so forgive me if this is something well known in the LDS community.

In simplest terms, It's a name in a common tongue. He's also called "Yeshua" in Hebrew. I would not worry about that, in your and our common tongue, we more oft call him Jesus.As such, hence "The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints".

Edited December 2, 2017 by Bad Karma

[anatess2]

 

5 hours ago, zil said:

God the Father = Elohim

Jesus Christ = Jehovah

Jesus Christ has been the mediator between God and men from the very beginning of creation.

 

22 minutes ago, Blossom76 said:

Off topic so I apologise but you can please explain what you mean when you say Jesus Christ is Jehovah? I'm fairly new to this so forgive me if this is something well known in the LDS community.

 

11 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

(Actually not off-topic)

Christ is Jehovah, the great I AM.  Before being born of Mary, He spoke through the burning bush, lead the people of Israel, created the Earth, etc.  He has always been our mediator with the Father.

 

Okay, Catholic and LDS bridge coming...

Both Catholic and LDS use Jehovah (Yahweh) as the name of the One True God.  The name "Jehovah" is a Catholic (Latin) invention trying to combine the Hebrew YHWH with the vowels in the Jewish replacement of YHWH which is Adonai (Jews do not like saying God's name to avoid over-usage of it, so they replace YHWH with Adonai when reading scripture aloud).

So, in Catholic teaching there is One God (physical substance) with 3 persons.  So, the Person in the Old Testament is God the Father as Jesus proceeds from him with his birth through Mary which is already New Testament time.  Therefore, although Jehovah refers to that One God to which the Father and Jesus are one, when Catholics think of the God that led the Jews out of Egypt, they think of the Personage that is the Father and when they think of the God the Messiah, they think of the Personage that is Jesus Christ.

In LDS teaching, all 3 Persons in that One God are eternally existent as 3 Persons and not as one person proceeding from the other.  Therefore, the Jehovah of the Old Testament - the creator, the covenant, the voice in the burning bush, etc., is also the Person that is Jesus Christ prior to his mortal birth through Mary.  The Messiah, the redeemer,  is also Jesus Christ.

Hope this helps.

[Blossom76]

Has anyone got any links for LDS teaching on Jesus is Jehovah? I'd really appreciate it  @anatess2 @Jane_Doe

Edited December 2, 2017 by Blossom76

[Alex]

3 hours ago, Blossom76 said:

Has anyone got any links for LDS teaching on Jesus is Jehovah? I'd really appreciate it  @anatess2 @Jane_Doe

The teacher's manual gives references for the scriptures and revelations:

https://www.lds.org/manual/jesus-christ-and-the-everlasting-gospel-teacher-manual/lesson-5-jesus-christ-was-jehovah-of-the-old-testament?lang=eng

[Blossom76]

So mormons do pray to Jesus then?   I thought they didn't.  But if LDS believe Jesus is Jehovah of the OT, the prophets of the OT prayed to Jehovah, which means they prayed to Jesus. 

[zil]

1 hour ago, Blossom76 said:

So mormons do pray to Jesus then?   I thought they didn't.  But if LDS believe Jesus is Jehovah of the OT, the prophets of the OT prayed to Jehovah, which means they prayed to Jesus. 

Mormons do not pray to Jesus, we pray to Heavenly Father.

It is my personal belief that the OT prophets starting with Adam, and then each subsequent prophet knew who Jesus Christ was (would be) and that he existed separately from the Father.  I assume they also prayed to the Father in the name of Christ, because that has always been the pattern God has used in dealing with his fallen children.  Exactly how this was taught to and understood by the general population, I cannot guess.  That this is not clearly reflected in the current OT is not surprising given the history of the Jews and the changes (in belief and records) which would have occurred over that long history.

I believe these things not because the OT alone presents the pattern clearly, but because of latter-day revelation, including the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price and the Book of Mormon (which is primarily about some folks who left Jerusalem around 600 BC); and because it's the only thing that makes sense.

Perhaps someone more versed in this stuff will come along and provide better information.

[Jane_Doe]

2 hours ago, Blossom76 said:

So mormons do pray to Jesus then?   I thought they didn't.  

Correct.  We follow what Christ tells us to do: pray to the Father in the name of the Son.

2 hours ago, Blossom76 said:

But if LDS believe Jesus is Jehovah of the OT, the prophets of the OT prayed to Jehovah, which means they prayed to Jesus. 

They had not yet be instructed otherwise.  And note: the Father and Son are ONE.  It's impossible to honor one without honoring the other.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Jane_Doe

[Grunt]

18 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

Correct.  We follow what Christ tells us to do: pray to the Father in the name of the Son.

They had not yet be instructed otherwise.  And note: the Father and Son are ONE.  It's impossible to honor one without honoring the other.

That doesn't make any sense to me.  They are individuals.  One is the Father, the other the Son, same as us.  Of course I can honor one without the other.   God is the Creator.  He SENT Christ to atone.  

This is seeming more and more off the rails to me.  

Edited December 2, 2017 by Grunt

[Jane_Doe]

18 minutes ago, Grunt said:

That doesn't make any sense to me.  They are individuals.  One is the Father, the other the Son, same as us.  Of course I can honor one without the other.  

This is seeming more and more off the rails to me.  

If you do as the Son commands, you're Father commands, cause they are the same commands.

If you say "Great in the Father's work", you're also saying "Great is the Son's work" because it is the same work.

etc.

They are two different persons, but unified together as one.  Same love, save goodness, same righteousness, same work, etc.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Jane_Doe

[zil]

12 minutes ago, Grunt said:

That doesn't make any sense to me.  They are individuals.  One is the Father, the other the Son, same as us.  Of course I can honor one without the other.   God is the Creator.  He SENT Christ to atone.  

This is seeming more and more off the rails to me.  

I disagree with Jane that they hadn't been instructed to pray to the Father.  Rather, I believe the records were changed as their religion was corrupted.  I have to go now and will be gone for probably 3 hours, but here is the first evidence of this:

Quote

Jacob 4:

4 For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us.

5 Behold, they believed in Christ and worshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son.

Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc.  Every prophet who was a true prophet of God knew, I believe, of Christ and worshiped God in the name of Christ.  The OT record has simply been corrupted or obscured in this regard.

[zil]

Oh, and we could now start listing scriptures wherein Christ describes the one-ness of him and his Father - they are so united, despite being individuals, that I think Jane is right about anything we do in relation to one is also done in relation to the other - even if in our own minds, we think to separate them.

[Grunt]

But words MEAN something.  If doctrine is one with scripture, the words need to be defined.   When they aren’t we are just discussing theory or opinions.  

The more I study the more I start to think Mormonism has a very narrow baseline of doctrine.  The rest is branches of theory and suppositions based on undefined or unanswered scripture or revelation.  People state and defend these branches as doctrine and I can’t tell the difference.  

[Rob Osborn]

9 minutes ago, Grunt said:

But words MEAN something.  If doctrine is one with scripture, the words need to be defined.   When they aren’t we are just discussing theory or opinions.  

The more I study the more I start to think Mormonism has a very narrow baseline of doctrine.  The rest is branches of theory and suppositions based on undefined or unanswered scripture or revelation.  People state and defend these branches as doctrine and I can’t tell the difference.  

A lot of what you say is correct.

[anatess2]

29 minutes ago, Grunt said:

But words MEAN something.  If doctrine is one with scripture, the words need to be defined.   When they aren’t we are just discussing theory or opinions.  

The more I study the more I start to think Mormonism has a very narrow baseline of doctrine.  The rest is branches of theory and suppositions based on undefined or unanswered scripture or revelation.  People state and defend these branches as doctrine and I can’t tell the difference.  

Words do mean something.  But remember, there's God's words and then there's Man's words.  There is ONE GOD.  The title Jehovah is given to that ONE GOD for the benefit of man.  There are 3 persons in that one God.  So, here's a point to ponder... what does ONE God mean to you (this is not a test question with right or wrong answers, this is a question to start a moment of pondering, make sense?).  After pondering that, then ponder John Chapter 8 (especially verse 58) and what Jesus' words here mean to you.

There's a lot of major implications to one's understanding of the Covenant and the Plan of Salvation that is rooted in this one question.  Yeah, it took me a while to wrap my brain around it too especially in the reading of the first few chapters of Genesis (translated by Joseph Smith into the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price).

Edited December 2, 2017 by anatess2

[Grunt]

SO Mormons believe we all become a part of God?  

 

Im really confused and frustrated.  It seems like you all say different things.  

[person0]

I haven't been posting for a month or so since starting the home building process and growing my family to now having 5 children instead of two.  However, I notice you using the word 'we' in reference to Mormons.  Did I miss your baptismal announcement?  If so, Congratulations!  Either way, it's nice to see you considering yourself one of us.

As a personal note, sometimes the Lord directs us into the correct path knowing we will face tribulations that would cause us to question that path.  When my wife and I signed the contract to build our new house, we knew we felt the Lord guiding us to make that decision, however, since then it has been a roller-coaster of excitement and annoyance as we have run in to issues and annoyances.  Regardless, that doesn't change the fact that we feel this has been and is the right decision for us to make for our family.  We trust that the Lord will lead us where he wants us so long as we do our part (even if that ends up meaning poverty).  I bring this up because, similarly, you will run into new information as you continue forward in the faith that will cause you to question things, and involve lots of pondering.  It won't, however, change the truth of what you have received previously.

Many other Christian denominations do teach that Mormons are polytheistic, and that is one of their qualms with our faith.  In my perspective, we are not polytheistic simply because we do not directly worship all three of the divine beings we attribute to being God, but instead focus our worship on the father.  This worship is obviously done only in and through Jesus Christ. The fact that someone is or can become a 'God' or a 'god' does not automatically indicate that they are or should be worshiped.  Christ is wholly and individually deserving of all worship, however, He willingly forsook all glory in order to glorify the Father and to volunteer to bring about the Father's plan.  If you think about it, doing this is part of what is so honorable about Him, and makes him deserving of worship.

Quote

Moses 4:2
But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.

Many members of the Church attempt to make our doctrines seem less conflicting with mainstream Christian thought, and often, rightly so.  However, the nature of God and the Godhead has always been a core difference that ought to be well understood.  It could be termed that we believe there are multiple gods, but in truth we worship one God.  To me this is a non issue, but some people I know tend to think that any being that is a god must be the same as God the Father and therefore we must worship them.  Is there anything that works that way?  Do citizens in a monarchy serve and obey or follow the king of a different kingdom?  Do I follow the instructions given to me by a manager at another company or the manager at my company?  Anyway, I'm sure you have come across plenty of good resources and scriptures to help in reconciling this concept, so I'll leave it at that for now.

34 minutes ago, Grunt said:

SO Mormons believe we all become a part of God?  

Not sure where this came up in the thread, but no.  Each one of us has the ability to become exalted, which means to inherit all that the father hath.  This essentially would result in us having all knowledge, all power, etc, etc, etc, hence it is often discussed as becoming a 'god'.  Each one of us will always be an individual entity, just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are individual entities.

Defining the united members of the Godhead as one God can be reconciled in many ways.  In my mind, one of the simplest ways is understanding that without working together as one, neither of them could accomplish the task as an individual.  What I mean is this:

Quote

D&C 130:22
The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.

God the Father has an immortal glorified body comprised of the sealing of spirit and element, which can never be separated.

Quote

D&C 95: 33 - 34
For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;
And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy.

As a result, God the Father can not become mortal, he is perfect and has a fullness of joy.  Christ has now achieved the same, however, before being born, he was able to fulfill the role as our Savior, which the Father (who can not become mortal) could not achieve on his own.  The Holy Ghost, being a personage of spirit, can dwell within us.  This is also something that God the Father, on His own, can not do.  Christ at one point could do this, but had other responsibilities and now being resurrected no longer can.  Christ, nor the Spirit were initially beings who had already received a fullness of joy, as a result, they would not have been prepared to set forward a plan for all of us to achieve something they themselves had not yet achieved, hence the plan had to come from the Father, and they have to act on behalf of the Father, as it is His plan, originating from His wisdom, knowledge, etc.

As you can see, with this understanding, the three members of the Godhead are one God, because they fulfill the plan, obligations and responsibilities of one God.  As I mentioned before, this is not the only way to understand this principle, but I believe it is one of the most simple.

In the end, as long as you reconcile the doctrine between yourself and the Spirit, and do so in a way that is not contradictory to other doctrines, it won't matter that much which explanation is most preferred to you.  That said, I hope this is helpful and not confusing as I know even many of us members will have differing perspectives and opinions.  Then again, how many different explanations have people given throughout history to try and make the doctrine of the 'Trinity' make sense?  

Edited December 2, 2017 by person0

[Jane_Doe]

48 minutes ago, Grunt said:

SO Mormons believe we all become a part of God?  

God is not just a person, it's way someone is--- perfect love, perfect righteousness, perfect grace, perfect justice etc.   Upon exaltation, those individuals will share that  perfect love, perfect righteousness, perfect grace, perfect justice, etc.  That's what it is to be exalted and what Christ prayed for in the Garden (John 17).

[zil]

FWIW, @Grunt, while this may seem to you like a bunch of people with conflicting interpretations, as a life-long Mormon, I see them all as different ways of explaining the same thing.  A forest as described from atop a mountain looking down on the canopy sounds much different from one described from across an empty plain looking at the wall of trees in the distance, which sounds much different from a description of the middle of the forest.  I think we were all in a hurry to give you a variety of descriptions in hopes that one of them would make sense to you, and instead, we just confused you further (sorry about that).

So, I see that things slowed down while I was gone - that's good.  Take some time to pick one of our descriptions and maybe we can have a slower discussion wherein it starts to make sense to you.  Or, focus on some other thing you feel like focusing on - whatever you choose is fine.

Sorry to add to the confusion.

[estradling75]

2 hours ago, Grunt said:

SO Mormons believe we all become a part of God?  

 

Im really confused and frustrated.  It seems like you all say different things.  

Are you familiar with the story of the blind men and the elephant?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

When it comes to God we are the blind men.

I doubt we will really understand God while mortal.  But we might clue into certain aspects and then try to fill in the blanks on the rest.. to conflicting results

[bytebear]

3 hours ago, Grunt said:

That doesn't make any sense to me.  They are individuals.  One is the Father, the other the Son, same as us.  Of course I can honor one without the other.   God is the Creator.  He SENT Christ to atone.  

This is seeming more and more off the rails to me.  

God the Father is the creator of the spiritual universe (including our spirits).  Jesus/Jehovah is the creator of the physical universe.

[bytebear]

2 hours ago, Grunt said:

SO Mormons believe we all become a part of God?  

 

Im really confused and frustrated.  It seems like you all say different things.  

Yes. We all can become part of God (if we covenant and endure to the end)without losing our own distinct being.   Just as God the Father and Jesus Christ have their own distinctness.  And no matter how many infinite individual distinct beings are part of God, there is still only one God.

Article of Faith #3
We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

Edited December 2, 2017 by bytebear