Summit Lecture Series: Is Mormonism Christian or a Cult? with Douglas Groothuis part 6

Summit Lecture Series: Is Mormonism Christian or a Cult? with Douglas Groothuis part 6 May 31, 2016

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Cults always demote God, make his standards less strict, and give human beings too much credit and ability to save themselves. Now, a Mormon will say, “Jesus is my Savior,” but what do they mean by that?

Mormons believe that there are many Gods; that every God that exists is an exalted man; and that Gods create other Gods through procreation. Many years ago, I asked some Mormon missionaries, “Is it right that you are metaphysically polytheistic and devotionally monotheistic?” They answered, “Yes.” Metaphysically polytheistic is the belief in the existence of many Gods. Mormons also believe that all Gods became Gods after beginning their life as humans, including Jesus Christ and what they call the Heavenly Father.

Human beings, in their belief, are apart of “eternal progression.” This means that Mormons believe that eternal salvation is achieved by ultimately developing into a God who can have his own universe. This belief is also very male-oriented and one can find male-orientation throughout Mormonism. For example, many of its early leaders were polygamists and women have never been able to participate in the authority of the church.

So, when they say, “Jesus is my Savior,” they mean that Jesus provides all resurrection for all humans. When Jesus conquered death and resurrection, he conquered it for everyone. They call that salvation, but what they really want is exaltation. Every God, in their eyes, was once a man, so they want to be exalted to a higher status. Women can still be exalted, but not to the level of men. Mormons say that Jesus has dealt with their mortality and that they will be resurrected because of Him. However, they also believe that they will be exalted according to their good works and their obedience to the doctrines and practices of the Mormon Church.

As you can see, God is demoted and not considered the one true God who has existed for all eternity. In Isaiah 43:10 God says,

Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me.

That is very clear.

Moreover, their doctrine of eternal progression does not make any philosophical sense. Mormons don’t believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. They believe that Gods and men go back eternally. You cannot traverse or cross an actual infinite of events. You would never reach now. We have a very clean, logical, and sensible position as Bible-believing Christians. We believe that in the beginning, one God created the heavens and the Earth. We also believe that we are utterly incapacitated by human sinfulness. Consider Mark 7:20-23, where Jesus himself says,

What comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make someone unclean.”

According to Christ and the rest of the scripture, the problem of humanity is deepest. It came from the fall of Adam and Eve, and we have an inherited these tendencies and irresistible proclivities to sin and to make ourselves, not God, the center of the universe. Only God’s sovereign mercy can deliver us from that. Mormon’s believe that God did part of the work and that we do the rest with our good works, but this, according to scripture, is simply untrue.


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