You: It was a factual, well referenced article on the single specific topic we were discussing.
No it wasn't.
You: It establishes a factual basis for our claims.
Wrong again.
Me: “will not deter me from addressing the main points which differentiate Mormonism and counterfeit belief systems from true Biblical Christianity.”
You: Then address the points in the article
I addressed the pertainent points as I said I would.
, or admit by your avoidance that you can’t.
Arrogant insults will get you nowhere.
“You: And from my POV, it is orthodox Christianity that has a false and confused concept of the Godhead.
Me: I would expect that to be your point of view,”
You: Of course, but what makes your POV any better than mine?
The Bible does.
You can’t just declare yourself right because you believe yourself right.
I declare the Bible to be right.
Me: “When Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do YOU say that I AM?”, it was because many had confused and wrong concepts of His Person. Peter’s reply; “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”, that means something, and is defined by the Scriptures in the Bible,”
You: And we Mormons agree that Jesus is ‘the Christ, the Son of the Living God’ and that makes us Christians by definition.
Wrong, the jesus you declare to be the Christ is a false jesus, a created being and not the Eternal Divine Second Person of the Triune God.
Me: “not the additional works of Joseph Smith and his plagerized BOM, or other works of fiction such as the Pearl of Great Price.”
You: The BoM quotes from the Bible, so what, it represents a rather small part of the whole.
Joseph Smith plagerized entire chapters of Isaiah and claimed they were given to him, and you know it.
The NT quotes from the OT, do you then call the NT plagiarized too?
Different situation, the writers of the NT cite the OT, not insert whole chapters claiming they came from them as Joey Smith did.
You: I hold the BoM, D&C and PoGP to also be the word of God, you opinion of them carries no weight with me.
Anyone is free to live in deception by following those false books of Mormonism.
Me: “The Church from the very beginning, starting with the Apostles, believed and taught that Jesus Christ was and IS eternally Divine, co-eternal, co-equally Divine with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and NOT a created being as the Arians and the modern day Arians such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses falsely believe and preach.”
We believe Christ to be the Jehovah of the Old Testament, he was with the Father in the beginning and at his Father’s direction created the material universe we see around us. He is the Great I AM, the God of Israel.
As a created spirit being who was created by the Mormon father god having celestial sex with one of his many celestial wives. Wrong jesus, wrong god.
You: You talk of Christ as ‘begotten, not created’ yet when we say that his spirit was begotten by the Father in the beginning, suddenly you jump around saying we teach a created Christ.
Because the Mormon jesus was "begotten" as Mormonism has taught from it's inception, that the Mormon jesus was "begotten" as Bringem Young said, "In the same manner as any man begets any child", by the Mormon god having sex with his celestial wives, and even taught that the Mormon god had sex with Mary too to produce the baby jesus.
In Christianity, "begotten" does not mean, "created" as Mormonism teaches, it refers to the Father sending the Son.
You: Christ was also pretty clear about the Father being greater than he (John 14: 28), and that he learned and grew and progressed, increasing wisdom in favor with God as he did so (Luke 2: 52),
CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, is the key. Those passages refer to the humanity of Christ, not His Deity. You see, in the One Person of Christ is a unique Person having two distinct Natures, Divine, and human, and the two are not confused. In His humanity God the Father was greater, and Jesus did grow in His humanity, which is what those passages are referring to in context.
that Christ looked to the Father as his God (John 20: 17)
The Father also refers to the Son as God.
Matthew 22:
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”
They said to Him, “ The Son of David.”
43 He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying:
44 ‘ The LORD said to my Lord,
“ Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”’?[f](Psalm 110:1)
45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” 46 And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.
God the Father(Adonai) calls God the Son, Lord(Yahweh--God)
You: I feel the Bible is very clear the Christ is subordinate to the Father
Christ the man submitted His Will to the Will of the Father, which is exactly what those passages refer to.
, and as demonstrated in the article I posted, subordinationalism was orthodox in the early church, not trinity.
Not in the Mormon sense at all. Mormonism takes them out of context as it does the Scriptures and twists them to their own destruction just as Jesus and the Apostles said false teachers and false prophets would do.
When you take all the quotes used to claim that the trinity was taught by the early church, and remove all those that are also consistent with subordinationalism you find nothing specifically for the trinity until around 200AD.
Wrong again. The Apostles taught the Eternal nature of Christ as the Eternal Second Person of the Triune God, as did the early church, specifically, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Athenagorus and many others who were contemporaries and disciples of John the Beloved and of Saint Paul.
Me: “To be a Christian means something. One must believe certain things about God, Christ, Salvation, etc”
You: Nope, again check the dictionary. Beyond a belief in Christ there is no other requirement to be a Christian, that is also how the term is generally understood and to use it differently is deceptive. Words mean things, and you don’t get to pick the meaning.
Once again, the dictionary does not define who is a Christian, God's Word the Bible does.
Me: “A dictionary does not define what orthodox Christian beliefs are, the Bible does”
You: First, we don’t claim to be orthodox Christians, we claim to be Christians. Call us unorthodox Christians if you want to distance yourself from us in a truthful way.
Mormons are no more Christian than the Docetists, Gnostics or Arians were.
“You: It was a factual, well referenced article on the single specific topic we were discussing.
No it wasn’t. “
Geez, why not just clap your hands over your ears and go ‘la la la I can’t hear you la la la’?
“I addressed the pertainent points as I said I would.”
It looks more to me like you didn’t understand what points were pertinent. Nor did you directly address anything said by the many non-Mormon scholars in the article I posted.
“Arrogant insults will get you nowhere.”
Challenging you to address the content of an article is neither arrogant or insulting.
“You: Of course, but what makes your POV any better than mine?
The Bible does.
You can’t just declare yourself right because you believe yourself right.
I declare the Bible to be right.”
It sounds like you fail to draw a distinction between the actual text of the Bible (what it says) and the interpretation you have been taught to attach to the text. Just because it is possible to create an interpretation of the Bible that supports the doctrines you accept doesn’t mean those doctrines are in fact correct or that they match what the writer intended you to take from it.
Our understanding of the scriptures is likewise consistent with our doctrine, so again, what makes your interpretation of it any better than ours? On what basis do you think someone should choose between two internally consistent faiths that conflict with each other?
“the jesus you declare to be the Christ is a false jesus, a created being and not the Eternal Divine Second Person of the Triune God.”
The trinity you declare is a false doctrine created by uninspired men with no authority from God and no access to revelation. Yes, we’ve already established we disagree, just repeating it over and over isn’t going to benefit anyone.
“Joseph Smith plagerized entire chapters of Isaiah and claimed they were given to him, and you know it....the writers of the NT cite the OT, not insert whole chapters claiming they came from them as Joey Smith did.”
You clearly have no idea what is in the BoM. There are lengthy quotations from Isaiah, and the prophet quoting him SAYS he is quoting it from Isaiah. There is no attempt to pass it off as anything other than that.
See for yourself:
1Nephi 19
23 ...but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning.
24 Wherefore I spake unto them, saying: Hear ye the words of the prophet, ye who are a remnant of the house of Israel, a branch who have been broken off; hear ye the words of the prophet, which were written unto all the house of Israel, and liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope as well as your brethren from whom ye have been broken off; for after this manner has the prophet written.
2 Nephi 6:5 And now, the words which I shall read are they which Isaiah spake concerning all the house of Israel...
2 Nephi 11:8 And now I write some of the words of Isaiah, that whoso of my people shall see these words may lift up their hearts and rejoice for all men. Now these are the words, and ye may liken them unto you and unto all men.
2 Nephi 25:1 Now I, Nephi, do speak somewhat concerning the words which I have written, which have been spoken by the mouth of Isaiah. For behold, Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying among the Jews.
You have accused falsely.
Also, it was clearly not copied from the Bible. Of the 478 verses of Issiah quoted, the text of nearly half the verses differs from what is in the KJV. Those changes are legitimate translational difference when you compare those variation with existing Issiah manuscripts, not random alteration. For Joseph to deliberately craft something like that, this poor, uneducated farm boy would need access to several different Issiah manuscripts and have the ability to translate them. It would be silly to suggest that introducing random changes would produce such a result. You can read about the details of this here: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.php?table=transcripts&id=2
“Anyone is free to live in deception by following those false books of Mormonism.”
Sneer and smear. Is that all you have?
“Because the Mormon jesus was “begotten” as Mormonism has taught from it’s inception, that the Mormon jesus was “begotten” as Bringem Young said, “In the same manner as any man begets any child”, by the Mormon god having sex with his celestial wives, and even taught that the Mormon god had sex with Mary too to produce the baby jesus.”
Instead of trying to tell me what my religion teaches, why don’t you actually listen to someone who has studied and live it far more than you have. Is there something wrong with a husband and wife having children? Is that ‘dirty’ and ungodly in your eyes? I think you would have a hard time support that idea from the scriptures. We belive that Heavenly Father is the Father of all spirits, it says so Heb 12:9.
Christ was begotten as a spirit in the begining, as a spirit he was Jehovah, the God of Isreal in the OT. When it was time for him to take on mortal flesh, Mary concieved by a miracle brought about by the power of the Holy Ghost. She was a virgin and had no sexual relations of any kind until after she gave birth to Christ. The BoM teaches a virgin birth as well:
1 Nephi 11
13 And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white.
14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.
19 And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!
Now we teach that the result of that miracle was that Christ was conceived of a virgin in such a way that he was literally the son of God, literally begotten of God even though there was no physical relationship. In modern terms, half his DNA coming from Mary, half from Heavenly Father. We also teach that everything that came after conception proceeded naturally, morning sickness, cravings, stretch marks, contractions, etc. etc. Our critics like to look at sermons about the literal sonship of Christ and take bits out of context to misrepresent them as a denial of the virgin birth. Don’t be mislead by such lies.
“In Christianity, “begotten” does not mean, “created” as Mormonism teaches, it refers to the Father sending the Son.”
We believe that begotten means begotten. Christ spirit was begotten of the Father in the beginning, his body was begotten by a miracle that caused a virgin to conceive his physical body as the literal, biological child of Heavenly Father.
“CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, is the key. Those passages refer to the humanity of Christ, not His Deity.”
You say ‘context, context, context’ what you you give is interpretation, interpretation, interpretation. Nothing in and around the text of those passages imposes the distinction you assert, you are reading that in because doing so is required to make it conform to your doctrines. The Father presides over the Son, even to the end of the world:
1Cor 15
24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
Christ delivers up the kingdom to God the Father who shall rule over all, including Christ.
“The Father also refers to the Son as God.”’
The Father never said that Christ was HIS God, Christ said the Father IS his God, that puts the Father above the Son (which is what terms like Father and Son imply anyway).
“Wrong again. The Apostles taught the Eternal nature of Christ as the Eternal Second Person of the Triune God, as did the early church, specifically, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Athenagorus and many others who were contemporaries and disciples of John the Beloved and of Saint Paul.”
His eternal nature and membership in the Godhead are not at issue here, the manner in which he is one with the Father is the issue. Show me where in the Bible the apostles teach that they are three persons combined in to one being, show me where they discuss this ‘one substance’ claim. I’ve asked several times and looked for it myself. It is not there, the ideas come from man, not from the text of the scriptures.
“Once again, the dictionary does not define who is a Christian, God’s Word the Bible does.”
The dictionary defines the meaning of words, the word ‘Christian’ is correctly used to describe anyone who accept Christ as the Son of God and Savior. That is a fact and rejecting it just makes you look silly. God will judge which Christians followed Christ correctly what which went astray (not the theologians who created your doctrines), but that doesn’t alter the meaning of the word.