Has the Church distanced themselves from a physical impregnation of Mary.
Huh? I’ve been in a lot of LDS Churches over the years, and I’m sorry, but I never heard that comment in any of them, and my bet is you didn’t either. You may think you did, but that is a comment that is someones guess, conjecture, could believe, comparison with human existence, but absolutely not not not, in the Holy Scriptures.
What you have hypothesized is your idea, unfounded doctrine, unprovable in scripture, but put forth as mormon doctrine when it is the farthest thing from the truth. It points to a personality that seemingly has great difficulty processing what someone says in the context of thinking about doctrine, issues, principles, and facts, and what is actually true and scripturally supportable.
I would love to hear your parents and others explanation of your “research” on the family doctor. Your appearance on these threads and the apparent difficulties you have processing truth and fiction, tell me much, but hey, just consider this is from someone who wonders just where in that fertile mind of yours all this supposed Mormon doctrine is dredged up.
Wita,
If we are all spirit children of God, and created before the world....then were given a body and a chance to live and progress on earth.
And if the same applies to Jesus Christ, then how is it that he is the only “begotten” son? What makes his begottenness any different than ours?
On February 8, 1857 Brigham Young explained how God came to be God and fathered Jesus:
Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created in this flesh himself, by partaking of the course material that was organized and composed this earth, until His system was charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children were organized from the coarse materials of this earth.
When the time came that His first-born, the Saviour, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favoured that spirit [Mary] with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Saviour was begotten by the Father of His spirit, by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits, and that is all the organic difference between Jesus Christ and you and me. And a difference there is between our Father and us consists in that He has gained His exaltation, and has obtained eternal lives. The principle of eternal lives is an eternal existence, eternal duration, eternal exaltation. Endless are His kingdoms, endless His thrones and His dominions, and endless are His posterity; they never will cease to multiply from this time henceforth and forever. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 217-218)
In a 1916 doctrinal statement by the LDS First Presidency we read:
1. “Father” as Literal Parent ... God the Eternal Father, whom we designate by the exalted name-title “Elohim,” is the literal Parent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and of the spirits of the human race. Elohim is the Father in every sense in which Jesus Christ is so designated, and distinctively He is the Father of spirits. ... Jesus Christ is the Son of Elohim both as spiritual and bodily offspring; that is to say, Elohim is literally the Father of the spirit of Jesus Christ and also of the body in which Jesus Christ performed His mission in the flesh, and which body died on the cross and was afterward taken up by the process of resurrection, and is now the immortalized tabernacle of the eternal spirit of our Lord and Savior. (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 4, pp. 1670-1671)
Apostle Bruce R. McConkie explained:
God the Father is a perfected, glorified, holy Man, an immortal Personage. And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God, and that designation means what it says. (Mormon Doctrine, by Bruce McConkie, p. 742)
In the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, under the heading JESUS CHRIST we read:
For Latter-day Saints, the paternity of Jesus is not obscure. He was the literal, biological son of an immortal, tangible Father and Mary, a mortal woman (see Virgin Birth). Jesus is the only person born who deserves the title “the Only Begotten Son of God” ... He was not the son of the Holy Ghost; it was only through the Holy Ghost that the power of the Highest overshadowed Mary (Luke 1:35; 1 Ne. 11:19). (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 2, p. 729)
Would you like more?
I’d seen this before, seemed founded to me, I didn’t know some Mormon’s didn’t know/believe God physically imgregnated Mary:
Brigham Young, second prophet and president of the LDS church said,
“The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and bloodwas begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.” (Journal of Discourses, v. 8, p. 115).
Brigham Young also said, “Now, remember from this time forth, and for ever, that Jesus Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, page 51).
Brigham Young said, “When the time came that His first-born, the Saviour, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favoured that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Saviour was begotten by the Father of His spirit, by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, page 218, 1857.)
Joseph Fielding Smith, stated:
“The birth of the Savior was a natural occurrence unattended with any degree of mysticism, and the Father God was the literal parent of Jesus in the flesh as well as in the spirit.” (Religious Truths Defined, p. 44) as cited in the book, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality, by Gerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, P.O. Box 1854, Sal Lake City, Utah 84110, Bookstore at 1350 South West Temple. 1982, page 260).
Joseph Fielding Smith said, “They tell us the Book of Mormon states that Jesus was begotten of the Holy Ghost. I challenge that statement. The Book of Mormon teaches no such thing! Neither does the Bible.” (Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1, page 19)
Bruce McConkie, who was a member of the First Council of the Seventy stated,
“Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers,” (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, page 547.)
“And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events,...Christ is the Son of Man, meaning that his Father (the Eternal God!) is a Holy Man.” (Mormon Doctrine, by Bruce McConkie, page 742.)
Heber C. Kimball who was a member of the first presidency said,
“In relation to the way in which I look upon the works of God and his creatures, I will say that I was naturally begotten; so was my father, and also my saviour Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, he is the first begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was nothing unnatural about it.” (Journal of Discourses, v. 8, p. 211)
“The man Joseph, the husband of Mary, did not, that we know of, have more than one wife, but Mary the wife of Joseph had another husband” (Deseret News, October 10, 1866) as cited in the book, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality, by Gerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, P.O. Box 1854, Sal Lake City, Utah 84110, Bookstore at 1350 South West Temple. 1982, page 261.