HW: Would you agree the other huge idea is an embodied God?
DHO: The first revelation received by Joseph Smith was the appearance to him of the Father and the Son — embodied, separate, identifiable, tangible Beings who appeared to him in what we refer to as the First Vision. And that first revelation, concerning the nature of God as an embodied, glorified, resurrected Being, challenged the creeds of Christianity. Christianity describes God as a disembodied, incomprehensible, spiritual entity that fills the whole universe, and an indistinguishable Father and Son.
HW: A big idea! Any other idea that was startling and got people’s attention?
DHO: Before the close of his ministry, in Illinois, Joseph Smith put together the significance of what he had taught about the nature of God and the nature and destiny of man. He preached a great sermon not long before he was murdered that God was a glorified Man, glorified beyond our comprehension, (still incomprehensible in many ways), but a glorified, resurrected, physical Being, and it is the destiny of His children upon this earth, upon the conditions He has proscribed, to grow into that status themselves. That was a big idea, a challenging idea. It followed from the First Vision, and it was taught by Joseph Smith, and it is the explanation of many things that Mormons do — the whole theology of Mormonism.
HW: Is it the core of it?
DHO: That is the purpose of the life of men and women on this earth: to pursue their eternal destiny. Eternal means Godlike and to become like God. One of the succeeding prophets said: “As man is, God once was. And as God is, man may become.”
That is an extremely challenging idea. We don’t understand, we’re not able to understand, all [about] how it comes to pass or what is at its origin, but it explains the purpose of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is to put people’s feet on the pathway to a glorified existence in the life to come that is incomprehensible, but far closer to God than the Christian world generally perceives.
And this contradicts the Mormon and Moroni verses that talks about an unchanging God the Father, from everlasting to everlasting. This remains the question, that you do not answer.
IMHO, if the scientists are as honest about science as they are about Scripture we might end up with a convincing hair tonic ad.
The fundamental error in LDS theology is the rejection of the Word as the second person of the Godhead, as an uncreated person, who has authority given Him by the Father, that nobody comes to the Father but by Him.
Of fundamental importance in Christianity is the acceptance of Jesus Christ, as the Lord and Savior, also known as the Word, the Second person of the Godhead, one with the Father, never created, an uncreated single God, who as been from eternity past to eternity future. Any man or spirit which rejects this doctrine is not from Him, but a deceiving spirit.
Those who claim Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son, fail to grasp basics in Scripture or intend to deceive.
Our Lord and Savior may indeed be a messenger, but not to be confused as a created angel.
He has been pre-existant and cocreator as the second person of the Trinity, still one God.
There may be lessor gods, but Christ, since the incarnation is also human and seated to the right hand of the Father.
1Jn 4:1-3
(1) Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
(2) Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
(3) And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
1Jn 4:12-13
(12) No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
(13) Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
Joh 1:18
(18) No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Exo 33:20
(20) And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Joh 6:46
(46) Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.