In my experience (having been Mormon for many years), this is a Mormon attempt to sound ‘intellectual’. However, it is not only a poor choice of words, it also shows how ‘condescending’ they are about Christ.
In Mormonism, Christ is a stepping stone, He only ‘saves’ them from physical death, not spiritual death, the LDS don’t believe in sin nature, and instead believe that they must work (by being good Mormons, going through their secret temple rituals, baptism for the dead and the like) and that Jesus is really not much more than a really good example (by being sinless He earned His godhood first). The Mormon phrase is “By grace we are saved after all we can do”.
Mormons are at the same time exclusivists (only Mormons can go to the Celestial Kingdom and become gods of their own planet) and universalists (everyone goes to at least one of the lower levels of Heaven - they have 3). In order to get to the REAL heaven (the Celestial Kingdom) you have to earn your way there. They turn Christ into a loan shark, a perfect spiritual brother (no different than us) who competed with Lucifer to be Savior, and ‘paid’ for our sins in the the Garden (not on the cross) by sweating blood, but we have to pay Him back by our good works. Nothing is free in Mormonism.
I can source all of these teachings using Mormon sources if you wish.
Don’t let Mormons fool you when they say “Jesus is our Savior and we love Him”. They redefine “savior”, “grace”, “heaven”, etc. Here is a link to a great site that has a Mormon/Christian dictionary (with Biblical references and LDS sources) that clearly shows the errors in Mormon doctrine...
http://utlm.org/onlineresources/terminologymain.htm
That is one of the best descriptions of mormonism I have seen...thanks for posting.
I suspected as much. I agree though, very poor choice of words. It's Christmas and I'll leave it at that.
Thanks for all the other information.
[In Mormonism, Christ is a stepping stone, He only ‘saves’ them from physical death, not spiritual death, the LDS don’t believe in sin nature, and instead believe that they must work (by being good Mormons, going through their secret temple rituals, baptism for the dead and the like) and that Jesus is really not much more than a really good example (by being sinless He earned His godhood first). The Mormon phrase is “By grace we are saved after all we can do”.]
If you don’t mind, I will steal that explanation, for I have been at a loss to explain the problem so concisely.