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FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Most of Christianity today claims that there are not supposed to be any more prophets after Christ's day. Just because someone claims to be a prophet does not mean that we should automatically accept him as such. Critics are correct in their unwritten premise that we need to test modern prophets against what the Lord has already revealed in scripture. Their problem however, is that in accepting the traditional belief that there can be no more prophets, they then twist the words of the modern prophet, and ignore the words of the past prophets, in order to justify their traditional belief.
The belief that there would be no more prophets after Christ is firmly rooted in tradition, not the Bible. The Bible teaches the opposite of this traditional belief. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." (Amos 3꞉7) God has always had direct dealings with man, through the prophets and through revelation. "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?" (Jeremiah 23꞉23) The Lord is the one who directs His Church, not man. This is accomplished through prophets. This is the process God uses, and has used since the time of Adam. "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began." (Luke 1꞉70) Since "God will do nothing" except through "his servants the prophets" and He is, after all, "at hand" and not "afar off," and prophets have been "since the world began," it is only logical, and biblically correct, to expect God to have the same relationship with man today.
Christianity claims that God does not change. This is a statement that Latter-Day Saints agree with. Yet, while making this claim, most of Christianity says God has changed. They claim we do not need prophets because Christ came and finished establishing and directing the "church." Christ did not come to do away with prophets, as traditional Christians claim. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, til all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5꞉17-18) How important are prophets? If there were no prophets, mankind would be destroyed, in a spiritual sense. "Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29꞉18)
Those who oppose Joseph Smith as a prophet, do not oppose past prophets, but the prophets who are living in their time. This is also what happened to Christ, who proclaimed that He was the Son of God. It was the religious leaders who opposed Christ the hardest. The very same religious leaders who claimed to know and understand the scriptures. These same religious leaders actually were around to witness the miracles of Christ, yet they persecuted him. Christ understood that the Pharisees believed in the past prophets (like the traditional Christians today) while denying that a prophet could exist in the present time (again, just like the traditional Christian today). In His own words, Jesus said these religious leaders have the appearance of righteousness, yet were full of iniquity.
Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city (Matthew 23꞉28-34):
The same thing is true of Joseph Smith, and traditional Christians follow this pattern today. They proclaim to believe in Christ, but deny living prophets (such as Joseph Smith) who proclaim they have seen Christ and know He is the Savior, and proclaim it to the world.
Notes
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