What do the Latter-day Saints believe about Jesus Christ?
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The video avoided quoting any of the many LDS statements about Jesus Christ which would allow the LDS and their scriptures to speak for themselves. Instead, the DVD focused on a few ideas out of context, while assuming that non-Biblical creeds are true.
The LDS believe that Jesus Christ's role is central to our Heavenly Father's plan. Christ is unique in several respects from all other spirit children of God:
- Jesus was and is perfect
- Jesus is God (See John 1:1-2, Hebrews 1:6, 1 Nephi 11:16–26, D&C 76:13).
- Jesus is the Creator (See John 1:3, Hebrews 1:1–6, Mosiah 3:3, Helaman 14:12, Moses 2:1).
- Jesus obeyed the Father in all things (See 3 Nephi 11:11).
- Jesus was chosen and foreordained to be the Redeemer (See Isaiah 43:11, Mosiah 13:28–34, 3 Nephi 9:15, Moses 4:2).
- Jesus is the Mediator between God and humanity (See John 14:6, 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 8:5, 2 Nephi 2:28, D&C 76:69).
- Jesus was "the Only Begotten"—only He, of all God's children, had a physical inheritance in His body from God the Father. (See John 1:14, John 3:16, John 14:3, Jacob 4:11, Alma 12:33–34).
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Claim: "There can be no greater contrast than the Jesus of the Bible with the Jesus of Mormonism." – Dr. Phil Roberts, President, Midwestern Bible Theological Seminary.
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This statement is inflammatory and misleading. Latter-day Saints find such a characterization misleading and unfair. More properly, there is a great contrast between the non-Biblical creeds, accepted by the video's producers, and the scriptural record as understood by the Latter-day Saints. The Saints have no quarrel with the Bible—they love and revere it. They do not accept, however, the later additions of the creeds.
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Claim: "In the Bible and according to history as we believe and the actual work of Jesus Christ he was God in the flesh, He was eternal with God, coequal uncreated." – Dr. Phil Roberts, President, Midwestern Bible Theological Seminary.
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This claim illustrates the source of the critics' attack on the Church. Dr. Roberts and the video's producers are creedal Christians. That is, they accept the creeds which were formulated hundreds of years after Christ's resurrection in an attempt to define the nature of God and Christ. The Latter-day Saints do not accept many of these creeds because they were:
- not found in the Holy Bible or other scripture
- not taught or believed by Jesus or the early Christians
- developed only with the addition of non-scriptural ideas and concepts (e.g. Greek philosophy)
Dr. Roberts believes that his creedal beliefs are scriptural. The Latter-day Saints, and many Christian scholars of religious history, believe otherwise—they realize and admit that non-scriptural ideas had to be added to the Bible to formulate the creeds.
Latter-day Saints accept the witness that Jesus was God in the flesh and eternal with God, for this is the testimony of scripture. They do not accept the later creedal additions of being "coequal uncreated," (though they understand 'uncreated' in a different sense than the creeds, see below).
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Claim: Mormons don't believe Jesus was the creator of all things.
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This objection also arises from a creedal interpretation of scripture. Creedal Christians accept the doctrine of creation out of nothing—sometimes called creatio ex nihilo. This doctrine holds that only God existed, and He created all other beings and things out of nothing.
This doctrine is not Biblical, but draws again on the influence of Greek thought in later Christian centuries. The LDS believe that some things simply cannot be created—"intelligence" and matter (see D&C 93:29). Thus, the LDS believe that God created all things that required creation, through Jesus Christ.
Under the ex nihilo creed, God cannot be created, so He exists necessarily. Creedal Christians see no contradiction in saying God created all things, even when He did not create Himself. Likewise, LDS Christians see no contradiction in claiming Jesus created all things, even if there are some things (like God) which are eternal and require no creation.
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Does Colossians 1:21 teach that Jesus created all things and angels out of nothing?
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Answer
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What are the implications of claiming that Jesus/God created Satan out of nothing?
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The DVD opines that "there is an infinite chasm between Jesus Christ, creator God, and Satan, creature who has sinned."
This conclusion reflects the creedal conviction that God is totally other from all other beings. However, the video does not explore the implications of this claim. If God did, as claimed, create Satan ex nihilo, then God could have created Satan differently. Satan (and all mankind) could have been created with a nature that would not predispose him to commit sin.
If God could have created Satan (or a mortal) in a different way, then in some sense God is responsible for their evil natures. The sins and evils committed by fallen beings become God's fault, because He could have made things differently, but did not. How is it then just to judge or punish a sinner for sin if the sinful nature was created by God out of nothing?
This is a major philosophical problem for those who embrace creatio ex nihilo. The LDS view, in which God creates by organizing eternal matter and intelligence avoids these problems. Satan sinned because of his eternal nature: he made free choices based on who he has always been. Likewise, mortals cannot blame God for their sins, because their core nature was not created by God.
A Latter-day Saint Christian would argue that it does not lessen God for Him to allow other beings to make free choices and receive the consequences. Rather, they believe that there is a "vast gulf" between the loving God of the Bible, and a belief that God wilfully creates degenerate, fallen, and sinful beings and then punishes them for natures which He gave them.
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Satan's potential role in God's plan misrepresented
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The video does not accurately portray all of the LDS ideas regarding the "council in heaven" which are necessary for understanding. The video correctly notes that two spirit children of God (Jesus and Satan) offered to play a role in God's plan for human happiness. However, it neglects to mention that Satan's offer was not welcome or anticipated. Accepting Satan's offer was never an option—God says that Jesus' role was determined from the beginning: "my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever" (Moses 4꞉2).
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Did President Hinckley admit that the Church does not worship the Biblical Jesus?
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The video makes much of a statement by Church President Gordon B. Hinckley:
- No I don't believe in the traditional Christ. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the dispensation of the Fullness of Times.
- —President Gordon B. Hinckley, Deseret News (20 June 1998): 7. Screenshot
It should be emphasized that the "traditions" alluded to by President Hinckley are the non-Biblical creeds. But, members of the Church do not reject the Biblical witness—it is partly because the creeds are not Biblical that the LDS do not use them.
President Hinckley continues to explain that revelation teaches more about God than philosophical speculation, and insists that he is a Christian, but the video does not quote this material:
- [Jesus], together with His Father, appearaed to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.
- Am I Christian? Of course I am. I believe in Christ. I talk of Christ. I pray through Christ. I'm trying to follow Him and live His gospel in my life.
President Hinckley elsewhere made it clear that we differ with other Christians over the creeds, not over the scriptural witness:
- As a Church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say. Our faith, our knowledge is not based on ancient tradition, the creeds which came of a finite understanding and out of the almost infinite discussions of men trying to arrive at a definition of the risen Christ. Our faith, our knowledge comes of the witness of a prophet in this dispensation who saw before him the great God of the universe and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. They spoke to him. He spoke with Them. He testified openly, unequivocally, and unabashedly of that great vision. It was a vision of the Almighty and of the Redeemer of the world, glorious beyond our understanding but certain and unequivocating in the knowledge which it brought. It is out of that knowledge, rooted deep in the soil of modern revelation, that we, in the words of Nephi, “talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that [we and] our children may know to what source [we] may look for a remission of [our] sins” (2 Nephi 25꞉26).
- —Gordon B. Hinckley, "We Look to Christ," Ensign (May 2002): 90.off-site
To read more:
- Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks, "Comparing LDS Beliefs with First-Century Christianity," Ensign (March 1988): 7.off-site
- Stephen E. Robinson, "Are Mormons Christians?," New Era (May 1988), 41.off-site
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Claim: "The Bible also teaches that Jesus has eternally been God, while Joseph Smith teaches that Jesus had to achieve Godhood."
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