Stand on the Rock of Revelation Part 4

Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a Biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism. Welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism.

I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. This week we've been looking at an article in the October 2020 edition of Ensign magazine titled Stand on the Rock of Revelation. It was originally a devotional that was given by Mormon elder Lawrence E. Corbridge. He gave the article to the back in January of 2019.

Now it's been turned into an article, and as I mentioned, it's in the October 2020 edition of Ensign. What he's basically doing is giving members some guidelines as to how they can determine what is right, what is wrong, what questions should be asked, as opposed to some that probably are not all that important, at least not to Elder Corbridge. That's what we're going to look at today in his article, under the section Primary Questions and Science.

He writes, Now, I think those are fair questions, but I think we have to also understand what does Mr. Corbridge mean in questions number one and two, and this is why I asked that. Number one says, If he means that in a Mormon context, in other words, that the God, the Father of Mormonism, is the literal father of not only every human being on Earth, born in a pre-existence as his spirit children, then yes, I would say three and four are probably important in connection with that. If that's not how we meant that, then I don't see the relationship between one and the other. Because if Joseph Smith is not a prophet, how would that change the biblical teaching that we as believers have a God who is our Father? Christians believe that. We may not believe the definitions that are included in Mormonism. Certainly we wouldn't agree with those, but certainly we can say that we believe in God the Father.

The same would go with point number two. We certainly believe, as New Testament Christians, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now, does he mean, though, literally the Son of God, as some Mormon leaders have taught it, such as God who has a body of flesh and bones, coming down and having physical sexual relationships with Mary, and that's how we get the incarnated Mormon Jesus?

If that's what he's thinking, then yes, two, three, and four would all be related. If he's meaning that in a generic way, that Jesus is the Son of God, that a Christian could agree with that wording, and I think I can, then I don't see the relationship between three and four and one and two. That becomes important, because if in fact God is our Father, if in fact Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, as he says in point number two, it's irrelevant whether or not Joseph Smith is a prophet or if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God on earth.

They're not related. He seems to think they are, which makes me wonder, and I can't prove it because he doesn't give those details in this article, that maybe he is looking at points one and two, is there a God who is our Father, and two, is Jesus Christ the Son of God the Savior of the world, in a Mormon context? I think you would have to say it is in a Mormon context, and that's one of the hard things for many people who don't know much about Mormonism as Christians as they talk to their Latter-day Saint friends, because we do use the same terms, but we have different meanings. But if you're going to accept this article, written by a former 70, as being from a Mormon perspective, I think you're going to have to say, God who is our Father is referring to a literal father. As man is, God once was.

As God is, man may become. And so the idea that God is our Father today in the same way that he had a father in a previous world, and how Mormons think that someday they hope to be able to become God in their own right with their families. And so we have, I think very clearly, I think it's a literal father, is what he's talking about, number one. And number two, when a Latter-day Saint uses the term Son of God, they mean it in a literal sense, not in the sense that the Christian would use. In other words, the way they describe it, he's the Son of God in the flesh. That's a phrase they always use, which certainly makes a distinction between what they are thinking as opposed to what we as New Testament Christians would be thinking. And when he says Savior of the world, I believe he's referring specifically to the Atonement and grace and the other terms that are used by Latter-day Saints to explain how there is a general salvation available to everybody because of our obedience in this pre-existent state.

And so for the Christian, we would say the Savior of the world is reserved only for a specific group of people, the Christian, the person who has belief, and yet Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus is the Savior for everybody because by being that, he can now allow anybody to go to one of the three kingdoms of glory. In the next paragraph, he says, by contrast, the secondary questions are unending. They include questions about church history, plural marriage, people of African descent in the priesthood, women in the priesthood, the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, DNA in the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, different accounts of the First Vision, and on and on. It's interesting that that list of secondary questions in many ways sounds very close to the list of Gospel Topics essays.

Why do you think the church had to come out with those Gospel Topics essays? Because to many of the members, these secondary questions were really primary questions for them. So the church felt compelled to respond to these questions because people were leaving because of these questions.

They were finding information from outside sources, meaning sources that were not connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It caused them problems, which made them question, I would say, points three and four in his primary questions. In the next paragraph, this is what is said, if you answer the primary questions, the secondary questions get answered too, or they pale in significance. Answer the primary questions and you can deal with things you understand and things you don't, and with things you agree with and things you don't, without jumping ship.

Bill, I'm going to suggest that these secondary questions play much more of a significant role in being able to determine the first four questions than what he seems to be showing here. Because from what this article says, he wants to minimize these questions about these secondary issues of church history, plural marriage, etc. I'm going to say that these secondary questions definitely relate very much, especially to Numbers 3 and 4, to help us to be able to see, was Joseph Smith a prophet, and is this church the kingdom of God on earth? Yeah, because if Joseph Smith was not a prophet, then how can the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints be the kingdom of God on earth? It seems to nullify it, and if it isn't the kingdom of God on earth, then Joseph Smith's claim that it is becomes problematic. But what about Joseph Smith as a prophet?

Let's take one of these primary questions. How would we as a Christian make a judgment call on that? Now, if you ask most Latter-day Saints, how did you come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a prophet? Many times they will tell you, well, I prayed about it.

It's something, again, very subjective. I would say that's a bad way of answering that question, and I would argue that we need to go back to special revelation, and that would be the Bible, Deuteronomy 13. Deuteronomy 13.1 says this, Now, think about this. Joseph Smith comes on the scene, he's hailed as a prophet of God, but yet he introduces an understanding of God which is completely foreign to what the Jews believed as well as what the Christians believed. Nowhere will you find that the Jews or the Christians were believing in a God who had a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's. Nowhere will you find that they believed in a God who was once a man who evolved through the person and position that he now holds.

Certainly this is not the God of Christianity. I would say that by Deuteronomy 13, Joseph Smith is disqualified as being a true prophet of God by the very fact that he introduces a false understanding of who God is. What you just gave us, is that objective or subjective truth? Would you say that is something that the facts state, or is it just your mere opinion?

Now clearly this is objective, because I'm going first of all to a source outside of myself. I'm going to the revealed word of God, which Mormons are supposed to believe also. Deuteronomy is a part of their canon as it is a part of our canon. We don't have to stop at Deuteronomy 13, we can also go to Deuteronomy 18 which also tells us in verse 22 that when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not and it does not come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. But the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, and here's the kicker, you shall not be afraid of him. Smith did in fact incorrectly prophesy certain events.

Therefore, I am not to be afraid of him. He is not a true prophet of God, I can have complete confidence in rejecting him and that alleged calling that Latter-day Saints thinks he has, and that is being a Latter-day prophet. So by taking care of number three and saying was Joseph Smith a prophet, and by showing that he was not a true prophet but a false prophet, well then that would negate number four, because then his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is not the kingdom of God on earth. And numbers one and two would also be eliminated because then the God that Joseph Smith preached about is a false God, and the Jesus Christ that Joseph Smith taught is a false Jesus as 2 Corinthians 11.4 talks about.

I think you would be absolutely correct. So it becomes very important, I'm not against his points one through four, I just disagree with Mr. Corbridge in saying that we can't look at the secondary questions as having a lot of importance as well. Now, he may be right when he says by contrast the secondary questions are unending. Yep, Mormonism tends to do that. There are a lot of unending questions that cause many of us to have doubts about this organization. But it doesn't mean that we ignore them, and I get the impression that Mr. Corbridge is wanting to, as we've said earlier, he wants to poison the well. Stay away from those issues, because those issues are not only unending, but that could bring you a lot of doom and gloom that he talks about earlier in the article.

And why? Many people see facts that go against what they believe as causing them a lot of concern, and that, I think, is what's happening in the lives of a lot of Latter-day Saints. They read this information, they see things that bother them, see things that contradict what they were led to believe earlier on in their Latter-day Saint experience, and they realize something's wrong here, and they want to find out what's wrong and make an appropriate decision. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.