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. Bill McKeever Why is the Great Apostasy so important when it comes to the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? 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. We're looking at an article that is in the August 2021 edition of the Liahona magazine. It's an article titled Authority Ordinances and Preparation.
It was written by President Dallin H. Oaks. He's the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In yesterday's show, we related a story that he tells in this article when he's talking to the wife of what he calls a prominent Protestant minister who came to his office. We don't know who this prominent minister is, but it did happen about 30 years ago, he said. When he was talking to this lady, she becomes a bit incredulous and asks him, are you telling me that my husband didn't have any authority to baptize all those people he baptized?
His answer is intriguing. He starts off by saying no. Now, Dallin Oaks, you shouldn't have said no, because you know that no one outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has any authority to baptize. He had authority according to his church, his congregation, and the laws of the land. But that's not the question she was asking. She wasn't limiting her husband's authority to baptize as a Protestant minister according to those limitations. So when Oaks says no, I think he's being a bit dishonest here, though I give him credit. He goes on later to explain his position. If you understand what the great apostasy is all about, Bill, then it's pretty obvious that nobody has the authority of the LDS church.
She probably doesn't know very much about that when she's asking. I don't know what the circumstances were that made her and her husband decide to join the church as being a pastor and the pastor's wife, but all he would have had to do is just say, well, let me just explain to you the great apostasy. And this is the great barrier between Mormonism and biblical Christianity. And we should mention that Oaks goes on in his article to say, I testify to her that this authority has been restored and now exists only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You had mentioned yesterday, Eric, that if we are going to even consider embracing members of the LDS church as part of the Christian fold, as we understand the Christian fold to be, according to the New Testament definition, they would have to get rid of this doctrine of the great apostasy.
Now, of course, that's not going to happen. Let me read to you from James Talmage. James E. Talmage was a Mormon apostle. He wrote a book called The Great Apostasy.
And this is what he says on page number Roman numeral three. He says, the restored church affirms that a general apostasy developed during and after the apostolic period, and that the primitive church lost its power, authority, and graces as a divine institution and degenerated into an earthly organization only. The significance and importance of the great apostasy as a condition precedent to the reestablishment of the church in modern times is obvious. If the alleged apostasy of the primitive church was not a reality, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not the divine institution its name proclaims.
So I guess you could say in answer to your statement yesterday, Eric, it's not going to happen. There is no way that they can get rid of this doctrine. And folks, as long as that doctrine is a part of the LDS Church as an institution, there is no way, as a New Testament Christian, I can embrace in fellowship those who are members and hold to a position like that.
I just cannot do it. Let me piggyback on that quote from James Talmage. I'll give you another one from Articles of Faith, page 203. Talmage said, restoration of the church. From the facts already stated, it is evident that the church was literally driven from the earth. In the first 10 centuries, immediately following the ministry of Christ, the authority of the holy priesthood was lost among men, and no human power could restore it.
That's page 203. Yesterday, Bill, you cited from Joseph Smith History, chapter 1, verse 19. This is what the manual gospel principle says. The Savior told Joseph Smith not to join any church, because the true church was not on the earth. He also said that the creeds of present churches were, quote, an abomination in his sight, end quote. And that comes from Gospel Principles, page 96. I'm going to give you a couple other quotes, and by the way, you can look at these quotes in an article that I wrote, titled, Should Mormons Be Considered Christians?
Only If They Deny the Great Apostasy First. And so here's another quote. These two actually come from Joseph Fielding Smith, the 10th president of the LDS church. He said this in Selections from Doctrines of Salvation, page 311. We believe that when he was on the earth in his ministry, our Savior Jesus Christ established his church upon eternal principles fundamental to the salvation of mankind. We believe that following the death of the ancient apostles, these eternal principles were corrupted and became mixed with pagan philosophy. We believe that the essential ordinances of the Gospel were changed and modified by man's will and not by divine instruction. The church had become so corrupted and changed that it became necessary for the opening of the heavens, the coming of heavenly messengers, and a restoration of the primitive faith and divine authority.
One other quote. This comes from Answers to Gospel Questions. Again, Joseph Fielding Smith says, Religious denominations relied entirely on the dead letter of the Bible for their authority. They closed the heavens against themselves, and their interpretations of Scripture without divine guidance led them into division, subdivision, and multiplication of churches, each going its own way blindly and in confusion. The power of the priesthood was lost, and the true Church of Jesus Christ ceased to exist on the earth.
There had been no prophet, no revelation, no divine instruction from the time of the apostles of old until the Lord again opened the heavens and sent holy messengers to restore that which had been taken away. Bill, I have an idea for those who are listening who are Christian believers who have Mormon friends who have said we're Christians just like you. If the LDS church would just get rid of the great apostasy, Mormonism would fold because you have to get rid of the first vision. You have to get rid of Joseph Smith being somebody who restored primitive, as he calls it here, primitive Christianity. This is a big issue, and for us as Christians, this would be the starting place for a person to say that they want to be a Christian just like us. They need to deny the great apostasy.
You can find the article mrm.org slash deny great apostasy with hyphens between those. I think you make a great point because Mormon leaders themselves know that that's a starting point. When you have somebody like James Talmage and a Joseph Fielding Smith, people like that, pointing to this great apostasy saying, look, this has to be, then obviously that becomes a foundational issue when it comes to the authority that the LDS church claims for itself. Now even that word authority needs to be defined and Dallin Oaks is going to do that as he goes on in this article, as we're going to see, he's going to make a big deal out of this word authority because as Oaks and other leaders in the LDS church have clearly stated, that's one of the biggest reasons they conclude that all the churches outside of their church are false and apostate. They do not have this authority, but we have to define what that actually means.
And if we do not get the definition properly understood, it's easy to talk back and forth without even communicating to each other. But I think we should introduce what we're going to be talking about mostly in tomorrow's show, and that is when he talks about the importance of this authority. The importance of authority is evident in many scriptural accounts of our Savior's earthly ministry. We read that the people he taught were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes, and he quotes from the Synoptic Gospels. In a synagogue, they were amazed that with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.
That's from Mark 1-27. Jesus told the questioning scribes that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, that's from Mark 2-10. Later, the chief priests and elders asked him by what authority he acted. He quotes from Matthew and Mark.
They did not meet his requirements for an answer, but what he later said and did reveals his answer. When he called his apostles, he ordained them, John 15-16, that he might send them forth to preach and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out devils, and that comes from Mark 3. When he called the 70, he gave them power, Luke 10-19. The Savior had divine power and authority, and he shared it.
As John the Baptist said, the Father hath given all things into his hands, and that's from John 3-35. Now in the next section, it's highlighted the role of ordinances, and this is where Dallin Oaks gives us the context for everything that he just cited previously. He says the most familiar examples of the exercise of priesthood authority involve ordinances. Ordinances and priesthood are inseparable, he says, but let's not forget, Eric just read a number of citations from various verses in the New Testament. Every one of them speaks of authority that Jesus had and how he gave this authority to others. However, what we do not find in any of those verses that Dallin Oaks cites is the word priesthood.
Priesthood. And Dallin Oaks is reading every single one of those verses as if the word priesthood could be in those passages, even though they're not. The point is this, he's talking about priesthood authority, and he's trying to make these verses say that they're referring to this unique priesthood authority that only the LDS Church has, but not one of those verses says that.
It's kind of like how we read the Gospel Topics essays, Eric, and you know how in the footnotes they've got all these references, and then when we check those footnotes, those references really don't say what they're trying to say. They don't support the premise that the church is taking at this time. This is a classic example of an LDS leader misusing Bible verses, trying to give the impression that it's saying something that supports an LDS position when those verses do not support that position at all. None of them have the word priesthood in it. Look at the verses that he gives. Matthew 7 28 and 29, Luke 4 36, Mark 1 27, Mark 2 10, Luke 5 24. None of them are saying what Dallin Oaks is implying that they're saying. I don't know, Eric, I guess if I was a member of the church, I would almost be ashamed at how one of my leaders misused all these Bible verses to try and give the impression that they are saying something that these verses are not saying. In fact, we don't even read of any type of Melchizedek priesthood authority in the New Testament, except perhaps in the book of Hebrews when it's speaking of Jesus himself and not your average human being. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org, where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another Viewpoint on Mormonism.
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