Happy Moroni 8:18 day!
I agree with Moroni 8:18. Why don’t Mormons?
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How interesting. Non-LDS Christians ever talk about God and the Bible, but seldom, if ever define what they mean by these terms. Indeed, ask them to even define the precept of men they call the trinity and they quickly become nonplussed.
It is true that God is unchangable, from all eternity to all eternity, but the Son of Man, who once was a fetus, in his mother’s womb, grew to manhood in the flesh, gave up the spirit in mortality and changed from mortal to immortal, after three days, just as he saw his Father do before him.
The mystery of godliness that the nonbelievers have never understood, nor ever will, is how this is consistent with the oracles of God, including Moroni 8:18.
Excal,
Are you unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity?
I’m not God.
I’ll take that as a “No.”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume you are worthy enough to be exalted to godhood. Will you then be able to say of yourself, that you have been unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity?
Keith,
Jesus prayed to his Father that he would make those mortals the Father had given him one in him as he is one in the Father, that they might be one in them.
If they are one in the unchangeable God, in what sense could they be changable, in the eternal world?
If you still don’t understand, it is no wonder, for how will you believe heavenly things, if you don’t believe earthly things?
Excal,
I am not in the habit of answering questions when mine have been ignored.
Again, For the sake of argument, let’s assume you are worthy enough to be exalted to godhood. Will you then be able to say of yourself, that you have been unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity?
Keith,
I’ve answered your question, but hearing you hear not. I’ll try again. Let’s say I die, having endured to the end as a faithful disciple of Christ.
In other words, I am among those who have overcome and can eat of the tree of life that is in the midst of the paradise of God and have inherited all things, as a son of God, eating of the hidden manna, having a white stone with a new, secret, name written upon it, having received power over the nations from Christ, ruling over them with a rod of iron (the word of God), as he rules over nations, by virtue of the power he received of the Father.
These rulers are the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem that John saw coming down from heaven. These are they who have been given the morning star.
They have been made pillars in the temple of God, which is in the New Jerusalem and they have the name of God written upon them and the new name of Jesus written upon them and they go no more out, but see as they are seen and know as they are known, sitting with Jesus, in his throne, as Jesus sits with his Father in his throne.
These people are sinless, immortal rulers, who have been washed clean in the blood of the Lamb and partaken of the divine nature. They are like God and see him as he is, the unchangeable God, from all eternity to all eternity.
Capiche?
Capiche? No.
I’m going to say this as kindly as I can. You sure do write a lot when a simple “Yes” or “No” would suffice. I’d rather you just give me a straight answer than possibly misunderstand what you are saying because I get lost in the verbosity of your reply.
Again, let’s assume you are worthy enough to be exalted to godhood. Will you then be able to say of yourself, that you have been unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity?
“Tell us plainly!” That’s the frustration the unbelieving Jews had with Jesus. He didn’t give them the words they wanted to hear.
All the verbosity was taken from the words and precepts of the Bible. The idea was to demonstrate how the Bible teaches that those who overcome (those who are saved) become rulers (“gods” in Hebrew) in the kingdom of God.
Since God is unchangable, from eternity to eternity, then those who become like him become unchangable, from eternity to eternity.
It reminds me of the principle of mathematics, where any part of infinity is infinite. We don’t live in eternity. We live in this mortal world of changable beings, but in the eternal world beings don’t change, from eternity on the left, to eternity on the right.
I’m not an unbelieving Jew and you certainly aren’t Jesus.
It is as simple as this. As you know, I have limited time to read and approve of posts. Either help me out here and provide short, simple answers so that we can have an open, honest dialogue or resign yourself to the idea that I will put your comments on last priority and get to you when I feel like chasing rabbits.
However, you have given me something to work with in this post.
You stated, “Since God is unchangable, from eternity to eternity, then those who become like him become unchangable, from eternity to eternity.”
Let me get this straight,something changeable can become unchangeable and then once it becomes unchangeable, then it is considered to have never changed? Is that what you are saying?
Keith, we are running out of threaded space, so I’ll start a new one here.
Yes. Only God is unchangeable, from eternity to eternity.
I’m not ignoring you. My response is still awaiting approval.
excal, here’s what I “understand ” : early on in the life of the
church Joseph build , the testimony about what Mormons
believed about God and preached to those in their missionary
travels was similar to the Bible’s testimony about God :
Mormoni 8:18 with 7:22 and Psalms 90:2 etc . But then
gradually Mormon leaders drifted into apostasy by teaching
God was not always God , as Joseph Smith did near the end
of his life . Then after his death those who led the church kept
introducing still more false teachings about God .
I understand this very well , so it saddens me to see good decent people be misled by false prophets in these latter days.
Mike,
Isaiah wrote:
“9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little….”
You can bet there was a lot of extra searching the scriptures and praying among the saints, after that funeral. I suggest you do the same.
excal, when I see that Moroni 8:18 ( and 7:22 ) agree
with the Bible’s testimony of God , such as psalms 90:2 ,
these verses teach that God has always been God ,
He’s that majestic and unique . Sadly Mormon leaders
have taught that God has not always been God , He
had to learn how to be our Almighty Creator !
According to their doctrine the Creator that we meet in
the Bible at one time did’nt have the power create and could’nt even know how to say , ” Let there be light ”
This is the new info about God that Mormon leaders
offer . Sorry , but that is why Jesus warned us all to be
cautious about men who claim to be His prophets in
the latter days , and instead of praying about them
we are to test them first —1 Jn 4:1 .
Mormon prophets fail this test .
I pray for you to dismiss these prophets , you don’t need
them to know God and His Son —-Jn 17:3
Take care.
Mike,
Jesus was once a baby, who couldn’t walk or talk. He had to learn who he was from his Father. Yet, he was the creator of the heavens and the earth and all things that in them are.
Our Gentile notions of God, our religous traditions, are sometimes dearer to us than life itself, but we need to let go of them, if we expect to follow God. As Christians, we look forward to the return of Christ and his greatly anticipated millennial reign, but our hope is to partcipate as a member of his church, the Bride of Christ.
It is abundantly clear to me that the bride is not ready for the Groom. The Gentile churches are divided as much as they ever were, and what’s worse, they are identifying more and more with the whore of Babylon, not the bride of Christ.
The fulness of the gospel that the saints preach declares that the Lord is gathering in his elect from the four quarters of the earth unto a place he shall prepare, a holy city, the New Jerusalem, where his people may gird up their loins, looking forth for his coming.
It is the Lord’s work, his strange work, his act, his strange act, that is turning the world upside down and destroying the widom of the wise and hiding the understanding of the prudent. If Joseph was not his unlearned servant to whom the sealed book was delivered, the vision of all, in the time when the people draw near to God with their mouths and with their lips do honor him, but have removed their hearts far from him and cling unto the precepts of men, then who is, pray tell?
There is simply no other candidate that even comes close to fulfilling the prophecies of the Bible. There is no doubt in my mind that we are seeing the words of Isaiah and many other prophets fulfilled in the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Will it be marred because of those who will not believe it, although a man shall declare it unto them? Inevitably, but the Lord will heal his servant and show unto the children of men that his wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil.
Have you studied the material on voicesfromthedust.org yet? If not you should, for there you can gain an understanding of the calamity that is befalling mankind and also the fulness of the gospel that makes clear why the only salvation remaining for the Gentiles is for them to repent, and to become as little children, and to be baptized, and thus to be identified in the same covenant and to worship at the same altar as Israel, which is preparing herself, as a bride prepares herself, for the coming of the Groom.
Excal , it’s time for me to wrap this up as you are not staying with what I ( and Keith ) have said about Moroni 8:18 and related
scriptures I listed . You are now going off
down a “House of Israel / Gentiles ” rabbit
trail . The Bible teaches that Jehovah God
has always been God , we don’t see the O.T.prophets or N.T. apostles teach otherwise. Jesus is Jehovah . Now you missed this whole point with what you wrote
in your first paragraph about Jesus . He
became a man , He never became God .
Being wrong about this great truth puts you
in a spiritually dangerous position and
suggests that the God who Mormon leaders
have introduced is not the true One .
You said: ” There is no doubt that in my mind that we are seeing the words of Isaiah
and many other prophets fulfilled in the rise
of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS .”
There is no doubt in my mind that we are seeing the words of the greatest prophet,
Jesus Christ, in Matt 24: 11 fulfilled in the
rise of the prophets of the Mormon church .
There are few doctrines as egregious as
the one introduced by Mormon leaders
that our Creator was not always God .
No amount of good works or being deep in
end time prophecy can make up for that .
Please dismiss your latter days prophets ,
you don’t need them to know the Father and
Jesus and receive eternal life —Jn 17:3
That’s it for me with this thread. Gotta move on.
Take care.
Keith, what happened? You seem to have fallen off the edge!
HA! Funny! No, I’ve just been very busy with other projects and family life. Forgive my tardiness in responding and approving comments. Sometimes it isn’t easy to keep up.
Excal,
You said, “Keith, we are running out of threaded space, so I’ll start a new one here. Yes. Only God is unchangeable, from eternity to eternity.”
For some reason, it didn’t start a new thread so let’s take it from here. Thank you for the concise and simple answer. 😉 I like that.
If God is the only unchangeable being, and you hope to be like God, then how can you say you will not be unchangeable? If you will not be unchangeable, then you will not be like God.
Keith,
That’s my point! You can’t say that you won’t be unchangeable, if you say you will be like God, and the Bible says you will be like God (1John 3:2). That’s why every person who has this hope in him purifies himself.
Excal,
Great, we finally agree on something (I think)!
If you will not be able to say of yourself that you have been unchangeable from eternity to eternity, then how can the Father say that of Himself? If he was once finite and changeable like we are now, then how can He become unchangeable?
Keith,
You are really fun to “talk” to like this, because I really get the sense that you are honest. I think the answer to your question is that, as a mortal man, we are not unchangeable, but as God, we are unchangeable.
The mortal puts on immortality. Old things are done away and all things become new. Those who overcome through the blood of Christ have no end, and no beginning. Any thing that has a beginning, must have an end. Such a man, though, because he continues ever, receives an unchangeable priesthood, and by this means becomes unchangeable.
Excal,
Thanks! I really do try to look at things honestly. There are too many Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons who come to the opposite conclusion without giving me the benefit of the doubt. They automatically come to wrong conclusions just because I disagree with them.
Here is another thing we agree on. If someone is God, then they are unchangeable. The point you have yet to explain is how someone who has become a God can be unchangeable FROM all eternity to all eternity. You said that you will not be considered unchangeable, but this is inconsistent with what I believe to be your view of God.
If He *became* a God like you are trying to become a God, then how can He claim to be unchangeable from all eternity, but you can’t?
Keith,
I think you must have misunderstood me. As a ruler (god) in the kingdom of heaven, an exalted saint becomes unchangeable in the eternal world, by virtue of the fact that his reign has no end and no beginning. The key is the word eternity. If it had a beginning, it would have to have an end, but it has no end; Therefore, it has no beginning.
The thing I hate about the whole discussion is that it forces me to defend why I hope to become god. It’s not something that any Mormon I know is as obsessed with as much as non-Mormons seem to think. We are not trying to become gods. We are trying to endure to the end, following Jesus. We desire power to be his disciples, not power to rule.
That’s why I prefer to defend the Bible teaching of the doctrine and not the LDS teaching of it. In the Bible, we learn that Jesus is God. We learn that the saints will become like him. As a man, he changed physically and spiritually, as he grew from grace to grace, but he had the unchangeable priesthood. This royal priesthood is without beginning and without end. All the faithful men receive it, as Jesus received it. That’s all I know and it’s all I care to know.
You know what I mean?
Excal,
I think I understand most of what you have said. I still don’t understand how you interpret the phrase, “from all eternity to all eternity.”
Well, that’s key. To understand the gospel, we have to have the understanding of words like God, One, eternal, etc. that can only be obtained by the power of the Holy Ghost. The problem is that sharing that inspired understanding with those who are without the benefit of that light, is very difficult.
There are several examples of this in the Bible. The most obvious is when Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews that if they destroy this temple, he would raise it up in three days. The word temple referred to his body, not their beloved building, but try to convince their descendants of that today. You will have your work cut out for you, that’s for sure.
With phrases like “unchangeable, from eternity to eternity,” it’s much worse. LDS doctrine clearly teaches an evolving existance, from intelligences, to spiritual offspring, to mortal probation, to immortality. However, the phrase “eternal life,” does not carry the same significance as immotal life.
Eternal life is the life of the Eternal God, who, while an immortal being, is a glorified immortal being. Now, what does this glory consist of? We only have glimpses of it now, but we will know in full some day.
Jesus glorified the Father, and the Father glorified him. Jesus told the Father that he had given his disciples the glory that the Father had given him. Do you fully understand what he was talking about?
Neither do I, but it has to do with that eternal life, which he said he gave to them. I assume that it includes how they too will become one with God, who is unchangeable, from eternity to all eternity. It’s a usufruct, not to be realized this life, but in eternity, and continues throughout all eternity.
That’s all I know, and it’s all I need to know for now (i hope that’s true for you too, Keith.)