An email about Mormonism
Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 11:20 pm
I received this email, and sent the following response:
Steve,
Yesterday, a caller was discussing the Mormons religion with you. Your response surprised my wife and me. You were not definitive about this particular cult/false religion.
What has been simple for me is to inform someone that if a Mormon is practicing Mormon doctrine, he/she could not be also a born again Christian. Why? Because the Mormon gospel doctrine states that Jesus is a brother of Lucifer. That demotes Jesus to merely an angel--taking away His deity.
If, however, a Mormon is simply a jack Mormon and does not know the Mormon doctrines, he/she may very well be saved. A good evidence of being saved would be to shortly pull away from the cult. Hope that helps.
—Ron
Hi Ron,
As for the Mormons, I have always been clear that their doctrine about Christ is seriously wrong. What I am not competent to judge would be whether this means they actually worship "a different Jesus" or simply have a very flawed understanding of the same Jesus. Jesus is not merely the sum total of theological propositions that may be made about Him. Since Jesus is a real person, about whom people may have more or less accurate perceptions (we behold Him as through a glass—2 Cor.3:18), it is hard to know how many propositions one may be ignorant of while still loving the true Jesus. My children had very limited understanding of me when they were infants. As they grew to know me better, I did not become a different person. I was the same person, but they simply gained a better grasp of who I am and what I am like.
We understand Christ to be the second Person of the Trinity. The disciples did not know this when they left their nets to follow Him. Nor did they understand this, years later, after following Him for some time (John 14:9). They had a deficient understanding of Jesus, but it was the real and only Jesus whom they followed. They learned more of the truth about Him as they continued to be Christians and were led into all truth by the Spirit. Yet they were His disciples long before they understood His deity. They became His disciples when they committed themselves to Him. The rest was gradual growth into their eventual full understanding of who this man was whom they had come to follow.
If we could go back in a time machine and interview any of the disciples a year before the crucifixion, we would find their Christology very inadequate, compared to ours. However, we would have to acknowledge them to be Christian disciples (even apostles!), despite their sub-Christian Christology. When I meet a person today who seems committed to Jesus, but who has very defective understanding of who He is, I am not able to judge whether Jesus sees him/her as a very ignorant, but true, disciple, or whether He sees him/her as a disciple of another (false) Jesus. It is thus easy for me to critique the theology of a group without forming ultimate judgments about individuals who may be deceived within the groups (Roman Catholics or Oneness Pentecostals, for example).
If it were my assignment from God to determine which of these people are "saved" and which are not, I would be in a lot of trouble. Fortunately, this is not my assignment. My assignment is to know Him and make Him known to others. Everyone, including I, needs to know Him better than currently. In the course of trying to make Christ better known to everybody, I may be able gradually to draw a Mormon (among others) into a less-heretical view of Christ, but I will not know at what point God comes to recognize him as His disciple. That is something I am not necessarily required to know.
Steve
Steve,
Yesterday, a caller was discussing the Mormons religion with you. Your response surprised my wife and me. You were not definitive about this particular cult/false religion.
What has been simple for me is to inform someone that if a Mormon is practicing Mormon doctrine, he/she could not be also a born again Christian. Why? Because the Mormon gospel doctrine states that Jesus is a brother of Lucifer. That demotes Jesus to merely an angel--taking away His deity.
If, however, a Mormon is simply a jack Mormon and does not know the Mormon doctrines, he/she may very well be saved. A good evidence of being saved would be to shortly pull away from the cult. Hope that helps.
—Ron
Hi Ron,
As for the Mormons, I have always been clear that their doctrine about Christ is seriously wrong. What I am not competent to judge would be whether this means they actually worship "a different Jesus" or simply have a very flawed understanding of the same Jesus. Jesus is not merely the sum total of theological propositions that may be made about Him. Since Jesus is a real person, about whom people may have more or less accurate perceptions (we behold Him as through a glass—2 Cor.3:18), it is hard to know how many propositions one may be ignorant of while still loving the true Jesus. My children had very limited understanding of me when they were infants. As they grew to know me better, I did not become a different person. I was the same person, but they simply gained a better grasp of who I am and what I am like.
We understand Christ to be the second Person of the Trinity. The disciples did not know this when they left their nets to follow Him. Nor did they understand this, years later, after following Him for some time (John 14:9). They had a deficient understanding of Jesus, but it was the real and only Jesus whom they followed. They learned more of the truth about Him as they continued to be Christians and were led into all truth by the Spirit. Yet they were His disciples long before they understood His deity. They became His disciples when they committed themselves to Him. The rest was gradual growth into their eventual full understanding of who this man was whom they had come to follow.
If we could go back in a time machine and interview any of the disciples a year before the crucifixion, we would find their Christology very inadequate, compared to ours. However, we would have to acknowledge them to be Christian disciples (even apostles!), despite their sub-Christian Christology. When I meet a person today who seems committed to Jesus, but who has very defective understanding of who He is, I am not able to judge whether Jesus sees him/her as a very ignorant, but true, disciple, or whether He sees him/her as a disciple of another (false) Jesus. It is thus easy for me to critique the theology of a group without forming ultimate judgments about individuals who may be deceived within the groups (Roman Catholics or Oneness Pentecostals, for example).
If it were my assignment from God to determine which of these people are "saved" and which are not, I would be in a lot of trouble. Fortunately, this is not my assignment. My assignment is to know Him and make Him known to others. Everyone, including I, needs to know Him better than currently. In the course of trying to make Christ better known to everybody, I may be able gradually to draw a Mormon (among others) into a less-heretical view of Christ, but I will not know at what point God comes to recognize him as His disciple. That is something I am not necessarily required to know.
Steve