Mormonism's Origins and Hypocrisy

Cults and sects often accuse orthodox Christians of deriving our doctrines, such as the trinity, from Greek philosophy. They never actually mention a particular Greek philosopher who taught the doctrine. Nor do they ever disprove the biblical justification for the doctrine. It's just an assertion that they constantly repeat, without actually checking the facts.

Mormons are one of the groups in particular that do this.

The reason I mention them specifically is that one of their own websites mentions -brags to be more explicit- that one of their cardinal doctrines, the preexistence of souls, comes from Plato: "Several philosophers from Plato through Leibniz and Kant to twentieth-century Cambridge intellectuals, dozens of poets from antiquity to Robert Frost, and numerous religious thinkers throughout the Jewish and Christian traditions, propounded a pre-earthly realm peopled by the souls of men and women yet unborn. Pre-existence has been invoked to explain 'the better angels of our nature,' including the human yearning for transcendence and the sublime; it suggests a reason for the frequent sensation of alienation and the indelible sadness of human existence" (https://ldsmag.com/article-1-408).

Do you see the hypocrisy?

This has been my consistent experience with Mormons. They make unsubstantiated accusations against Christians, while blanking out even the professed sources of their own religion.

Only the Regenerate Have Free Will

Arminians have enshrined their doctrine of free will, making it the concept that trumps all others. Yet, it has no biblical basis. Ask them! They will hem and haw about why it should be true, but they will offer zero biblical justification.

I suggest, instead, that Scripture is against their doctrine of free will (not that I deny the reality of free will, as I have said before). Rather, I deny their use of it, to mean that men have a will that can choose to seek and obey God. "Free" merely means without coercion. No one, including God, coerces the unregenerate to hate God and to rebel against Him. That is their nature, and they freely, even gladly, choose to act according to it, just as a bird freely wills to fly or a fish to breathe water. But the Arminian would never claim that a man is free to will either of those, since both are contrary to the nature of a man. However, the Arminian blanks out the logical parallel between that and a choice by the unregenerate to act regenerate.

Paul says, "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will" (II Timothy 2:25-26). Whose will does the sinner freely follow? Not his own. Rather, he wills the will of Satan. The coercion isn't by God, or predestination, but rather by Satan. Yet the Arminian never criticizes Satan for ignoring man's free will! That misdirection is very telling!

What breaks that bondage? It is only by the prevenient act of the Holy Spirit in regenerating the elect sinner. It is by this intervention that Jesus, in His kingly office, overthrows the power of Satan and brings that man to repentance and faith: "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, He takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil" (Luke 11:21-22).

Turning to Paul again, he summarizes this in Romans 9:16: "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy."

Pride and the Burden of Sin

Martin Luther said something with which I agree completely: "For as long as he [i. e., man] is persuaded that he himself can do even the least thing toward his salvation, he retains some self-confidence and does not altogether despair of himself, and therefore he is not humbled before God, but presumes that there is - or at least hopes or desires that there may be - some place, time, and work for him, by which he may at length attain salvation."

He is putting into his own words the principle of I Peter 5:5 (quoting in turn from Proverbs 3:34): "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 

The Burden of Sin

This is the same fault with which Jesus charged the Pharisees in the parable of Luke 18:9-14: "He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 'Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get." But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.'"

The Pharisee erroneously believed that sin is a problem that other people have. Jesus said that His ministry isn't directed to such people, because "God opposes the proud." Rather, He would give grace, His attention, to those who understand their sinfulness and need for salvation: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Luke 5:31).

I am writing this because I run into people, mainly Catholics and Mormons, who say they believe in the atoning work of Jesus, but not as salvation itself. They see it, instead, as as the completion of their own works. Mormons even have a phrase for it, "We know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (II Nephi 25:23, in the Book of Mormon). 

It is only when the Holy Spirit, through the Law, exposes to such people the true wickedness of their hearts, as in the case of the tax-collector above, that they are then enabled to look to Jesus alone for salvation.

Jesus on Tribulation and the Christian Sabbath

In Matthew 24:20, we have a very interesting statement by Jesus: "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath."

I believe that Matthew 24 is about the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. However, for any person who holds that He is describing the end of history, its significance is even greater,

First, when He says "your flight," of whom is He speaking? Christians. Note that His comment is in response to the questions of His disciples in verse 3, and spoken privately to them.

Second, He explicitly states "Sabbath."

Therefore, logic requires that we take His statement to mean that he expected the Sabbath still to have significance to Christians in the future, a minimum of forty years after He made His statement. A minimum of two-thousand years if you place the events at the end of history.

This clearly disproves that the Sabbath was only for Jews, or was a Mosaic ceremony that ended with the cross work of Christ. It is a permanent ordinance, not a typological ceremony, disproving the oft-repeated but never-proven assertion that "Jesus is our Sabbath."

The Caricature of Calvinism

I can often tell when a theological opponent is working off what he and his friends say among themselves, rather than from actual knowledge of the topic. I see this in dealing with cults. I also see it from people spouting off against Calvinism. Rarely are they arguing against what Calvinists believe, but rather against their personal caricature of Calvinism.

One example is when they say that Calvinism denies choice, turning people into automatons (I state it in more-favorable terminology than they usually do). Supposedly, the Calvinist believes that God drags the unwilling into the kingdom, or bars people who want in, merely on some capricious whim. Everything in that sentence is a false representation of what Calvinists believe.

First of all, of course there's a choice! Every person who has ever been converted experienced it only as his chosen response to the Gospel. There has never been a single person, even Calvin himself, who said that he believed just because God had decreed that he would. Nor has there ever been a single unbeliever who wanted to turn to Jesus, but failed, because God had barred his way.

Do Calvinists believe that all things happen according to God's plan? Absolutely! Do we believe that God predetermined in prehistory who would and who would not be saved? Again, absolutely and unapologetically! Do we believe that God's predetermination acts contrary to the choices of the particular individuals? Absolutely not.

The error of these people is in equating necessity with compulsion. Everything in history happens by the necessity of God's will : "Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases" (Psalm 115:3, and in many other places). Does He achieve those ends by twisting arms, whether into the kingdom or turned away? Never. Rather, every person who is ever converted experiences the sorrow of sin and the hope of eternal life in Christ, and turns to Him by choice. On the other hand, every person who remains in unbelief does so because he loves his sin and hates God; he remains in unbelief because he prefers it. There is no compulsion on either part. Rather, each is acting exactly as he desires to act. The fact that each desires to act as God has decreed that he would act makes their choices no less the acts of their own wills.

Infant Baptism and a Thousand Generations of God's Faithfulness

Opponents of infant baptism will often make arguments such as, "God has no grandchildren." Which is both true and irrelevant to the discussion. Would it be sufficient answer is I were to say, "And God has no orphans either"? I am assuming  that it would not be, though it is equally to the point.

In Deuteronomy 30:6, God said, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." Is that a promise that all of the descendants of a believer will be regenerate? Of course not! The cases of Ishmael and Esau demonstrate the contrary. However, it does indicate a generality, that God, while He converts men one by one, yet intends for the family to be the basis of His mission in this fallen world.

This is what I meant by my remark above about orphans. The exclusive emphasis that credobaptists (i. e., those who hold to the baptism of professing believers only) places on individual decisions denies God's plan for dealing with people in their generations, not as random individuals (see also, for example, Deuteronomy 7:9). Certainly conversions happen one by one, but they continue especially in the family line.

In the New Testament, Paul makes the same point, when he tells us that the children of believing parents are holy (I Corinthians 7:14). God explicitly claims them for His own (Ezekiel 16:20). He promises blessings to them that He never offers to the children of unbelievers: "All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children" (Isaiah 54:13). Yet, the credobaptist wants us to believe that the children of believers are no less little pagans than are the children of unbelievers!

What I find amusing about that attitude is that many credobaptists demonstrate that their hearts know better than do their heads when they hold "infant dedications." They use a completely manmade ceremony to show exactly that they do not view their children as little pagans! They merely keep the ceremony dry to avoid the implication that they are really practicing infant baptism.

God's Justice and the Eternality of Hell

Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses (mainly, but others, too) hold to the doctrine of annihilationism, the supposed destruction of the wicked in the great judgment. They reject the traditional teaching of an everlasting judgment in Hell. In fact, they object to the nature of God, as suggested by the doctrine of eternal punishment.

The resurrection is described in a couple of places in Scripture. However, Daniel 12:2 is clearest in naming resurrection to what: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

I specifically use this verse, because others get twisted, such as Revelation 14:11, "The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever." Annihilationists claim that the smoke might be eternal, but that doesn't imply that the torment is, too. They never explain how smoke can continue to rise from fuel which has been exhausted.

However, Daniel mentions neither flames nor fire, but explicitly states that it is the contempt for the wicked that is everlasting. Someone will surely object that the object of the contempt doesn't have to continue eternally in order for the contempt for it to remain. But is that really a rational objection? Can we expect the emotional reaction to something to outlast that thing into eternity? No, even the strongest of reactions must fade without further stimulation by their object.

Annihilationists make hysterical protests against the supposed injustice of God for punishing eternally sins which were only temporal. That is the essence of their error, mistaking sinful acts, which do, indeed, occur in time, not eternity, for sin itself. The wicked aren't judged primarily for the sinful acts that they committed, but rather for the wicked and rebellious hearts from which those acts arose (Matthew 15:18-20). While annihilationists are complaining about the morality of God, they are glossing over the sinfulness of the wicked. When the wicked die, and pass into eternity, they do not cease to be wicked. Rather, they continue to hate God and curse Him in Hell, earning for themselves continuing punishment.

God is perfectly just and moral. It is His annihilationist critics who are not.

Biblical Assurance Allows no Conditional Immortality

"You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel" (Hebrews 12:22-24). 

Both Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists teach a doctrine called "conditional immortality," in which they claim that the human spirit becomes immortal only after the resurrection, and then only for believers. Unbelievers are then annihilated. 

The passage above doesn't address that second doctrine. However, it clearly refutes any claim that there is no spiritual immortality for the believer until sometime in the future. What is his status now? Not conditional! It is very definite! He has the status of one who is positionally in heaven now, with the glorified saints now. How are the glorified believers assembled in Heaven if they are not now enjoying spiritual immortality, already made perfect? And how are believers in this life come to that status, if our spiritual status is waiting for a future event to be established? 

Both groups, the Witnesses and the Adventists, claim that our spiritual felicity has no guarantee in the present, because we can lose our salvation. Yet, the passage above allows no such uncertainty. The believer has rational grounds for his assurance, because his citizenship is already in Heaven, with the saints that have preceded him to glory. I consider that a wonderful truth. And my hope is that Witnesses and Adventists will come to the truth, and escape the hamster's wheel of uncertainty on which their religions leave them.