Heart of the Matter

Analyzing LDS Beliefs in Pre-Existence

LIVE! From the Mecca of Mormonism . . . Salt Lake City, Utah!

THIS . . . is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology.!

Show 4 FABLES II God Part I
January 22nd, 2008

And I’m Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host.

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Last week we spoke about fables – namely, the LDS myth of a human pre-existence. We presented the most often used biblical verses the LDS use to justify Joseph Smith’s teaching that all human beings lived before life on earth. Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9 – “There is no new thing under the sun.” Meaning, all the core principles of truth and deception have been around from the beginning – shared by every culture – and are only re-interpreted, re-presented, and re-applied in different ways with each generation.

Because of time last week I wasn’t able to get to the final passage the LDS use to support Joseph Smith’s anti-biblical claim that we were all lived in pre-existent state. Before we move on into tonight’s topic let’s review those passages in John 9:1-3:

John 9:1-3
¶ And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace., this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Many LDS believe that this passage proves that we lived in a pre-existent state before this life because when could this man who was born blind have sinned? The most simple explanation comes from Bible commentator Lightfoot (not Gordon) who noted that many Jews believed it was possible for a child to sin in utero. If this was the context, the explanation is obvious – and it isn’t a pre-existence.

But it is possible this wasn’t the context at all. The fable of a pre-existent state for Man has been around long before Joseph ever incorporated it into his teachings. The Pythagoreans believed the souls of men were sent into other bodies for the punishment of some sin which they had committed in a pre-existent state – which is a VERY Greek concept. Interestingly enough, the LDS claim that Christianity was corrupted by the infiltration of Hellenistic ideas and yet Joseph embraced one of the biggest Grecian mythologies around – the pre-existence of Man.

So, it is also possible that the disciples, understanding and possibly having been influenced by the Hellenistic myth of a pre-existence, questioned the Lord about the situation, saying – “Did this man sin in a pre-existent state, that he is punished in this body with blindness? Or, did his parents commit some sin, for which he is plagued being their offspring?

Speaking to His chosen disciples in John 15:3, Jesus states: Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. What He was saying was: I have taught you truth from error, and you are clean of all these falsehoods that have been passed down from any number of cultures and traditions so you can now go forth and teach men and women the truth (with a capital T). The questions of the disciples were not always doctrinal truths – in fact they were often full of error – but it is the answers from the Lord we look to for the truth! See the difference?

Now most Asian nations have at one time or another believed in a doctrine known as transmigration. The Hindu’s believe that the most of their misfortunes arise out of the sins of a former birth; and, in moments of grief may break out into exclamations like: "Ah! in a former birth how many sins must I have committed, that I am thus afflicted!" Even some of the Jewish rabbis have had the same belief from the very remotest antiquity. But this does not make it True! Idol worship has existed from antiquity and so has polytheism – neither of which are correct.

Now Origen has – in the apocryphal “Book of the Hebrews,” – the patriarch Jacob” saying: “I am an angel of God; one of the first order of spirits. Men call me Jacob, but my true name, which God has given me, is Israel:” And many of

Misguided Teachings and the Nature of God

The Jewish doctors believed that the souls of Adam, Abraham, and Phineas, have successively animated the great men of their nation. Fanciful? Yes. Fables? Yes!

Philo said that the air is full of spirits, and that some join themselves to bodies; and that others have an aversion from such a union. Josephus (Ant. b. xvii. c. 1, s. 3, and War, b. ii. c. 8, s. 14) said the Pharisees believed that “the souls of those only who were pious were permitted to reanimate human bodies,” and that “the souls of the vicious are put into eternal prisons, where they are continually tormented, and out of which they can never escape.” Because their names are Origen, Philo, and Josephus doesn’t mean the things they suggested or reported were true either! GOSH.

All of it is just evidence of misguided teachings. And let me make a VERY IMPORTANT point here: LDS apologists LOVE taking quotes from early Christian writers which support their LDS doctrines and use them as a defense that Christianity once had the truths the LDS maintain today.

Let me say this: Church History stinks. What Origen and Lucretius and Jerome and any other non-apostolic commentator said – including Luther, including Calvin, including you or me – means nothing at all relative to absolute Truth. Nothing!

What we rely look to and rely upon is what is written in the Word! And just because some early Christian fathers and writers had ideas and opinions does NOT mean they were right! The Word is right. And if you doubt that, we’ll keep watching.

Jesus' Clarification

Now, in the face of this errant teaching, Jesus, in His simple and effective way, clears the whole matter up: He says: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Why was he born blind? That the works of God should be made manifest in him.

To use a question the disciples asked Jesus to support a doctrine would be like using the elements Judas’s betrayal – 30 pieces of silver, the kiss, his suicide – and calling them doctrinally normative! Get it? All right.

The fable of a human pre-existence dovetails naturally into another LDS fable – one of the most pernicious, humanistic, man-centered fables Joseph could have ever devised – that God the Father has a body of flesh and bone. I want you to just sit back for a moment and think about three basic ideas for a moment. I am doing this because I want to plant good seeds of truth in your heart, that will grow and flourish as you examine the fables you have long embraced.

First, I want you to remember a simple phrase Jesus uttered when speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well. Just listen to this phrase. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (REPEAT IT.)

Why didn’t Jesus say, God has a body of flesh and bones, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Do you realize what you are doing when you believe a man who claims God is tangible as man and Jesus Himself said God is a spirit! Do you understand automatically that you are standing against the entire Word of God by believing this fable!

The Importance of Correct Belief

Why is this so important? Because when you buy into the idea that God the father has a body of flesh and bone, you will then buy into another fable which says you came from His presence to gain a body . . . which leads you to another fable that says with that body you – YOU – YOU must earn your salvation by your efforts, and your determination, which, causing you to miss the point for Jesus all together, you then begin to embrace the deadliest fable of them all – that you can actually become a God like unto the one you worship . . . and the simple message of salvation by grace through faith in Him alone is lost . . . And you might be too . . . chained forever to a system that promises you “worlds without end so long as you commit and dedicate everything to their costly layaway plan.

The next thing I want you to consider is why Jesus came to earth.

John 1:14 And the Word (JESUS) was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Isaiah 40:5 And the glory

The Nature of God and the Universe

of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Galatians 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.

Colossians 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

1st Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

You see, Jesus came from a pre-existent life – as God, as creator of all things – and subjected Himself to this world by taking on a body of flesh and bones and REVEALING TO US the invisible God. Within Him dwell all of the Godhead bodily. He was God in the flesh, and He subjected Himself to the will of the Father, who as a spirit dwelled in places we could only imagine. This father is not visible by Man.

The Invisible God

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

John 5:37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.

1st Timothy 1:17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Speaking of God the Father, 1st Timothy 6:16 says “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.

Hebrews 12:29 says For our God is a consuming fire.

Finally, with just the idea that the writer of Hebrews might be right, I want you to imagine the universe. When we take our last breath the invisible part of us – our soul and spirit – departs this physical realm. Jesus took His body with Him because Jesus is going to return with that body. And we will some day, as creations, be resurrected into a perfect physical form.

The Immeasurable Universe

But the invisible God, the consuming fire, is not restricted in a six foot tall, three foot wide, box. Wake up, my brothers and sisters. Imagine the Universe. Unimaginably vast!

STORY of Ken the astronomer, a regular at our Pastor in the Pub. First, a picture of our galaxy. Swirling shape. Vast. Suns. Stars. Planets. Black holes. Millions upon millions of objects floating, orbiting, glowing, and dying. Some 250,000,000 of them in our beautiful galaxy. And there, right on the cusp, sits little old blue dot – earth.

Then a 1 inch square of the night sky. 250 galaxies – just like ours! Some bigger, some smaller, all in that shape!

Then a four by three inch segment – venturing out into deep space. Some quarter of a million galaxies – just in that small segment of sky! All with a 250,000,000 stars, and planets, and . . . and . . . and . . . .

And God is sitting over this, governing all of this, creating and managing all of this, from a body with armpits, testicles, and a set of lungs – which can’t be used in a place without the right mixtures of oxygen. Come on.

Psalms 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

But He does . . . in spirit and in truth.

The LDS – missionaries especially – refer to a number of biblical passages to support their claims that God has a body of flesh and bone. We’ve covered these before on the show. In the end, most of them are Hebraisms used in literature to explain God’s reactions in terms understandable to human beings. If the Bible says that God appeared to Moses (or that Moses spake to God face to face as a man speaketh with His friend) but other passages state that “no man has seen God at any time and lived,” that “God is invisible” that “God is a spirit” than we must conclude that we are reading too much into passages that speak of God in anthropomorphic terms or that the Bible contradicts itself. I agree with Paul when He

Questions of Faith

Said let God be true but every man a liar.

Do you believe Jesus when He said no man has seen God at any time or Joseph who claims to have seen Him in a body of flesh and bone? Do you believe Jesus when He said God is Spirit or do you believe Joseph who said God has a body of flesh and bone?

Listen, let’s be frank here: If you are LDS and you have done ANY independent thinking at all, you know you have been asked to buy into a lot of very sketchy stuff. From God appearing in a body, to golden plates in hills, ancient papyri direct from the hand of Abraham, secret polygamy of the founders, mountain meadows massacres, blacks and the priesthood – and the temple rites? I know what has gone through you heads. I’ve been there. I know you have looked around and wondered. I know you have doubted. And you should doubt!

Seeking Truth and Understanding

Give yourself the chance to know truth. To know Jesus. To have Him in your life.

Finally, the biggest biblical claim that God has a body of flesh and bone – aside from Joseph saying that he saw Him and He does – is the passage that says

“Let us make man in our own image.”

Obviously God must have a body for us to be made in His image, right?

Discussing the Trinity

Before I answer this, let’s open up the phones

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LDS First time callers, please Short concise questions or comments

Three in one.

Leads us to discuss the Trinity next week.

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