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Last Updated: Jul 22nd, 2008 - 14:22:23 |
It will be conceded by most informed students of Christianity that one cannot deny the existence of the one true God of Scripture and at the same time lay claim to being a Christian. The New Testament writers, as well as our Lord himself, taught that there was but one God, and all church theologians from the earliest days of church history have affirmed that Christianity is monotheistic in the strictest sense of the term. Indeed it was this fact that so radically differentiated it and the parental Judaism from the pagan, polytheistic societies of Rome and Greece. The Bible is particularly adamant in its declaration that God recognizes the existence of no other “deities.” In fact, on a number of occasions the Lord summed up His uniqueness in the following revelation:
Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour. Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else (Isaiah 43:10–11; 44:6, 8; 45:5, 21–22, emphasis added).
Throughout the Old Testament, God is known by many titles. He is Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, El Gebor, and He is also spoken of by combinations of names, such as Jehovah-Elohim, Jehovah-Sabaoth, etc. If the Hebrew Old Testament tells us anything, it is the fact that there is but one God: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). And Jewish monotheism, as all know, at length gave birth to Christian monotheism, the one developing from the other by progressive revelation from God the Holy Spirit. It is not necessary to belabor the point; it is common knowledge that the facts as they have been stated are true. But as we approach our study of the Mormon concept of God, a subtle yet radical change takes place in the usage of the vocabulary of Scripture as we shall see.
It must also be admitted at the outset that the Bible does designate certain individuals as “gods,” such as Satan who is described by Christ as “the prince of this world” and elsewhere in Scripture as “the god of this world.” It must be clearly understood, however, that whenever this term is assigned to individuals, to spirit personalities, and the like, metaphorical and contextual usage must be carefully analyzed so that a clear picture emerges. For instance, the Lord declared to Moses: “See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet” (Exodus 7:1). The Hebrew indicates here, when cross-referenced with Exodus 4:16 (“And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.”), that a definite relationship was involved. The context also reveals that Moses, by virtue of the power invested in him by God, became in the eyes of Pharaoh “a god.” Aaron in turn became a prophet of the “god” (Moses) that Pharaoh beheld because he was the spokesman for Moses. So metaphorical usage is obviously intended, from the very usage of the language and its contextual analysis. On this point all Old Testament scholars are agreed. But this should never cloud the issue that there is only one true and living God as the previous quotations readily attest.
Another instance of similar usage is the application of the term “Elohim,” the plural usage of the term often translated God in the Old Testament. In some contexts the judges of Israel are referred to as “gods,” not that they themselves possessed the intrinsic nature of Deity but that they became in the eyes of the people as gods, or more literally, “mighty ones” (Psalm 82, cf. John 10:34), representing as they did the Lord of Hosts. In the New Testament usage, the apostle Paul is quite explicit when he declares that in the world, i.e., as far as the world is concerned, “(there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:5–6), a statement emphasized by our Lord when He stated, “I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:17–18). We conclude, then, that polytheism is totally foreign to the Judeo-Christian tradition of theology. In fact, it is the antithesis of the extreme monotheism portrayed in Judaism and Christianity. The God of the Old Testament and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ are one and the same Person; this the Christian church has always held. In addition to this, God’s nature has always been declared to be that of pure spirit. Our Lord declared that “God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24—as correctly translated from the original Greek text). In numerous other places within the pages of the inspired Word of God, the Holy Spirit has been pleased to reveal God’s spiritual nature and “oneness.” The apostle Paul reminds us that “a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one” (Galatians 3:20). The psalmist reminds us of His unchangeable nature, “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:2); and Moses records in the initial act of creation that “the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). The “gods” mentioned in Scripture, then, are never gods by either identity or nature; they are “gods” by human creation or acclamation as we have seen. This, then, is a far cry from comparison with the one true and living God described by the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews as “the Father of spirits” (Hebrews 12:9; see also Galatians 4:8–9).
The Mormons misuse John 10:34, “Ye are gods,” falsely implying that Jesus endorsed godhood for man. This cannot be true for several reasons. It does not fit the context of John 10:24–36, where Jesus shows his equality with the Father and deservedly is called God. In contrast, the judges (so-called gods) in Psalm 82:6 were so called because of their lofty position over the people, but God rebuked them for their sins, and they were proven to be not gods after all but fallen, sinful men.
How this passage is to support the Mormon position is baffling, because Mormons say they are gods in embryo and they have not yet reached godhood. Whatever they wish John 10:34 to say, it does not support their position. The Mormon can only say he hopes to become a god. Psalm 82 and John 10:34 are in the present tense, a distinction apart from their position.
In fact, upon a reading of Psalm 82, it is a wonder that Mormons would want to identify with the Psalm at all. It says nothing good about these men. But if that is the position they desire, only the judgment of God follows.
Furthermore, the Mormon should be made aware that LDS Apostle James Talmage correctly identified the “gods” of Psalm 82 and John 10:34 when he wrote, “Divinely Appointed Judges Called ‘gods.’ In Psalm 82:6, judges invested by divine appointment are called ‘gods.’ To this Scripture the Savior referred in His reply to the Jews in Solomon’s Porch. Judges so authorized officiated as the representatives of God and are honored by the exalted title ‘gods.’ ” (Jesus the Christ, 501).
© Copyright 2006 by A Turning Point Ministry International
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