Our Message

DO WE SEEK COMMON GROUND? 

(By Joseph Fielding McConkie, pages 182 to 203 from his book, Here We Stand) Only a small part is included)

A woman called our home one evening to tell me that she was having a discussion with a nonmember neighbor—not an argument—and what she needed, she said, was a scriptural reference to prove that God has a body. I directed her to Doctrine and Covenants 130:22, which reads: "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us." Surely that is as plain and to the point as language permits.

My caller immediately objected. "What I need," she said, "is a Bible passage."

Now, I happen to know that there are more than five hundred passages of scriptures in the Bible that can be used to argue that God has a body, but I also know that such an argument is fruitless. We read our Bible text and say, "See, there's the proof." But no one ever responds by saying, "Wow, I didn't know that! May I be baptized?" What they say is, "The scriptures you are reading were not intended to be understood literally. They are simply figurative representations of God. If you are going to accept everything in the Bible as being literal, then when it says God is 'the rock of our salvation' you must believe he is a rock; or when it says he will keep us under the shadow of his wings, you must believe God is a bird and has wings." The discussion gets silly very quickly, and the silliest thing about it is that we allow ourselves to be a part of it.

So I told my caller that the way we knew that God had a body was that he told us and that we had no better authority than that. We hadn't learned it from the Bible. With a tone of disappointment in her voice she said, "Well, thanks, anyway. I'll see if I can find someone else who can help me," and hung up.

I have been through that kind of experience again and again. A young man came to my office one morning before class and told me that he just about had his nonmember roommate converted. "All I need," he said, "is a passage of scripture that proves that marriages are supposed to be eternal. Can you help me?" he asked.

"That's easy enough," I said. "We have God's word on the matter in Doctrine and Covenants 132."

"No, no," he interjected, "what I need is a Bible passage."

"We are not practicing eternal marriage because of any Bible text," I responded. "We do it because God commanded us to do so through a living prophet."

"You mean you don't know of any Bible text that proves it?" he asked, tension and anxiety ringing in his voice.

"I don't even know a Bible text that I can torture into saying such a thing," I replied.

He responded, "I'd better see if there isn't someone else who can help me," and left abruptly.

The perspective represented by these exchanges, which is not an uncommon one, is a matter of considerable concern. It ignores the fact that there has been a restoration of the gospel. It represents a retreat to the Protestant position that the Bible is the final word on all things. It makes us a part of the argument over the meaning of the Bible instead of the solution to that argument.

 It is a way of saying that dead prophets outrank living ones and that modern revelation can be accepted only if Bible texts prove it to be true. This perspective short-circuits the conversion process and effectually denies the reality of the First Vision. It turns a deaf ear to every revelation we have received since the spring of 1820.

The Book of Mormon testifies that many of the plain and precious parts of the Bible were taken from it before it went forth to the nations of the earth (see 1 Nephi 13:23-29). We can hardly be true to the book if we argue that all its doctrines can be found in the Bible.

To properly present our message requires that we testify that Joseph Smith is the great prophet of the Restoration.

There is power in such a testimony, and every effort is made by the adversary to keep us from bearing it. Perhaps his most effective ploy is the notion that we should not testify about Joseph Smith for fear that people will think we worship him instead of Christ. The idea is to emphasize our faith in Christ while avoiding reference to Joseph Smith.

We hope that such an approach will place us in a position to say to those of other Christian faiths, "We share your love and reverence for Christ."

But if we succeed in convincing our friends of other faiths that we share their reverence for and testimony of Christ, we have left them no reason to join with us. Similarly, in missionary work, as long as we attempt to show people the path of salvation as stemming from the Bible, we become nothing more than another of the squabbling sects of Christendom. Our responsibility is to teach investigators to pray and to show them how answers come.

As Latter-day Saints we must know clearly where we stand. If our message is simply a reworking of key Bible texts for which we have gained some insights that others overlooked, then why not abandon the offensive notion that there was a universal apostasy, or that there is but one true church, and get on with the matter of mending fences with historical Christianity?

If, on the other hand, we are serious in testifying that there was indeed an apostasy, that it was universal, that it included the loss of the priesthood and the saving truths of salvation and the knowledge of the very nature of God himself, then we must be prepared to stand alone. We are not attempting to rebuild out of the theological rubble of the past. We have no borrowed doctrines. We have no priesthood, no keys, no power, no authority that we have received from the world. Such being the case, we have no right to proclaim our message to the nations of the earth by seeking common ground. We must stand independent. Indeed, it is not common ground that we seek. We seek sacred ground, and upon that ground we must stand.

Mingled With Scripture

What is being taught?  The philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.  So what's so bad about that?  It sounds OK doesn't it?

The Wisdom of Men (From the book, Here We Stand, pages 119-123, by Joseph Fielding McConkie)

The purity of the gospel is lost when scripture is mingled with the philosophies of men. The center of gravity for the Christian world was shifted in the time between the death of the apostles and the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. A church that had been founded on the principle of revelation was now to be founded on philosophical speculation. A form of godliness was preserved, but the power was lost, and the world entered into a period known to us as the Dark Ages.

The loss to mankind has been immeasurable, and even though the gospel has now been restored, it will be generations before its influence will set at naught the influence of those dark days. Isaiah, describing these events, said people would honor the Lord with their mouths but their hearts would be far from him because their reverence for him had been taught them "by the precept of men…"

Pure doctrine must come from a pure source. We have in the missionary experiences of the Apostle Paul a marvelous story illustrating that if a testimony of truth comes from the wrong source it is not acceptable to God.

On the Sabbath day it was the practice of the Saints in Philippi to meet outside the city wall at a place along the river that ran nearby. In one such meeting they were joined by a slave girl who was possessed by "a spirit of divination," which enabled her to tell fortunes and thus make considerable money for her masters.

"The same followed Paul and us [Luke is telling the story], and cried, saying, these men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation" (Acts 16:17). This sequence repeated itself for many days.

Here was a young woman who was possessed with the spirit of the devil, yet her testimony was true. She repeatedly testified that Paul and Luke were servants of the most high God and that by listening to them the people could learn the principles of salvation.

Why would one possessed with the spirit of the adversary bear such a testimony? In considering these verses the question is frequently asked, Can the devil teach truth? The answer, as the story illustrates, is yes, he can and will teach truth when it suits his purpose.

What he cannot do is teach it by the Spirit of truth. Consider his purpose in this instance.  Jewish law abhorred magical rites and dealings with familiar spirits. Thus, for Paul and his companions to leave the young damsel's testimony unchallenged would have closed the door to proselyting in the Jewish community. By contrast, fortune-telling was popular among the Gentiles. Acceptance of the damsel's testimony would have had the effect in the Gentile community of saying, "Look, the Christian message is not really any different from what we have. When you get down to it, all religion is really the same."

As to those of the household of faith, to accept such a testimony would grant this soothsayer credence among their number and thus give the voice of the adversary place among the Saints.

Because the experience was new to Paul and his companions, they were not immediately certain how they should respond, but eventually they came to realize what action must be taken, and thus Paul commanded the evil spirit to depart (see Acts 16:18).

Revelation Ceased?

From the book, Here We Stand, Chapter 3, 'the Bible Says,' pages 38-48, by Joseph Fielding McConkie

"It ought to be asked, What about the twenty-seven books that constitute our New Testament? By what authority were they chosen? And who assumed the prerogative to declare that they constitute the cessation of revelation? The story is both interesting and strangely paradoxical.

Two second-century heretics get leading roles in the drama: one for being the first to close the canon of scripture, and the second for causing the church to declare the heavens closed by maintaining that he was the Holy Ghost.

Macrion, a bishop's son and a wealthy ship-owner, was the first to create a list of canonical books. His Bible was closed to all but ten of the epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke, from which he had taken all references to the Jews. He rejected the Old Testament in its entirety because of its Jewish origins.

Jesus, according to Macrion, was not born but sprang, like Zeus, fully grown from God. He came to earth to preach a ministry of redemption as a God of love in contrast with the capricious and cruel God of the Old Testament. So final was Macrion's excommunication from the church that even the money he had donated was returned. This threat to the church was followed by another known to its followers as "the New Prophecy" and to history as "Montanism," after its founder, Montanus, a convert to Christianity from the province of Phrygia in Asia Minor. On the eve of his crucifixion, the Savior had told his disciples that he had many things to teach them but they could not bear them at that time.

He then promised that the Holy Ghost would guide them "into all truth" and show them "things to come" (John 16:12-14). Montanus denounced the lack of revelation and the absence of spiritual gifts in the church.

In doing so he claimed himself to be the advocate promised by the Savior and said that he had come to give them the promised revelation.

Through the course of years, the church solved the problem of dealing with such heretics by announcing that revelation had ceased and that the canon of scripture was closed. Thus the biblical promise of continued revelation led the church of the second century to deny continuing revelation, while the idea of the Bible as a single, sacred, unalterable corpus of texts, which began as a heresy, was adopted in the efforts of the church to define orthodoxy. (Wikipedia mentions 'In the Christian sense the term orthodoxy means conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early Church')…

Is it not somewhat ironic that God himself can no longer speak in what is supposed to be his own church? Is it not strange that a theology claiming the word of angels and prophets as its very foundation refuses now to admit the existence of either?"

Promised Land Lost to Moses?

The Leadership of Moses 

(From an address given as part of a BYU Lecture Series by Robert J. Matthews, at the time of the Ramses II exhibit, 18 December 1985 and also found in his Book, A Bible, A Bible, pages 54 to 68 by the same author. Bro. Matthews was former Dean of Religious Education at BYU, a former Timpanogos Temple President and very instrumental in giving us our updated scriptures & study helps that were published in 1980. Only a very small part from his book is given here).

In the Old Testament Moses is mentioned 657 times; in the New Testament, 65 times; in the Book of Mormon, 26 times; in the Doctrine and Covenants, 21 times; and in the Pearl of Great Price, 29 times. This is a total of 798 times. The Pearl of Great Price contains writings of three of the greatest prophets who ever lived. That Moses is one of them (the other two are, of course, Abraham and Joseph Smith) illustrates how important he is to Latter-day Saints.

We cannot help but wonder if it was a difficult thing for Moses to give up the splendor and prestige of the palace to live in the desert with the sheep.

Paul, as recorded in the book of Hebrews, says more about Moses. Note that Moses, according to Paul, made a conscious and deliberate choice to serve the Lord.  (Hebrews 11:23-27).

Since Moses was prince of Egypt and was educated "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," could it be that perhaps one day in the royal archives he came across the writings of Abraham and of Joseph and there read this prophecy of Joseph? If so, he would have read about the precise circumstances of his being in the Pharaoh's household; he even would have read his own name and also the name of his brother, Aaron. All of this would have been rather impressive to a bright young man.

The Bible informs us that Moses, while in Midian for forty years, became the son-in-law of Jethro and the keeper of the sheep; but this record is silent about any spiritual activities of Moses during this period. In fact, it says only that Jethro was the priest of Midian. However, from modern revelation we learn that it was Jethro (a descendant of Abraham through Abraham's wife Keturah and thus a non-Israelite) who ordained Moses to the Melchizedek Priesthood (D&C 84:6).

This was done through a priesthood line outside of Israel. We are accustomed to thinking of ancient priesthood holders such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, and so on, but here we learn that others also had the holy priesthood of God.

As the modern missionary effort spreads the gospel wider across the earth, it may be a great plus in the presentation for it to become known that Moses, the great prophet of ancient Israel, obtained the priesthood not through the house of Israel, but through another Semitic lineage.

It was a struggle to get Israel out of Egypt, but it was an even greater struggle to get Egypt out of the Israelites. The geographical change was not as difficult as the cultural and personal changes needed in the people's thinking and habits.

Three months after crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites were camped in the approximate area of Mount Sinai (which is probably the same mountain on which Moses had seen the burning bush), and the Lord gave Moses instructions relative to receiving the Ten Commandments and giving the people the fulness of the gospel.

We note also that the people were troubled at the thought of their coming into the presence of God, and they said to Moses, in effect, "You deal with God, we'll deal with you"-"but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (Ex. 20:19).

This last condition is a very telling commentary on the spiritual state of the Israelites. They did not want to come up to the presence of God. This was a symptom of a spiritual malady and deficiency that eventually led them to reject the gospel, and as a consequence the Lord gave them the Law of Moses and a lesser priesthood instead of the gospel and the Melchizedek Priesthood. This whole concept has been greatly misunderstood by biblical scholars and even by some of our own Church members, because it is not clear in the Bible.  However, it has been made clear in the Joseph Smith Translation and in the Doctrine and Covenants.  (See JST, Ex. 34:1-2; JST Deut. 10:1-2; also D&C 84:19-27.)  

When Moses came down from the mount after forty days, he saw that the people had built a golden calf to worship. They said they were not even sure Moses was ever coming down from that awful, smoking mountain. When Moses saw the calf and the revelry, he threw down the tablets of stone and broke them. These contained the Ten Commandments and the fulness of the gospel, including the ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Thereupon the Lord told Moses to make a new set of tablets and come up again to the mount. He did so and received the Ten Commandments again, but in place of the higher law the Lord gave him the law of carnal commandments, which functioned under the Aaronic, not the Melchizedek, Priesthood. One of the major differences in these two laws is that the gospel and the Melchizedek Priesthood will prepare a person to be brought into the presence of God, while the Law of Moses and the Aaronic Priesthood, by themselves, will not.

Furthermore the Melchizedek Priesthood is connected with the ministry of Jesus Christ and the beholding of the face of God; the Aaronic Priesthood is connected with the ministry of angels.

The Joseph Smith Translation makes all the difference in our understanding what happened in the wilderness and what the difference was between the first and second set of tablets.

No one can understand these things properly without the help of the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph Smith as indicated above.

This leads us to another question concerning the life of Moses: Why was he not permitted to enter the promised land? The scriptures suggest that the reason was the Lord's anger with Moses because the latter took credit for getting water from the rock and didn't follow the Lord's directions properly (Num. 20).

However, I think there is a much better and more fundamental reason. I assume the event at the rock really happened, but that does not really seem to be the reason why Moses did not go into the "good land" (Ex. 3:8). After all, Moses represented the Melchizedek Priesthood and was a man who could stand in the presence of God. I gather from reading D&C 84:20-24 that the Lord was angry not with Moses, but with the children of Israel. They did not deserve Moses any longer, so Moses was translated and taken to heaven.

Now, I have been to Israel several times, and it is a remarkable place; but it seems to me that being translated would be even better than entering that ancient promised land. Besides, if the Lord was too angry with Moses to let him go into the promised land, it seems strange that he would yet be pleased enough with him to take him into heaven. Moses was given the greater blessing of being translated, and I suppose that under such circumstances he may have felt properly repaid for missing the Israel blessing.  Furthermore, we know that Moses needed to be translated so that he, with Elijah, could lay on hands to confer the keys of the priesthood on Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration.