Posted by jig on May 05, 2008 at 12:03:51:
In Reply to: Thanks posted by Ifopo on May 04, 2008 at 20:35:38:
This is from the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 15:1-3):
“And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.
And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—
The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son.”
Christ is also the “express image” of the person of His Father: - Hebrews 1:1-3:
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the EXPRESS IMAGE of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;” (Emphasis mine)
Notice also the usual phrase “on the right hand” (of the Father/God, or Majesty in this case) as the designated place for the Son, and how it visually represents the separateness of the Father and the Son.
The Book of Mormon (BoM) - not a fraud.
Joseph Smith first had the vision of the Father and the Son as being separate personages; the Book of Mormon came several years after that First Vision - the basis and source of the LDS doctrine on the nature of the Godhead. In Doctrine and Covenants where Joseph Smith records the revelations and basic doctrines, he specifically and succinctly describes the Godhead thusly:
“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.” (D&C 130:22).
However, throughout the Book of Mormon, the familiar “description” of God the Father and Jesus Christ is that they “are one”.
NOW, if the BoM were a fraud perpetrated by Smith, common sense and logic would have told him (and us, therefore) to write and insert or even change (in the BOM) the description of the nature of the Godhead - in a very CLEAR and UNAMBIGUOUS way - as three separate personages for consistency’s sake with D&C. And yet the BoM has retained its own uniform and consistent description of God the Father and Jesus Christ as being “one”. In fact this very point has been used by some critics of the LDS Church to claim that Mormons are, after all, Trinitarians, an argument that is easily labeled as circular, since it gives - at least temporarily - credence and validity to the BoM.
thanks