Mormon Dilemma 63

17 September

Joseph Smith, Your God

Journal of Discourses 4:271; A man cannot find out himself without the light of revelation; he has to turn round and seek to the Lord his God, in order to find out himself. If you find out who Joseph was, you will know as much about God as you need to at present; for if He said, “I am a God to this people,” He did not say that He was the only wise God. Jesus was a God to the people when he was upon earth, was so before he came to this earth, and is yet. Moses was a God to the children of Israel, and in this manner you may go right back to Father Adam.” – Brigham Young, Salt Lake City, March 8, 1857

Philippians 3:17-20; Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.  18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)  20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The evidence is stacked against the prophets of the Church when they claim they don’t worship Joseph Smith.  The people who do these things are the enemies of the cross, just as Paul said in his epistle to the Philippians.

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One Response to “Mormon Dilemma 63”

  1. shematwater September 20, 2011 at 10:39 pm #

    And yet in this very quote Brigham Young specifies that he is not speaking of Joseph Smith as “the only wise God” that we worship.
    Also, using this quote you would have to claim that we also worshiped Moses (or at least believe Israel did), as he is included in this list, as is Adam.

    the problem is that we see the word god a little differently. We can believe in many gods, and still only worship one. We can use the term god to refer to anyone who is given direct and unquestioned authority from God (as was Moses, or Adam, or Joseph Smith).
    In this way God himself used the term in describing Moses: “And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. (Exodus 7: 1)”

    What Brigham Young is saying is that one true God that we worship gave such authority to Joseph Smith, as he had in the past to others, that he was no longer simply a messenger from God, for was more or a less an extension of God’s own will, and in this way he was made a God (just as Moses was).

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