Firstly I will always let Mormon members explain for themselves what they believe. You have clearly and honestly in many areas laid out to me what you believe, and that’s fine. However I will let Mormon Prophets and Apostles tell me what Mormonism as a whole teaches, in my mind there has been a clash here between you and them, you disagree that’s fine, here we are.

Secondly regarding the quotes you gave from the bible talking about the significance of works, let me just quote myself from an earlier comment on this discussion.

. I am living in the benefits of a right standing before God, of a changed heart when I once was hostile to Him and I am loving it. I don’t have to go to Church I get to. I don’t have to love my wife and kid, I get to, I don’t have to do this ministry and have conversations with great guys like you, I get to.

As a born again believer I gratefully serve God passionately and happily, producing works that are fruitful and pleasing in His sight. This is only possible because He has already placed a new heart within me, making me into a new righteous creature who was a child of wrath and is now a child of God by His grace.

Before this though my works were as filthy rags to Him, its only by His work in me, making me born again that this changed.

So to finish here is my question to you and any other Mormons reading this.

When you stand before God and you are asked why should I let you in? (He probably wont ask like that but humour me) what will your response be? What will you appeal to, to show that being with God for all eternity is what you deserve?

Will you appeal to your Church activity to ANY extent?

Will you shake His hand, showing the signs and tokens that you learned in the temple, proving you are worthy of celestial glory?

Will you appeal to the fact that you always faithfully tithed,

(“Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming. For after today cometh the burning—this is speaking after the manner of the Lord—for verily I say, tomorrow all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of Hosts; and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:23,24).

When I stand before God I will appeal to nothing of myself. I will point to Christ and say I trusted Him.

If you can agree with this, then my argument is on the one hand your not believing Mormonism fully, but secondly praise God you are in Christ and saved. You mentioned earlier that I think you have to leave the Mormon Church to be saved, not at all. You just need to trust in nothing but Christ for your salvation and look forward to an eternity with Him, and no other human being not even your family. Paul said to live is Christ to die is gain, I want to go and be with Him. (paraphrase Philippians 1:21+)

So if this is you, stop learning handshakes in the temple,. stop wearing your garments, stop doing anything that your church tells you makes you worthy. Stop going to temple recommend interviews, and just love Christ, and love the people around you Mormon or not by helping them trust in Christ and nothing of themselves, for salvation is the gift of God so that no one may boast. For we are created in Christ Jesus, we are His workmanship and we have good works to do that He has prepared for us.

I feel like I am wasting my time because we are going in circles. Since most of your responses have required me to restate what I have already said (and what LDS teaching is very clear on) this will be my last reply.

LDS theology says that Christ saves us, not our own works. Our own works could never atone for our own sins; they could never do for us what Christ did for us and what he is doing for us. We obey the commandments, repent, become baptized by water, receive the Holy Ghost and the ordinances found in the temple, and endure to the end because we draw closer unto Christ by following His commandments and therefore receive the gift of eternal life. While these “works” (if that is what we want to call them) are an essential part of our being saved, they are not by themselves sufficient. Nor do they even come close. The quotes that you shared do not say any such thing, and what I have said about the matter is in agreement with what the apostles and prophets have said. You have given your own foolish commentary about the LDS view of salvation after having quoting sources which describe the importance of obedience and saving ordinances while ignoring other quotes which stress the incomparable importance of Christ.

Any commentary about the LDS view of salvation that ignores the single largest part of LDS theology (Christ and the Atonement) is inaccurate, baseless, confused, and either incompetent or deliberately misleading.

When I asked you earlier if being saved and born again requires effort, you said quite clearly that it did not and that our works are all like “filthy rags” in the eyes of God. I do not believe that this response is coherent with the rest of your writings, for you have often described at least 2 “works” that a Latter-day Saint must do to be saved (and though you would never call them that, they are indeed works); both would involve a substantial amount of effort. You have described at various times how first a Latter-day Saint must reject the doctrines of Mormonism, and second, accept your version of the Gospel. There can be no doubt that this would require a substantial amount of effort.

Many scriptures in the Bible show the importance of obedience, works, and how we will be held accountable for our disobedience. Here are a few of them. You have conveniently left them out of your writings because they contradict many of your arguments.

• 2 Corinthians 5:10
• Revelation 22:12
• Romans 2:5-8
• Romans 2:13
• 1 Corinthians 3:13-15
• Hebrews 10:26-27
• James 2:24

Bobby, I hope that one day you can learn to let the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints define their own beliefs instead of providing your own misguided commentary.

Cory

So you said this:

Mormon theology does not say that we have to “work” our way to exaltation. One last time, we follow the commandments not because we believe we can save ourselves; we follow them for the following two reasons:

1) Love for the Savior (John 14:15)
2) To accept our inheritance being “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).

Lets think about this logically first. In Mormonism there are three levels of heaven. The telestial, the Terrestrial and the Celestial, there are even 3 levels of the celestial, how do we get into the higher ones?

Your 3rd Prophet John Taylor said this:

“Hence, through His atonement, believers in Christ, and those who obey His law, partake of His glory and exaltation, and are inheritors of the Godhead; whilst those who do not obey His law although resurrected cannot inherit this exaltation; they are raised from the dead, but cannot inherit a celestial glory without being obedient to a celestial law, and thus we come again to a scripture quoted before.” (John Taylor, Mediation and Atonement, 1950, p. 175. See also Teachings of Presidents of the Church: John Taylor, p. 51).

Essentially your saying I am reading it wrong, surely a non Mormon could not understand the words of your Prophets like you can, I am sorry I am not buying this for a second. You only get exaltation as oppose to the lower levels of heaven if you OBEY the appropriate laws, thats what it says, so thats what it means, simple. Would you prefer to hear this from an up to date Mormon manual, no problem.

Gospel Principles manual, chapter: Exaltation.

To be exalted, we first must place our faith in Jesus Christ and then endure in that faith to the end of our lives. Our faith in Him must be such that we repent of our sins and obey His commandments.

1. Love God and our neighbors.
2. Keep the commandments.
3. Repent of our wrongdoings.
4. Search out our kindred dead and receive the saving ordinances of the gospel for them.
5. Attend our Church meetings as regularly as possible so we can renew our baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament.
6. Love our family members and strengthen them in the ways of the Lord.
7. Have family and individual prayers every day.
8. Teach the gospel to others by word and example.
9. Study the scriptures.
10. Listen to and obey the inspired words of the prophets of the Lord.

Here is the list of requirements to receive exaltation. In the earlier days of Mormonism they said it like it is, you have to obey laws to earn exaltation. Today they wrap it up in the language of it being an expression of faith. The problem is that they are putting levels on these so called fruits of faith, and so many fruits of faith result in so much eternal glory.

So it says Our faith in Him must be such that we repent of our sins and obey His commandments.

It almost sounds ok, the problem is that really this is saying the same thing as this:

8th Prophet George Albert Smith

“We are living eternal life, and our position hereafter will be the result of our lives here. Every man will be judged according to his works, and he will receive only that degree of glory that he has earned. (Conference Reports, April 1945, p. 139.)” (The Teachings of George Albert Smith, p. 30).

Just the one in the gospel principle manuals sounds a little better to the untrained evangelical ear, however in reality they are saying the same thing, the works gets you the glory. A lack of works gets you a lesser glory.

As I said Romans 4:5 is clear, to the one that does not work but believes in Him, they are the righteous ones. This is so far away from Mormonism its no surprise your church is not accepted as Christian by millions of Christians.

You said my interpretation is not the only one, fine your church is not the only church but it doesn’t stop you believing it, this is no argument. All the way through our discussion you have provided little or no basis for your statements but rather just told me my interpretation is wrong. I am interpreting the Bible and your Prophets by simply reading what it says.

And to finish there are many Mormons that do not think they are good enough for exaltation, while your interpretation of Mormonism is interesting to me, again its by no means the only one and I am going to trust the words of your Prophets over the words of you to understand Mormonism.

I’m sure I missed it when you asked me if I had been born again. Sorry for that.

And I also appreciated it when you redacted your statement that Mormons can believe anything. Such a statement shows how incoherent and baseless much criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really is. I’m glad you realized that. If I might make a suggestion, it might help you if you got your information from Mormonism from the official sources which I have spoken of in previous posts. A single statement from a random person in a podcast that few LDS people even heard is not a great source.

Unfortunately, it looks to me that on issues such as faith/works we are going in circles. I have no wish to spend so much time going back and forth in such a way. Just so that other people who might read this post are not confused, Mormon theology does not say that we have to “work” our way to exaltation. One last time, we follow the commandments not because we believe we can save ourselves; we follow them for the following two reasons:

1) Love for the Savior (John 14:15)
2) To accept our inheritance being “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).

Exaltation would be meaningless otherwise. I believe that my “gift” analogy still works. If you don’t receive a gift, it does not avail you anything. Your statement at the end “That is biblical salvation” is not correct. That is your interpretation of biblical salvation. The evangelical Christian interpretation is not the only one.

We are saved by Christ and not by our own works. And while it is necessary to come unto Christ and follow His commandments, we do not save ourselves. And while there are many Latter-day Saints who for whatever reason have a limited understanding of the Gospel, this issue is very clearly understood by the LDS people. I have never met a Mormon who didn’t understand that it is only by Christ we are saved.

There are many quotes from early church leaders which I don’t feel were interpreted in the way that the LDS Church does. I don’t feel that correcting them one by one would be beneficial for anyone since it appears that your opinions have already been made. Please let us interpret the words of our own leaders and scriptures. People can learn what we believe by going to http://www.mormon.org.

Cory

Thanks for the clarification there on the born again issue, I originally asked if you are born again on my comment on December 26, 2012 at 11:42 am, just under where it says “So onto point 2″. But that’s no big deal I can quite often miss things, just to make sure I don’t miss anything here I will start with answering your 2 questions.

1.Do you think that being born again requires effort on the part of the individual?

No I don’t. Remember that I biblically explained how without going through the experience of being born again and being made righteous in the sight of God its impossible to please God. Our good works are as filthy rags to Him. Therefore we could spend out life doing good things by any standard and that would not change our inner nature, that can only be done by God. It’s done in us when we stand before Christ and admit our total hopelessness without Him and we give our entire self to Him. You can call this is a work if you want but its a work of desperation and realization of having absolutely nothing to give this great God and the only actions that occur on our part is an intellectual and emotional trust of the one that died for us.

However if this does not result in an outward change of life then its impossible that an inward change of heart has occurred.

2.What would say the purpose of this blog is?

So ultimately the question is why do I seek to evangelise to Mormons and why do I do this whole Ministry. Which is a fair question.

I explain this in possibly more depth than I will here at this link http://upfc.org.uk/audiovideo1.html Go half way down and you will see the two halves of a radio discussion I had with a Mormon last year, you might find it interesting.

But for here and now ultimately I see the Mormon gospel as an utterly and completely distorted version of the Christian Biblical gospel Jesus said come to me and drink, I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to God but through me. In theory you may agree with this, maybe you actually do but the LDS Church does not go with this statement in truth. If you want to be in the presence of God for eternity in the Mormonism I see, you must be an active member in good standing, tithing, going to the temple, wearing the underwear learning the tokens and name to repeat back to God in the next life. You must get married, if your a male you need to hold the priesthoods which requires worthiness which is largely from your standing and activity in the Church and so on.

But Jesus just said come to me, simple as. The peasant woman in Luke 7:50 was declared saved because of her faith, not her baptism (hadn’t happened yet) and certainly not her church activity, she was born again because of her faith.

Obviously there is the LDS view of God once being a man, us being able to become Gods and the view that Jesus earned His exaltation in His incarnation and therefore the atonement was not a sacrifice on His part ultimately (see this post if you want to discuss that http://mormonisminvestigated.co.uk/2012/06/09/a-different-jesus/)

So all of these and many more things combined tell me that members are not in a Church that is teaching them to look to Jesus alone for their salvation, thus I see a false gospel that does not save people.

So this blog and my ministry are devoted to reaching out to the people I am massively passionate about which is the Mormons. I love you guys and don’t see you as anything but great people that need Jesus as much as anyone else.

I think you ask somewhere in your comments do I think a Mormon can be born again? My answer is a resounding yes, but this is despite the teachings of the LDS Church rather than because of it.

So moving on to your other comment. (dated December 28, 2012 at 5:08 pm)

I am glad that you see that we disagree. Does my head in when Mormons keep saying they agree with me haha.

1 I stand corrected that you cannot believe ANYTHING and be a Mormon. I heard that said by a Mormon on the Mormon Matters podcast, I am not sure how Orthodox he is in his mormonism however there are many areas I see Mormons come to me with different views on which I would consider to be very important. Such as was God once a man? Can we become Gods? Was Jesus born of a virgin? Being key ones.

I appreciate you disagree with me on the being born of water and the Spirit meaning. However think about it, to be born again you must be born a first time, this is birth by water, the natural birth. Being born of the Spirit is the spiritual regeneration that is the 2nd birth. Your perspective ignores the first literal birth, therefore you believe in being born again, again.

Again being born the first time is a one time event, as is the 2nd it just makes logical sense. I appreciate we disagree on this and am not too interested in going in circles.

On an interesting note you said this:

I probably ever will read Mormon Doctrine, the Journal of Discourses, and Doctrines of Salvation because they are not official publications and often contain the author’s opinion, and in the case of the Journal of Discourses, transcription error. I limit my study of the Gospel to the scriptures and the words of the living prophets and apostles.

This is helpful as it helps me to understand what kind of Mormon you are in the sense of where you base your beliefs in the world of Mormonism. Many other Mormons would consider these books authoritative and therefore will have very different views on many things to you. Here are some statements made about the Journal of Discourses by your church.

“Dear Brethren. — It is well known to many of you that Elder George D. Watt, by our counsel, spent much time in the midst of poverty and hardships to acquire the art of reporting in Phonography which he has faithfully and fully accomplished; and he has been reporting the public sermons, discourses, lectures, &c., delivered by the Presidency, the Twelve and others in this city, for nearly two years, almost without fee or reward.
“Elder Watt now proposes to publish a Journal of these reports, in England for the benefit of the Saints at large, and to obtain means to enable him to sustain his highly useful position of Reporter. You will perceive at once that this will be a work mutual benefit, and we cheerfully and warmly request your co-operation in the purchase and sale of the above named Journal, and wish all the profits arising therefrom to be under the control of Elder Watt.” [signed] BRIGHAM YOUNG, HEBER C. KIMBALL, WILLARD RICHARDS” (Messages of the First Presidency 2:119. This message is also found in the beginning of volume one of the JD).

In the first issue of the JOD which was originally a magazine it said this in the intro:

“It affords me great pleasure in being able to put in your possession the words of the Apostles and Prophets, as they were spoken in assemblies of the Saints in Zion, the value of which cannot be estimated by man, not so much for any great display of worldly learning and eloquence, as for the purity of doctrine, simplicity of style, and extensive amount of theological truth which they develop.”

No lack of confidence in the correctness of this set of sermons here. However this is an era of Mormon teachings that the Mormon Church of today would rather forget due to the mass inconsistencies and problems raised by this work, however at the time it was very authoritative, with the seal of approval of the Prophet Himself, which according to the 14 fundamentals of following the Prophet by Ezra Taft Benson can never lead the church astray.

Anyway

2

My understanding on the completion to the Bible point is probably better explained here:

“There are many things in the Bible which do not, as they now stand, accord with the revelations of the Holy Ghost to me” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 310. See also History of the Church 5:425).

“The Latter-day Saint use of the Bible differs from the Judeo-Christian norm because it is not the sole LDS source of authority (see Scripture: Authority of Scripture). The Bible is interpreted and understood by Latter-day Saints through four important means: (1) other LDS scriptures, which enrich and give perspective to an understanding of biblical teachings; (2) statements of modern prophets and apostles on the meaning of some biblical passages; (3) the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible; and (4) personal revelation through the gift of the Holy Ghost enhancing the comprehension of the scriptures. Consequently, Latter-day Saints are not left without information about the meaning of many difficult passages that have divided the entire Christian world for two millennia” (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1:107).

I can appreciate now that you would not go too far down that road but rather say that my interpretation of it is off which is fine again that helps me understand where you are coming from on this. Someone I know who since left the LDS church said “Well thats just the bible” when I tried to share a passage of scripture with her, as her Mormon worldview was that you cannot trust the Bible.

Anyway thanks for the clarification.

3

This issue is written all over Mormon Scripture, here is some more.

1 Nephi 3:7: And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

Doctrine and Covenants 1:31: For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.

This tells me that righteousness comes from keeping commandments, do you see something different here?

4

If you are ok with my interpretations here then you cannot agree with what I just quoted above from your scripture.

5

I am under that impression, again see above.

6

I do appreciate that you by no means think its by heartless, glory seeking works that will see someone in the celestial kingdom, not at all, your God sees the heart just like mine does. However as well if your honest you will know that heartfelt genuine efforts must go hand in hand with faith to receive exaltation. Biblically this is not correct, our works contribute NOTHING to our righteousness before God and making the born again experience happen. Its all His work in us so that we may then do good works as a result of this gift of salvation (as faith without works is dead) but works do not at all help us obtain this gift.

As Romans 11:6 says

And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace

If its faith and works, sorry bud its works you cant have a gospel of both as anything that is not grace alone is a gospel of works.

Romans 4:5 also says:

However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

Does this sound like Mormonism to you?

Your gift analogy does not work. As a gift is a gift, my little boy did not earn his train set for Christmas but believe me he is playing with it like mad, that is Biblical salvation. I am living in the benefits of a right standing before God, of a changed heart when I once was hostile to Him and I am loving it. I don’t have to go to Church I get to. I don’t have to love my wife and kid, I get to, I don’t have to do this ministry and have conversations with great guys like you, I get to.

That is Biblical salvation.

I can’t find where you asked me if I was born again, but the answer to that is that I have felt the Atonement of Jesus Christ work within me, I have felt the “new heart” that has been given me and I still feel the Atonement working within me to make me more Christ-like each day as I follow the teachings of the Savior. This happened not through a single highly spiritual incidents (although there have been many of them) but through many incidences over time. I can see a huge difference between what my heart is now as opposed to what it was many years ago. I have a new heart, and have been born again. This is reason for my answer; I have felt it in my life.

As to your question relating to what someone needs to do to be saved, according to my understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, one needs to accept Christ as their personal Savior and follow His teachings. It would do no good to accept Christ and then disobey His word. His teachings also help us to accept Christ in the first place, so it operates in a wonderful, circular way.

If somebody were to accept Christ and then not follow His teachings (fall from grace, so to speak) I would worry for that person. Granted when you truly accept Christ one loses the desire to do evil; however, it is possible for an individual to reject Christ even after having learned the truth (Hebrews 10:26-27, D&C 20:32). I have met many people who are of the “eat, drink, and be merry” mentality who have told me that they feel that they have accepted Christ, been born again, and consciously do not follow Christ. I explain their behavior in one of two ways:

1) They weren’t really born again, or
2) They have fallen from grace by disobedience to God’s word.

I am sure that you would agree with me that “cheap grace” will not avail such individuals much in the eternal scheme of things.

But again, Christ is what saves us, not our own works or obedience. Our obedience helps us to become godly people that God can bless with eternal life. Living a disobedient life rejects can lead one to reject Christ.

And when you respond, please don’t forget the two questions that I asked you:

1. Do you think that being born again requires effort on the part of the individual?
2. What would say the purpose of this blog is?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Cory

As I said I will be replying in full to what you said but I just want a couple of things clarifying first, thanks a lot.

Thanks for that I’ll give you a full reply soon.