𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐝 𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐳𝐞𝐫

Mike Lee is a United States Senator. He has my respect. He is also a Mormon and has made some claims about Jesus Christ that are not true. I respond to his claims below. I will keep his comments in quotes and italicized (if you're able to see the formatting). "As a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I'm a Christian." Christians do not acknowledge Mormons, also called Latter-day Saints, as members in the Christian faith. There was once a time, as I will show, when Mormons did not want to be associated with traditional Christianity. Putting Mormonism in the same category as traditional Christianity is a relatively new phenomenon. The LDS believe in a version of Jesus that is not the Christ of the Bible but is rather the invention of a con man named Joseph Smith. He published the Book of Mormon in 1830, which he claimed to have translated from gold plates given to him by an angel named Moroni. By Smith's own admission, the Jesus he preached was not the Christ believed upon by other Christians. In the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith claimed God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him, something no one else in the Bible had ever witnessed. He asked them which church he should join. "I was answered that I must join none of them," Smith said, "for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'" Smith twisted Isaiah's words repeated by Jesus (Matthew 15:9) to say that every other version of Christianity was wrong and only the version of Christianity he had invented was the correct one. The Apostle Paul plainly said, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8-9). • "Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:35)." Christians certainly believe that's true. Mormons will use the same language that Christians use, but they use a completely different dictionary to define their terms. When I say what Mike has said, I mean something different than what Mike means. According to Mormonism, Mary was not actually a virgin. In order for Jesus to be conceived in her, God the Father, whom the Mormons call Elohim, had sex with her. Said former LDS president Joseph Fielding Smith, "The birth of the Savior was a natural occurrence unattended by any degree of mysticism, and the Father God was the literal parent of Jesus in the flesh as well as in the spirit." (Joseph Fielding Smith is not to be confused with Joseph Smith; nonetheless, whatever the president of the LDS says is considered apostolic.) But the Mormons still maintain that Mary was a virgin because she had sex with an immortal being and not a mortal man. As the late LDS apostle Bruce McConkie said, "For our present purposes, suffice it to say that our Lord was born of a virgin, which is fitting and proper, and also natural, since the Father of the Child was an immortal being." Understand that Mormons do not believe God is eternal. They believe he was once a man begotten by a father, who had a father before him, and so on. Joseph Smith said, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!" He also said, "We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see." They not only believe in a different Jesus, they believe in a different god altogether. In fact, they believe in many gods. Joseph Smith believed he would one day become a god and take the place of God. Smith said, "When I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself." (The previous quotes were taken from his sermon The King Follett Discourse.) • "He is the Creator and God of the Old Testament and the Savior of the New Testament (John 1:1-3)." Mormons don't really believe that God created all things. They believe that he simply rearranged pre-existent matter. Joseph Smith said, "Now, I ask all who hear me, why the learned men who are preaching salvation, say that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing? The reason is, that they are unlearned in the things of God, and have not the gift of the Holy Ghost; they account it blasphemy in any one to contradict their idea. If you tell them that God made the world out of something, they will call you a fool. But I am learned, and know more than all the world put together." (Such a humble guy.) Smith went on to say, "God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end." So in Mormon cosmology, matter is eternal, but God is not. Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Out of nothing, God made everything. Mormons don't believe this. • "He lived a sinless life, took upon Himself the sins of all mankind, and atoned for us through His suffering and death (1 Peter 2:22, Alma 7:11-12)." Mormons don't actually believe Jesus atoned for all sin. According to Joseph Smith, murder and adultery were two sins you could not be atoned for, not "in this world, nor in the world to come" (Doctrines and Covenants 42:18). Joseph Field Smith said, "Joseph Smith taught that there were certain sins so grievous that man may commit, that they will place the transgressors beyond the power of atonement of Christ. If these offenses are committed, then the blood of Christ will not cleanse them from their sins even though they repent. Therefore their only hope is to have their own blood shed to atone, as far as possible, in their behalf." The Bible does not say Christ did not atone for murderers and adulterers, or else King David has a real problem. Romans 6:10 says, "For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God." • "He rose on the third day, ensuring our resurrection and offering eternal life through faith in Him (1 Corinthians 15:20-22)." • "He is the only way to salvation (Acts 4:12)." Though this is not as dogmatically required among Mormons as it once was, Mormonism also says that you must believe Joseph Smith was God's prophet in order to be saved. Doctrine and Covenants 135:3, which is among their Scriptures, says, "Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it." Joseph Fielding Smith said that there is "no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith was verily a prophet, and if he told the truth, no man can reject that testimony without incurring the most dreadful consequences, for he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Jesus said you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God (John 3:1-15). You must believe in Jesus Christ in order to be saved and have eternal life (John 3:16-18). No one gets to the Father but by Him (John 14:6). Requiring you believe Joseph Smith does not get you into the kingdom. Quite the opposite, in fact. "We worship Jesus Christ, follow His teachings, and take upon His name through baptism and weekly sacrament." Again, Mormons worship a different Jesus, not the Christ of the Bible. They don't follow His teachings. They follow the teachings of what Joseph Smith said about Jesus. According to their own articles of faith, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." So the Bible is correct as long as you understand it the way they tell you to understand it. According to the First Presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the LDS church, "God the Eternal Father, whom we designate by the exalted name-title 'Elohim,' is the literal Parent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and of the spirits of the human race. Elohim is the Father in every sense in which Jesus Christ is so designated, and distinctively He is the Father of spirits." That is neither the God nor the Christ we encounter in the pages of the Bible. The Apostle Paul rebuked some of the Corinthians for believing in a different Jesus presented to them by false apostles: "For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough" (2 Corinthians 11:4). Different Jesus, different teachings, different atonement. The Jesus of Mormonism cannot save. "The Book of Mormon, alongside the Bible, testifies of His divinity and mission." The Mormon canon consists of the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants. They believe all of these to be equally Scripture. But the Book of Mormon is not "alongside the Bible" in any sense, except that Joseph Smith used it to manipulate and deceive people into thinking he was presenting the true Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon literally says on the cover that it is "Another Testament of Jesus Christ." The Bible says there is no other gospel (Galatians 1:8-9). The BOM chronicles the ancient history of people in the Americas, focusing mainly on the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations, culminating with an appearance of Jesus Christ after he rose from the dead and appeared in North America. None of the claims in the Book of Mormon have ever been verified as true. "As our Church’s name declares, Jesus Christ is at the heart of our religion. He is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). If that doesn’t make us Christians, I don’t know what does." It used to be that even the LDS church acknowledged they believed in a different Jesus. Said the late LDS president Gordon B. Hinkley, "I do not believe in the traditional Christ. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak." "You may define Christianity differently, and that’s your right. If you do, that doesn’t change my faith in Jesus Christ. Nor does it diminish my respect for your sacred beliefs. Not for a moment." I respect Mormons as fellow image-bearers of God. They are sinners headed for hell unless they repent and believe in the true Jesus Christ of the Bible, not the fiction invented by Joseph Smith. I do not respect their religion, for it is leading people to hell, and it is blasphemy againts God. We don't believe in the same Jesus. But I hope and pray that one day, Mike will.