9 - LDS, Part 2

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of World Religions. We're glad to have you with us. We are here to discuss different world religions in our classes as we go through many different topics.

We have many different schools available at strivingforeternity .org. You can see we have a school on how to interpret the Bible called Biblical Harmonetics. We have a school on Systematic Theology. We have a school on Discipleship.

We're going to be adding a school on Apologetics soon and one on the Bible. So we're adding more and more of them. If you go to strivingforeternity .org, you can find out more about the Striving for Eternity Academy, which this is one of those classes.

My name is Andrew Rappaport. I will be your teacher tonight. We are going through in this class, as we work our way through this class, or series of classes actually, this is an introduction to the major Western religions.

The lesson we'll be dealing with today is a lesson on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's lesson number four in your syllabus. If you have a syllabus, if you'd like to get a syllabus and get all the notes, you can go to strivingforeternity .org and order one.

They are $25 each and you can pick up a syllabus. It will be shipped to you. It has all the notes and then some, has some stuff for you to fill in the blanks, and has some things where you'd be able to follow along.

Quick note to those who may be new, we had a number of people argue with us after last week's class on the, what I'm going to say is the LDS. That stands for Latter-day Saints, it's a shorthand for Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormons, but we were going to call them LDS, it's the term they're using nowadays.

The point being though is that many were basically arguing that I don't know what I'm talking about when I criticize the LDS, I should go to their website. If you want to make that argument, just ask yourself the question, what's more authoritative in the LDS doctrine?

Your website or Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, the places I am actually quoting from, just saying. The website has been scrubbed. If you go back to what the website said even 20 years ago, you'll see that nowadays it sounds more like Christianity, which is kind of funny, I do find it interesting.

Because the LDS say that they are the Latter-day Saints because remember in last class we looked at it, that they were, had to be restored because the church fell away, something that by the way Jesus said wouldn't happen, but okay.

But that aside, the church supposedly fell away, it needed to be restored, well if the Latter-day Saints are the restoration of the church, my question to any of you LDS that are watching, why do you want to sound like us if we are the ones that supposedly fell away?

Just saying. Why don't you stand up on your own doctrines and admit what your doctrines are? Don't pretend like you believe in justification by faith alone when that's not what you believe. These are things, and so when we end up looking at this, we end up seeing that they will argue for things and their website has been scrubbed to make it sound more Christian.

It shouldn't. If you believe the church fell away, you shouldn't try to be like the Christian church. Now let's be fair, really what I think Joseph Smith was really dealing with historically was the Roman Catholic Church, which then we would agree.

They did fall away because they aren't Orthodox. They don't follow the Bible. They make the same mistake as we looked in the last class. If you missed part one, we talked about the authorities in the Latter-day Saints, and they add to the Bible.

They add things like the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price. Once you add to God's Word, now they would say, no, no, no, this is God's Word. The problem is once you have additional resources that you say this is equal and authoritative God's Word, but there's contradictions between what God's Word says, the Bible says and these new revelations, you have an immediate problem.

And that should be an indicator to say, you know what, I think that maybe, just maybe the new revelation is wrong. God's Word doesn't need to change. And so if there's a contradiction, it's a problem.

So, last class we looked at the authority of the LDS. Today we're going to look at God. What is their view of God? I'm going to give a warning. If you have never studied the Latter-day Saints, if this is the first introduction you have into the Latter-day Saints, you're going to question whether what I'm saying is true.

I'm letting you know that. You're going to say they can't possibly believe this and that and the other. And I'm going to give you the quotations to make the case so that you understand it is part of their doctrine.

It's just not part that they kind of let everyone know. As one Mormon who realized he wanted to be honest and not tell me that I was lying, he knew what I was saying about Mormonism was true, but he said, you can't possibly have known that because we don't teach that to new people.

You have to be in the temple before you learn those things. And so there, right there, you see an issue. What they say to the average person is different than what they say to people that have gone through the ceremonies and whatnot because they can be trusted more, as this person told me.

Well, the reality is that these things are from their documents. We can read them. We don't need to go through ceremonies and have to hear it secondhand. We actually have a brain and we can read and interpret.

Yeah. So, when they deny it, it's just because they realize how far-fetched it sounds. Alright? So, let us begin by looking at their doctrine of the Godhead. If you have your syllabus, this is going to be on section number two, God.

And as we go through this, I think what we're going to get to today is their view of God, specifically the Trinity, and their view of Jesus Christ, and specifically we'll look at a little bit of what their view is of his deity.

But the LDS do not accept the term Trinity, at least not in the way we would use it. And I say that because what you end up seeing is that, again, they'll use that term, but ask them, what do you mean by that?

Great question. I always ask when you deal with people like this because they're using Christian terminology and they have a different meaning from it. Now, their view of the Godhead would be two, ready for this, physical persons, that's your blank there, physical persons, two physical persons and one spirit in one Godhead.

That's how they end up defining it. It's two physical persons, the Father and the Son, and one Holy Spirit that make up the Godhead. Therefore, they could claim three persons in one Godhead. However, two of these persons have a physical body.

We're going to deal with this. If you've taken our class on biblical hermeneutics, on how to interpret the Bible, we dealt with the topic there and we also dealt with it in our systematic theology of anthropomorphisms.

What is an anthropomorphism? That is where God describes himself with characteristics of a man. Now, what you end up seeing is that in Latter-day Saints, they take those characteristics where he describes himself as a man and they take it literal.

So, when God says in Genesis 1, 26 -28, that let us make man in our image, they take that to mean the physical image that humanity was created in. And they believe that God is a glorified being of flesh and bones, not just the spirit of essence.

I'm going to give you some passages for that. So, what you end up seeing is they believe that God the Father, we would agree that God the Son did have a physical body. And is God and is glorified in that sense.

Not in the same sense we would be glorified because he didn't have to get rid of the body of sin, but the issue being is they would end up seeing that God the Father had a physical body. And that's where we're going to have some issue of contention.

And they see that because they see passages that talk about God having hands and feet and eyes and ears. But you know what, in the Psalms it says that God the Father puts us under his wings. Is God a chicken?

No, God's not a chicken. It's an anthropomorphism or in the sense with the chicken, he's using a description of animals to describe a character of God. When it says that God sees, it doesn't mean he has eyes.

It means that he knows things. It's a way of describing characteristic. They take it literal. Can you support that, Andrew? Yes, I can. Doctrine and Covenants 130 verse 22. This is in your syllabus if you have one.

One of the advantages to a syllabus, by the way. And actually, I should say up front that all of this that I'm giving you is from my book, What Do They Believe? You can order that at strivingforeternity .org.

What Do They Believe? A Systematic Theology of the Major Western Religions. So you could pick up a copy of that and get all the quotes. The ones I go over in this class and more are in that book so that you have them there.

But in Doctrine and Covenants, which by the way is more authoritative than the website, okay, because this is actually supposed to be inspired, says, quote, 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, unquote. That is Doctrine and Covenants 130 verse 22. What you see there is that it's, this isn't something where you go, oh, you're taking it out of context.

The context here he's trying to emphasize, not only that, to separate, not only that God the Father has a flesh of body, a flesh and bones, it's tangible, so it's describing, it's tangible, it's material, and it's as man's.

And it's different than the spirit. The spirit does not have that. So God the Father is like God the Son in having a physical body. And some will try to say, no, no, no, you're misinterpreting that. Well, it's emphasizing it, not by just saying that he's got a body, but he describes the body as several ways.

One, flesh and bones. That's how he's describing the body. Two, it's tangible. Three, it's like man's. That's the description. This is where we're going to have real contention. Well, you want to go to the website?

All right, let's look at what their website used to say. Like I said, it's been scrubbed, and so some of these things are no longer there. This is a direct quote from what they used to say on their website.

Quote, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worships a God and a Jesus Christ with bodies, with parts, and with passions. The belief that God has no body, parts, and passions is not a doctrine of Jesus Christ or a doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, but is a doctrine of men.

And to worship such a God in vain, the message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the people of the world is that God, the Eternal Father, and Jesus Christ live and are personages with immortal bodies of flesh and bones and passions, and with all mankind are children of God and created in the image and likeness that Jesus Christ, through His prophet Joseph Smith, restored His Church with all His doctrines, commandments, and ordinances as recorded in all of the Holy Scriptures.

That is from their website, what it used to say. What do you end up seeing? Just a little note, Christians believe that Jesus had a body. So when they say that we're teaching that Jesus didn't have a body, that's not what Christian doctrine teaches.

Christian doctrine teaches that Jesus was fully man, fully God. But we don't believe that God the Father had a body. Well, what do you say then? I mean, if you're familiar with the Gospels, you're going to go, but wait a minute.

In John chapter 4, it was very clear that Jesus, sorry, that God the Father is a spirit and He should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. This is John 4, 20 -24. Well, let me give you how Joseph Smith, in his translation, the Joseph Smith translation, translated John 4, 24.

He translated it this way, quote, For unto such hath God promised His Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth, unquote. Now, that's a big difference. And anytime you have to do a translation that actually changes the doctrine, then your translation is in error.

And that's what you have here. In the Greek, it says that God is a spirit and you must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Joseph Smith had to add this phrase, promised His Spirit. That God promised His Spirit is very different than God is a spirit.

There's no manuscripts at all, anywhere, in any Greek manuscript that justifies Joseph Smith's translation of God promised His Spirit. That is addition to scripture. He's blatantly making it up. And so what you see is that they believe in God the Father being a physical body.

Now, did you also catch on the website where they read, He's not eternal, He's immortal. That's a big difference. What's the difference? We went through this when we were teaching the classes on systematic theology.

Think of it this way, if you're familiar with math, you had a line and an array. A line was a line with two arrows on either end, meaning it goes in infinite directions, in both directions. That's eternal.

Immortal would be more like an array where there's a starting point and then it goes on forever in one direction. That would be immortal, like you and I. We had a time we were created and then from that time on we live forever.

However, God is eternal. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God. In both directions, He never had a beginning. However, the God of the Latter-day Saints had a beginning and then lives forever. That's why they say He's immortal and not eternal.

Big difference. This is the issue. When they say, we are Christian, they've been doing all these commercials, we are Christian. They are not Christian the way the Bible describes Christianity. When they want to say they're just like us, no.

They worship a different God. Their God has a physical body. The Bible teaches the opposite. Their God was born. Our God, the Bible's God, the true God, was not. Let's go on because this next thing is why I say that for some this is...

They look at Mormonism and they go, this is science fiction. I know. It is. Keep in mind that this was before an age where we had the scientific discoveries that we have now. People actually believed that some of these things could be true, like life on other planets.

Oh, wait. Some people still think that. They're called scientists that are trying to explain evolution. Yeah. So, because they can't explain how life can come from non-life. So they say, it was aliens.

Doesn't solve your problem there, right? It just pushes it out. How did the aliens get life from non-life? We don't know. Okay, that's a science of the gaps. All right, so letter B in your syllabus. Ready?

God lives near Kolob. What? Yeah, he's on a planet called Kolob. The Latter-day Saints doctrine teaches that God used to be a man on another planet. That is your blank there. On another planet. And that he became God by following the laws and ordinances of that God of that world.

And he brought one of his wives to this world with whom he produced spirit children who inhabit the human bodies at birth. The first spirit child born to him was Jesus. The second was the person we know of as Satan or Lucifer.

And then all others followed after that. The Latter-day Saint Jesus is definitely not the same as the biblical Jesus. All right? So first off, what do we see here? And I'm going to give you a lot of support for this.

But here's the thing. First off, God was born physically. That's opposite to what we're saying the scripture teaches. God the Father that we're speaking of. He was born, came into existence, had wives.

Here's the problem. I remember saying this because I spoke to a Mormon once who worked for me when I was working in the secular world. And she would try to convert me to Mormonism. And I asked her, I said, do you believe that God the Father created all things?

Everything in the universe. Everything that ever was created. And she said yes. I gave her some scriptures. I said, well, how about Jesus Christ? Colossians 1, 15, and 16 says that Jesus created all things.

And all things were created by Him and through Him. Nothing that was created was not created by Jesus. That's what Colossians 1, 15, and 16 say. Did Jesus create everything that was created? She said, oh yes.

I said, did Jesus Christ have physical parents, God the Father and His wife? Yes. Did God the Father have physical parents on Kolob? And she said yes. I said, here's my dilemma. She goes, what's that?

I said, here's, the dilemma is this. How did God the Father create His parents and the planet Kolob before He was born? And furthermore, how did Jesus Christ create His parents and His grandparents and the planet Kolob before His grandparents were born?

You see a problem? They're trying to answer the question, where did God come from? The Bible's answer is, God didn't come from anywhere. He is. That's the meaning of the name I Am. Yahweh or Jehovah, however you want to pronounce it.

But it is the idea of I Am. Self-existing One. That's the importance of that. So what you have is they have a God that they're trying to answer, where did God come from? They have a God who existed at some point, came into existence at some point, had physical parents.

So the LDS teach this, and I know this seems bizarre to those of us who, you know, we look at this and just are amazed. But a facsimile from the book of Abraham, we end up seeing that I have in my book, you'll see in my book, I give you this facsimile.

Where they give the explanation with Kolob, and how signifying the first creation nearest this celestial existence of God. And so they have a whole Egyptian description of this, supposedly. But according to Abraham 3 .4, it says this, quote, The Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thurm, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its a time and season in the revelations thereof.

And one revelation was a day unto the Lord. Therefore, after his manner of reckoning, it is being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that wherein thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord's time according to the reckoning of Kolob, unquote.

And so what you end up seeing is they're saying in the LDS state that in Abraham, this idea that to the Lord a day is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. This is the, quote unquote, Lord's time.

A day is a thousand years long because what is one day to us is one thousand years on Kolob. OK, so there's one revolution on Kolob and that one revelation is going to take us a thousand years to actually happen.

So you end up seeing that they have this kind of, you know, I mean, I'm hoping that you're listening to this and going, this is strange. I understand that. There are things here that we look at this and just go, this doesn't seem to make sense to us.

And have I been given the slides? That's right. I forgot to give you the... OK, so let me just say this is my fault for those of you who are watching. I put slide numbers in and I didn't rename them. So when I'm giving the slides, the engineer has not been putting the slides up because of the fact that I just have slide.

It's just a slide 175, 176, and that's not helpful. And so the person doesn't want to get in trouble and put up the wrong slide. Go ahead and just, as I go through this, put it up. If you have to flip them, we'll flip them.

That was, I'm sorry about that. That was my fault. Which ones did you have? Let's put the first one up because I probably... OK, so the first one there is Doctrine and Covenants 130, verse 22, which I read earlier.

The Father has a flesh and bones as tangible as man's and the Son also. But the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones but is a personage of the Spirit. What was the next one that we had up there?

OK, that was the quote that I gave from the LDS Church, so you could see that. What about the next? Oh, this is... OK, so this is a good one. Good, so we can read this one. This is from Mormon 7 -7. It says, And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above unto the Father and unto the Son and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God in a state of happiness to that end.

So what you end up there is they end up saying that this is their way of explaining Trinity, but you see it's three separate persons, as we would agree, but they're separate, distinct, and not really in one Godhead.

It's a strange thing. Is there another slide? OK, that's the one that I just read. OK, so that is Abraham 3 -4. Good. So that is their view of God. So when we look at their view of Jesus Christ, they're not having the view of a Trinity the way you and I would view the Trinity.

OK? They have a very different view of Trinity. And so we want to take that into account and recognize the fact that they are going to say they believe in a Trinity, but what do you mean by that is an important question because they're going to interpret this very, very differently.

When you start believing that God had a physical body and lived on a planet, you're just in a different realm of what Scripture teaches. Let's move on to what's their view of Jesus Christ. What's their view of Jesus Christ?

And this becomes important because we said let's start with the view of the deity of Jesus. All right? And we'll see if I have the slides for you or not. It could be fun. You know, we could see. So when we look at Jesus Christ, they do not believe in the dual nature.

That's your blank there, dual nature. Being both fully God and fully man. This is what we call in theology the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union means that we believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man in one person.

Now, I'm sorry. You and I cannot understand that. But just because we do not understand that does not mean that it's not true. In fact, for me, it gives me greater assurance to know that there are things I cannot comprehend about God because He is greater than my ability to understand Him.

And that's the point. God is greater than my ability to understand. And He's going to be incomprehensible. I can't fully understand Him. And when you start trying to fully comprehend God, we've dealt with this with Islam where they try to do this.

And when you start dealing with something where you think you can fully comprehend God, you're asking for trouble. I'm just saying. So, they do not believe in the dual nature of Jesus. Being fully God and fully man.

Jesus was God, became man, died, and became God. Again, Christ is... And actually, there's some... This is the thing where... This is... Well, let me read on and then I'll read that quote. There's this idea that Jesus was a man who became God.

And they would say that He was born of a spirit. We're going to look at this next week when we talk about the way they view spirit beings. That we are all born at one point in our spirit and then we come to earth and we're given human bodies.

Jesus was the firstborn of God the Father and His wife. By the way, His brother is Satan. Okay? Very different than the Bible. In the Bible, God the Son, Jesus Christ, created Satan. They're not brothers.

He was a created being. Jesus was not. So, Christ, according to LDS, Christ is now fully God. But subordinate to the Father. Where we would say Jesus was always, even from eternity past, He was always eternal God.

And yet He still was subordinate to the Father. In some way that we know within the Trinity, it seems from Scripture that both the Son and the Spirit are subordinate to the Father in some way. We don't fully comprehend that.

That's okay. But Jesus is Jehovah in the Old Testaments according to the LDS. So, let's see if I have the Moash or Mashiah. I think Mashiah is how it's pronounced. 15 .1 -4. Let's see if that's the slide.

There you go. Cool. See? See, we can work this out. So, let me read this to you. So, I guess when those who are watching live, you're watching me put my head down and read my notes when the slide should have been up to hide the fact that I'm looking down and you see the bald spots on my head.

It says here in... And now... And I'm going to butcher the names, by the way, just so you realize. And now... Being the Father and the Son. The Father because the Son conceived the power of God. And the Son because of the flesh.

Thus becoming the Father and Son. And they are one God. Yay! The very eternal Father from heaven and earth. Are you confused by that? Yeah, I am too. So, Jesus is both the Father and the Son? How's that?

You see, this is the problem. They can't reconcile these things. I mean, if God's a completely separate physical being, how did Jesus, because He took on flesh, become the Father? And He's the Son because He took on flesh.

And He took on the Father because He got the Spirit of the Father? It's like, you know, you see it starts breaking down. You end up seeing some of the confusion that they end up having and trying to answer questions that human beings can't answer.

We can't understand everything there is to know about God. And yet, they're trying to do this. And what you end up seeing them teaching is that Jesus... Well, look, they have a phrase. Let's see, am I going to get to it in my notes?

Let me just... There's a phrase that they have that says, speaking of Jesus, As we are, God once was. As God is, we may be. And the idea there is God the Father was once a man like you and I, as we already saw in passages.

He's tangible just like us. And He was once like us, and He became God. And since He could become God, just like He is now, we may be. We could become like Him. If you know your Scriptures, that should sound very, very similar to a passage of Scripture, say, in Genesis chapter 3.

What was the temptation that Satan offered to Eve? Eat of the fruit, and you could become like God. You see, it didn't end in the garden. Demons are still trying to deceive people to think that they could be like God.

Just as God is, we could be? Wow. That's really... And you're going to see it. Now, some people are going to deny that. They're going to go, no, no, no, we don't believe that. Let's look at some quotes.

Let's see. I don't know, what do we have next there? But put it up, and I'll... Okay, so this is Mormon 7 -7. No, that's the wrong one. Yeah, there we go. This is Doctrine and Covenants chapter 20, 21 -28.

So this is a longer passage, but let me read this to you. It says, quote, Wherefore, the Almighty God gave His only begotten Son, as it was written in those Scriptures which have been given of Him. He suffered temptations, but gave no heed to them.

He was crucified, died, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven to sit down at the right hand of the Father to reign with Almighty Power according to the will of the Father, that as many as would believe and be baptized in His holy name and endure in faith to the end should be saved.

Not only those who believed after He came in the meridian of time, in the flesh, but all those who from the beginning, even as many as were before He came, who believed in the words of the holy prophets, who spake as they were inspired by the gift of the Holy Ghost, who truly testified of Him all things from the beginning, even as many as were before He came, who believe in the words of the holy prophets, who testify in Him in all things, should have eternal life, as well as those who should come after, who should believe in the gifts and calling of God by the Holy Spirit, with beareth record of the Father and of the Son, which Father and Son and Holy Spirit are God, infinite, eternal, without error.

Amen. Do you see a problem there? I hope you do. That one just said He's eternal. You see, this is where you end up seeing they have contradictions. Because they'll refer to God as eternal, and then later it sees immortal.

Now, where do you see this? What you end up doing is you see, as I said last class, this has been a progression through time, and their theology developed over time. As it developed, they tried answering things.

As they answered things, they had to fix dilemmas that they had, and so they would do that. And so when you read the earlier stuff and the later stuff, it doesn't mesh. You don't have that with the Bible.

The Bible was written over 1 ,500 years, and you don't have these kind of things that don't mesh. And yet, what you end up seeing in these false religions is that they have things where it doesn't mesh, and it's within one generation.

I mean, Muhammad, in his lifetime, one man's lifetime, in his later years, I mean, because he was in his 20s. From his 20s till he died, he can't even get his theology to mesh. One person can't stay consistent.

Same with Joseph Smith. Can't stay consistent. And that's what you have. So you end up seeing this view of Jesus with his deity. They have him being God. They do see that Jesus was divine, but in a different way than Christians would see it, in a way that was never in the Scriptures.

They also see, as we saw there, that he was born of a virgin. The LDS believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, marry in some unspecified manner, was made pregnant by God the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, Jesus is not a metaphorical son, but a begotten son. Again, this is where they're taking things literal. And so Jesus is not the son of the Holy Spirit, but of the Father through the Holy Spirit.

I had one Mormon elder explain to me this is why they believe in polygamy, because God the Father was a polygamist because he not only had his wife, but he had Mary as a wife. I don't get that. Now, I'm going to say that's what an elder told me.

That's not what I got from their doctrines. Like I said, it's unspecified in their doctrines how this happened. I had one person that explained to me, another elder of a Mormon church explained to me, that how this happened was that God the Father's wife had a spirit, and that spirit was Mary.

And so God the Father had relations with his wife. It was once his physical wife, and she became a spirit that became human again and returned back. And I just scratched my head and go, okay, how did she do that?

And this is where they end up having the dilemmas. I think that we might have, do we have almost 710? Let's put it up and see. There we go, there. So, and behold, he shall be born of Mary at Jerusalem, which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.

And so what you see is, this is one of the dilemmas, and we saw this earlier in a different passage. When they refer to Jesus as Son of God, they don't have the same notion that the Bible says. The Bible calls him Son of Man to refer to his flesh.

They say Son of God is how he became man. Strange, because we would say that Son of God means he has the essence of God, and when he's called Son of Man, he's the essence of man. They would argue that Son of God means he's the essence of man.

Got it backwards. Now, the reality is, is at least I'm being consistent with Jewish thinking, who are the people, the culture that use the phrase Son of God and Son of Man. When Jesus called himself Son of God, the Jews wanted to stone him for claiming to be God, not claiming to be man.

Alright? And so what you see here, let me do a time check. Alright, so let me just read, this won't be in the notes. That you end up seeing, actually it's a lengthier one, so maybe I won't, but 1 Nephi 11, 13 -20 is another one where you're going to see that she's referred to as a virgin, most beautiful, and fair above other virgins.

So she's a virgin, and yet somehow she had relations with God the Father to have Jesus. And so it says in there, it says, And he said unto me, Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him, I know that he loveth his children nevertheless.

I do not know the meaning of all things. And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of flesh. And so you end up seeing this idea that she was this virgin, but somehow she wasn't a virgin because she had relations with God the Father.

Remember, he's a physical being. He's not a spirit like the Holy Spirit. He's a physical being. And so you end up seeing some things that we would just have real issues with, I think, as Christians. Other beliefs, let me just read some things since we have a little bit of time.

Other beliefs about Jesus are found in the Book of Mormon, a book called Mormon Doctrines. So now let me qualify. This book is not an authority. They don't say this is inspired by God. However, the author is one of their Quorum of Twelve, and by himself is an authority.