Mormon Talks with a Christian Pastor About God

Wanwan, we already asked you?

You have, but I'm just curious, like, where are you guys from?

Yeah, yeah, my name's Wade.

Good to meet you, Wade.

What's your name?

I'm Ephraim.

Ephraim?

Yeah.

We're, uh...

Very biblical name, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, we're from, uh, South Jordan.

Okay, cool.

Uh, Apologia Church, we're a Baptist church, we're Christians. Yeah, yeah, what about you?

I, I'm down, I actually, oddly enough, I live in Ephraim, Utah. My name's Ephraim and I live in Ephraim.

Wow.

It's very confusing.

Wow, how long you been there?

I've been there a few years now, actually, now, now that I think about it. Yeah, it's been a few years since 2021, but I was up in Rexburg before.

Okay.

I grew up in Grantsville, that's my stomping ground.

Okay, yeah, yeah, wow.

That's kind of my area, but, yeah.

Yeah, so we're, uh, we're Christians, so we're, we're out here because at these large events, whether it be, you know, a general conference or, you know, something like this or, or other large events that garner many people, it's a good opportunity for us to just get the gospel out.

We, uh, we want people to hear the good news of Christ, um, and so that's why we're here. We don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but we want to tell them the truth, uh, that God detests false worship.

And, um, you know, he tells, you know, uh, the, the Israelites even especially, you know, don't worship as the people in the land do. Right, right, yeah. And don't make any engraving images, don't worship images, things like that.

And so we see that this is, um, this is not just simply culture. In Hinduism and with Hare Krishna, you can't separate culture from their religious rituals. And so everything about this is very worshipful, very religious.

And so we wanted to, we're just here telling people the truth that Christ is the one worthy of worship. He's the one worthy to receive all praise and, uh, to not align ourselves with this. So anyways, that's why we're here.

What, what brings you here?

Well, I've just brought some students because I have a bunch of international students from Snow College.

Oh, I gotcha.

So I have a couple Indians, a couple from Nepal.

Gotcha, gotcha.

And then there's some other places.

So you escort them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I give them a kind of an experience.

Yeah. What, uh, what are your faith beliefs, if you don't mind?

I'm, I'm LDS, Mormon.

LDS? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you want to call it. Since, since you were young or?

What's, oh yeah, since I've, since I've been growing up, baptized at eight years old.

Do you still?

Yeah.

Do you still practice?

Yeah, I practice and I'm with you. I love Jesus Christ. I believe He is our Savior and I love this Holy Week. My wife and I have spent a lot of time with our kids this week just reading about the Savior's story, reading His and just pondering on the marvel of His resurrection this week.

What a wonderful opportunity it has been. I feel that, I feel that way. I haven't, I don't know. In the past, we celebrate Easter, but this year we like decide to really like put in an effort to like set it apart and make it important because it should be, it should, we should celebrate it a lot more than we do, I feel like.

And man, it, it's made a difference. Like this week has been so, so good to just have that extra boost of Christ.

Yeah. Do you, um, uh, you know, what is, how do you believe you were, you were saved? You know, how did, how did, you know, what, what happened to you, you know, to come to this?

To come to Christ?

Yeah.

I was raised in a way that I was taught to try and, and live as Jesus lived and to follow Him. And I've always, I've, I've come to learn, you know, that grace does save us. We are all saved because of Jesus Christ.

We will all be resurrected. There's so much hope in that, right? That He gives hope to everybody. And that's why I served a mission. That's why I did, you know, kind of what you did. I went out and shared the gospel with people.

I shared this message because people do need to. There's a lot of people without hope.

Yeah, I, I, I agree. It's, it's all grace. And, uh, but that's why we come out to, to the temple near BYU or General Conference because historically, I'm sure you've heard Christians maybe say this, is like, we're concerned that, that, you know, Mormonism or Latter-day Saint theology is something that, uh, is graceless because grace is something that's unmerited favor.

It's, it's something you can't work for. You can't earn it. But then, you know, even the articles of faith, even, even things like, you know, Moroni chapter 10, verse 32, yea, come unto Christ and be perfected in Him and deny yourselves of all ungodliness.

And if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind, strength, then is His grace sufficient for you. So you have an if-then statement in the Book of Mormon that if you do this, then you'll receive grace.

But as Christians, we see the Bible says, if God has given you grace and you've been changed and you, and you've been regenerate and He's opened your eyes and made you born again, then, then you will deny ungodliness.

Then you'll, you know, so we see an order of operations difference there. And you must obey, quote, unquote, the gospel ordinances and principles to be saved. And, uh, you know, I've asked Mormon neighbors, uh, so you believe I'm going to be saved?

Oh, yes, absolutely. You know, uh, and, uh, you know, what level will I be? Cause we, you know, in LDS theology, we talk about different levels and said, well, you'll be given an opportunity to hear more truth here.

And celestial is very important, but there to be in God's presence, you know, you have to do get your temple endowment. You have to, you know, have celestial marriage. You have to, um, you know, you, you have to, uh, even participate in tithing and, and good, good, uh, uh, attendance for, to even get the temple recommends and everything like that.

So to me, it's like, if the celestial level is where God's presence is and where you'll be with God, anywhere else to me is hell. Like being away from God is hell after I've died. Right? So, so if I have to work a certain way and be a certain way to be with God, then that's fundamentally a different gospel.

Like he, he takes, uh, he takes people dirty sinners for lack of a better term. And it says in Ezekiel 36, he says, I will sprinkle you with clean water. I will, I will clean you. I will, I will make you new.

I will take out your heart of stone and remove it and put in a heart of flesh. And then I will pour out my spirit upon you. And so there's this change that happens first before I could even participate in any of those works.

Does that make sense?

And I, honestly, you really haven't said anything that I disagree with. And I, I commend you for taking the time to try and understand everybody's beliefs. Cause, and I, I can tell you just love Jesus.

I appreciate that. I do.

And I, and I do too. I love him. That's, and that's my central focus. I am Christian.

I believe in him. I love him.

As others do, but you know.

Can I ask you something Ephraim?

Yeah.

If, if, if I pointed at my, my brother here, Eric, and I said, that's Ephraim, that's him. That's, you're no longer that or, or, or he is too. He's you as well. And I said, that's Ephraim right there, but that was actually Eric, right?

If I, if I simply call him that, that doesn't change his identity or, or something like that. So, you know, second Corinthians 11 says that there'll be those who have a different gospel, a different Christ, and a different spirit.

Even Jesus says that there'll be those who use my name, but they're, they're, they're not me. And so that's where I'm concerned that I appreciate what you're saying about Jesus and even your Easter week, this Passion Week.

But what if it's possible that in Mormonism, we've, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and all these prophets and apostles have made something and they pointed at it and they've gone, that's Jesus. But we're like, no, look at the Bible.

Look, this is Jesus. The uncreated creator who says that all things have made, been made through him and not anything that was made was made apart from him. So that means he's outside things that are created.

So if he made all things and he said nothing was made apart from him, then he wasn't created. But in LDS doctrine, he was created. He's a created being. He, he, he, he has that start, that beginning. Whereas John 1 says that in the beginning was the word.

And it's pointing to him because later John in verse 14 will call him, Jesus is the word made flesh. So he says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And so there's, you know, you would understand what we're saying, Trinitarian doctrine.

All at once, Jesus is with God, but he also is God.

So it's all, all three together, right?

What's that?

I can't remember.

Yeah, yeah. Father, son, and Holy Spirit.

They're all the same.

The one being of God, one essence of God.

Essence. Is that the word you use?

Being or essence. And then three personhood, you know. So, so he, we, you Ephraim, you have one being, one nature and one personhood. Like thinking about things in ontology and understanding natures and stuff.

But God has revealed himself as one being, three personhoods. All co-equal, all co-eternal. They're not three parts of one. That would be called partialism. That's false. They're not, they're not three different modes of God.

So sometimes God appears as the mode of the sun. Sometimes he appears as the mode of the spirit. That's not true either. It's just in scripture, all at once. And this is, this is amazing. This is who God is.

This is, this is how he's revealed himself all at once in scripture. It says that he is one. But then at the very same time, it says that the father and the son and the spirit are God. And now, you and I, it's hard to make that comprehension.

But we take God's word and we believe it. We believe what he says about him. So, so I guess what I'm trying to say is, and I'm rambling now. But, but if we, if we take something and say, okay, no, this is Jesus.

He was, he was once, he was once a creature. Some LDS doctrine even says that he was begotten by Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. And he came in that way. And then he progressed and took on deity.

Then, then we're talking about the Passion Week. Then how could an elevated man absorb the wrath of God for the sins of mankind? I don't think that's possible. I think what, what, what the Bible says is that he has been God from all eternity.

The pre-incarnate Christ. And that he was never once created. He's the uncreated creator. He has no beginning, no end. The Alpha, the Omega. And, and basically because he's all at the same time, totally human, totally man, totally and fully man, but then also totally and fully divine or God.

All at the same time with no mixture of the two. Then he's able in that power to be able to take on the wrath of God. You and me couldn't get on a cross and pay for anyone's sin. We couldn't even pay for our own sins.

The only way. So do you get what I'm saying? What do you, what do you say to that? If we, if we go away from what God has said about him, about his nature and who Jesus is, and we point at something and say, but this is Jesus, then that's not kind of the same Jesus.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And that's the thing. You see that so much of the world, I don't know. Wade, I'm just very impressed. You're very well read.

No, no, I'm not.

No, it's apparently you've spent time. That's what I'm trying to say. You've spent time trying to understand.

I'm trying to understand.

Yeah.

Not only others, but also Christ himself. And that, I admire that. And people, if people would take time to do that, it would change the way that they acted every day. It would change the way the people that they were, which is really what, what God wants for us.

What Jesus wants for us is for us to be good people. To do our best. Despite being saved by him. To share, to be kind, to serve. It says in James that pure religion is to feed the hungry and the poor.

Right?

And take care of that. And I read that just this past week.

James 1, 26 and 27.

26 and 27.

Yeah.

And I was just reminded, man, maybe I need to take some time to look outside myself. Instead of, you know, I, so often it's so easy to look on the inside, but. And here we are talking, sorry. I kind of, it feels like I'm kind of like shying away from what you're saying.

And it's, I guess I'm not really here to talk about doctrine.

Okay.

Because I know that we don't agree on everything. But what I have realized as we've talked, Wade, we actually agree on way more things that I realized before. Like coming into this, I was kind of expecting a lot, a lot more like things that I'm like, wow, we really are not on the same page, but.

Yeah.

Honestly, the differences feel so, so slight to me. And I understand that they're, they're very important to you. I don't want to take away from you.

Sure.

I'm grateful that you're here, like teaching and helping people. And I believe you are helping.

Well, and that's the thing, Ephraim, you know, that's just, I don't want to contradict what you just said. I appreciate, I appreciate what you're saying and your friendliness and your neighborliness. But, but there, there is more that concerns me.

Just everything from eternal progression and taking on the nature of Godhood. And that as the prophets and apostles have taught that God was once a man, Elohim was a man like you and me. And I, I can't ever accept that because of what the scripture says that.

No one is making you.

But that's the thing. That's the thing. How could, but if you're worshiping Ephraim, if you're worshiping a God that was once a man, then he's not God. God is immutable. He doesn't change. God is all powerful.

He never once had no power.

But we are eternal. If we, if we existed before, that's where, that's where it all starts.

Right.

We, we came from God. If we're children of God, that means that's God.

So that's the thing. Isaiah says that we began upon the earth. That before you were actually born and God breathed his, it says, you know, like, like he breathed the breath of life into Adam. Before he did that for you and me, we didn't exist.

So we have a start and we'll move forward into eternity, but we aren't from eternity. The Bible doesn't say that or, you know, whether it be in the form of intelligences or as Mormon doctrine says or things like that.

Like you understand, like you have read a lot about the religion. That's amazing.

So what would, what would cause you to reconsider this and think about Christianity? And I know you would call it Christian, but, but what we would call evangelical or biblical Christianity, what would cause you to pause or concern?

You know, Wade, nothing will take me away from him.

I don't want to take you away from him.

I'm not, that's not what I'm saying.

But I'm afraid you're not with him right now.

And I appreciate your concern. But I have felt personal spiritual confirmation. And I know that I am following Jesus Christ.

Have you tested that though?

I have.

How?

I have. By going on a mission, by acting in faith. I'm praying daily. I read, I read in the scriptures daily. I read in the Bible.

Even this says to test the spirits.

I go to church every week. And it teaches me, we learn that nothing bad can come from God. And I don't believe that anything that I, that I believe is bad. Right? I think that there's mistakes that people make, but that's the mistakes of men.

But, but if we're promised we can become a God one day.

Yeah.

No, not just, not just like in his moral, you know, often they.

Become a God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Become a God. Become as he is.

Right.

And, and they'll say, well, become like him in his morality.

No. No.

Like become a God.

Become a God.

Good.

I'm so glad you're actually honest with that.

Yes.

Cause I believe it. I believe that just like a kitten becomes a cat, just like a, you know, a baby horse becomes a full grown horse. We are children of God.

God's in training.

Exactly.

Right. We can become as God is.

Where do you get that?

Where do we get that?

Where do you get that? From the scriptures.

Yeah.

From the scriptures.

They're foreign from the Bible.

No.

It says we are God's. Jesus Christ himself. Quotes. Proverbs.

Psalms.

Psalm 82.

Thank you.

In John 10.

I'm not good with the numbers.

Okay.

I know I'm taking a lot of your time. Just one more thing.

Real quick.

One more thing.

One more thing.

One more thing to think about. I appreciate you.

I've enjoyed this.

Yeah. Yeah.

Me too, Ephraim.

I've learned a lot.

I've learned a ton.

So, so John 10 context. What's happening is in John 10. Those are the good shepherd passages. Jesus says, I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I'll lose none of my sheep. I'll let none of them perish.

None.

No one will snatch them out of my hand.

That's.

And he's in front of. At this. The portico of Solomon. He's near. He's near the temple in Jerusalem. And these religious leaders.

Are.

Are there. And basically.

They are.

They've been. Rebuking him. They've been. Mocking him. They've been wanting to get him arrested. They're sick of his teaching.

Right. And.

And what Jesus does. Is he. Begins to rebuke them. In their false leadership. And in their. Poor rulership of the people. That he calls himself the. The real shepherd. Because often. Chief priests. Scribes Pharisees.

They were considered like. Shepherds of Israel. They were considered leaders.

In Israel.

And what happens.

Is.

Jesus.

Calls himself. The son of God.

So.

They get. They get mad at that. They hate that.

Right. Right. Right.

And so he quotes. He quotes from Psalm 82. And he said. And he brings that up.

Yep.

And so the context of that.

And the.

The different theories are.

That.

That those gods. Are sons of gods.

Are.

Were the people of Israel.

Who.

Who received.

The.

The word of God. At Mount Sinai. So that's one theory. The other theory. Is that. That's a. That's an angelic. Counsel. Or a divine counsel. Of sorts. Who were up with God. And the other one. Is what.

What.

What I understand. Because Jesus uses. Psalm 82. In this context. Basically. Psalm 82. God talks to these men. These rulers. These kings. These judges. And he says. You're going to die. Like any other man.

You're going to die. Like mere mortals. I gave you. The honorific title. Of Elohim. In the plural.

Of.

Of gods.

I gave you. That honorific title. It was just a title.

But.

They were. They were simply men. Who were given.

These.

Statuses. Of rulership. And leadership. Over Israel. But they abused it. He said. You didn't care for the poor. You didn't care for the orphan. You didn't care for the widow. And so.

You're.

You're. You're going to.

You're going to.

Not have that. Status.

Anymore.

And in fact. The fulfillment of Psalm 82. Will be in Christ. So he's going to call. My son's coming. The Messiah's coming. Basically. Inferred in that.

And.

Jesus will call himself. The son of God. And so what he's saying. To those rulers.

Is this.

That indictment. From Psalm 82. On those rulers. Is for you. Chief priests. Scribes. And Pharisees. You are the false leaders.

You'll.

You're false shepherds. You're false judges. You're false judges. False rulers. And we're going.

And. And.

I'm the one. Who can rightfully be called. Son of God. No one else. Will get that title.

Anymore.

And.

How can you say to me. That they could be called.

Gods.

And I call myself. The son of God. And he's actually not. A son of God. He's the son of God. He's not.

A God.

He is the God. And so that's the whole point. Of John 10.

There.

And Jesus interpreting. Psalm 82. It's not. That there were.

Men.

Who were.

Gods.

At the time. Of the one true God. And so that's. That would be. The explanation.

Theory.

Not a theory. How Jesus. Interprets.

Psalm 82.

That they're mere men.

They're.

They're not gods. And he is allowed. To have that title. Because he rightfully deserve it. That's his nature. He's deity.

He's God.

So.

Anyways. What do you think of that?

Very confusing.

Honestly.

I'm just.

Just my honest opinion. I'm very confused. I don't know enough about the. The history. And the context. And that kind of stuff. And maybe there are some history. Historical context.

But.

Yeah.

I'm.

I am curious though. I know that you said that was your last thing. But I did. I came up with a question as I was.

Oh yeah. Sure.

As you were. As you were talking. But that is. I mean that is interesting.

Yeah.

You.

Like I said. You've taken time to read. And that is like. Really cool.

Like.

Good for you for knowing the Bible so well.

All glory to God.

I.

I read as much as I can. And I've learned a lot. But I don't know my verses.

Oh.

I know.

I'm learning too.

And I.

That's awesome.

So.

I guess my last question that I have.

Is. Uh.

You're trying to share the gospel today.

Like.

What's your end goal?

For.

Yes.

For somebody.

Yes.

So. Yes.

What would.

What would you be hoping that I would do? Is it to join your church? Or is it to join a different church? Is it not.

Okay.

Really matter? I'm trying to.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Good question.

Yeah.

Like.

What's.

What's the end goal?

What's the action item.

Good question.

That you're kind of looking for?

So.

What we do is. We don't want to do like a.

Uh.

Uh.

A one and done. A blitz. Like take this. If people. I give my card out. I meet with people. I get lunch with people. I want to meet with them. If they have questions.

I.

Yeah.

I.

I'm going to meet with them. And I'm not going to push things.

I.

I want them to see it for themselves. I can't save anyone.

Of course.

I.

I want people to see the truth for themselves.

So.

So anyway. From this point. Like.

Excuse me.

Let's say you were like.

You know.

I have more questions. I'm interested in what you're hearing. Then I would. Then I would want to meet with you. And really just go through.

Because at.

At the end of the day. It's not. Wade's authority. It's not. You know. The pastors that I've. Been under. His authority.

We.

Understand.

That.

The Bible.

Is the soul infallible. Rule of faith. In practice.

For.

The Christian. For the believer. That.

The Bible.

Is the standard.

It's God.

God's word. He's spoken. Second Timothy. Three says. It's the honest.

It's God breathed.

Which means. You know.

It comes out of his mouth. It's come to us.

If God's spoken.

It's authoritative.

It's self.

Attest. Attesting.

And.

And it's binding on. On all creatures. And so.

We.

We would then look at the Bible. And we would compare.

You know.

Your beliefs. Or what you've learned. To what the Bible says.