The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion: To which is added a discourse, Jesus Christ, the revelation of God; also a collection of authoritative Mormon utterances on the being and nature of GodRoberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion: To which is added a discourse, Jesus Christ, the revelation of God; also a collection of authoritative Mormon utterances on the being and nature of God
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines; God (Christianity); Jesus Christ -- Mormon interpretations; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines
Had the "Mormon" Church leaders known Hebrew, the original language
of the Book of Moses, and nearly the whole of the Old Testament, they
would not have been guilty of the outrageous blunders perpetrated
by the writers of the Pearl of Great Price and of the Catechism, as
appears on pages 24, 25, 26, 27, of the latter book: "They organized
and formed (that is, the Gods,) the heavens and the earth * * * and the
Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon * * * What did the _Gods_ do on
the second day? etc. The Gods said, Let there be light * * * _and they
[the Gods] comprehended the light, for it was bright_." (Whoever heard
of a dark light? But even had the light lacked brightness, would the
gods have been powerless to comprehend it?) The original had singular
verbs in all these sentences and, unlike our imperfect English, which
has the same form in the singular and in the plural, the Hebrew, the
Greek, the Latin, the Syriac, etc., have different terminations in the
plural from the singular.
Had Joseph Smith and his partners not been ignorant of those ancient
languages in which were written the original text and the oldest
versions of the Bible, their revelations would, at least in reference
to the Creator have tallied with the revelations of Moses.
One of the strongest and clearest proofs of the unity of God, is God's
solemn revelation of himself as Jehovah, prefaced by the emphatic
statement: "_I am_ Who Am. Thou shalt say to the sons of Israel: I Am
sent me to you, (that is: The one who said, I Am Who Am, sent me to
you)" (Exodus 3:14). "Jehovah, the God of your fathers--I am Jehovah"
(Exodus 6:2).
If there ever was an occasion on which God should have disclosed his
unity or his plurality, it was certainly then when Moses ventured to
demand the credentials of his mission. God used singular verbs whenever
referring to himself. He said: _I am_, not _we are_. He calls himself
by the singular noun _Jehovah_, which, unlike the plural _Elohim_, is
applied only to the one true God. This name Jehovah occurs one hundred
and sixty times in Genesis alone.[A]
[Footnote A: J. Corluy S. J. "_Spicilegium_," Volume 1. Com. 2. See
also Smith's Bible Dictionary, word God.]
II. _The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one and the same
identical Divine Essence or Being_.
A. "I and the Father are one" (John 10-30). Christ asserts his
physical, not merely moral, unity with the Father.
"My sheep hear my voice * * * and I give them everlasting life; and
they shall not perish forever, and _no man shall pluck them out of my
hand_."
The following argument by which Christ proves that no man shall pluck
his sheep from his hand, proves his consubstantiality, or the unity of
his nature or essence with his Father's:
_My Father who gave me the sheep is greater than all men_ or creatures,
(v. 29) and therefore no one can snatch the sheep or aught else from
his hand. (Supreme or almighty power is here predicated of the Father.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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