From
Death to Life
What
we find in instantaneous spiritual rebirth is a reversal of the fall. God
warned Adam that if he ate from the tree he would surely die:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17)
Notice
that God said that Adam would die that very day. But Adam went on to live to be
930 years old. So, did God lie? Not at all. What died that day was Adam’s
spiritual connection to God. Adam and Eve suddenly found themselves
naked and ashamed. Their rebellion had led to them losing their spiritual
covering – God Himself. So, what did they do?
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons. (Genesis 3:7)
How
telling this is. The response of man to his spiritual nakedness and rebellion
is to try and cover himself. Fallen man believes that he can sort himself out.
He believes he can fix his own spiritual problems by his own initiative – usually
comprising of a lot of effort and good works. This is what we find within the
cults and within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Notice
that after Adam and Eve sought to cover themselves with fig leaves, God gave
them a far more substantial covering:
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God
make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)
Where
did the skins come from? A sacrificed animal. Blood was shed to cover their
sin. This temporary covering was pointing to the one to come - the one John the
Baptist called: ‘The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John
1:29). God has provided for our nakedness, our fallenness, our sinfulness.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;
and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin
unto salvation. (Hebrew 9:28)
When
Jesus, from the cross, said: ‘It is finished’, he was declaring that he had
done everything necessary to bring us back into relationship with God. We no
longer need to try and cover ourselves; we no longer need to strive and
struggle to get right with God, no amount of good works can save us. Paul
recognising that Jesus, as the last Adam, had done all that was necessary for
our salvation; he wrote to the Ephesian church these blessed words:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man
should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
So,
what am I trying to say? In a nutshell I am saying this. Just as Adam
spiritually died (immediately – on that day) when he rebelled against God, so
Jesus (the last Adam) makes us spiritually alive (immediately – on that day)
when we repent and put our faith in Him.
From
Life to Death
Rather
than accepting and teaching this precious truth, Mormonism, like every other aberrant group,
teaches the opposite. Mormon doctrine claims that a person must continue to cover themselves. Sure, what Jesus did was important, but we too need to play our
part. This idea is predicated upon Article 2 of the Mormon Faith:
‘We believe that all mankind will be punished for
their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.’
According
to Mormonism, Jesus paid for Adam’s sin, but we must pay for our own sin. How
does this play out in the Mormon faith? Well, rather than teaching that being
born again brings about an instantaneous right standing before God, to them being
born again becomes a process. This process involves a person covering
themselves with obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Mormon faith.
Muddying
the Clear Water
In a talk entitled: Ye must be
born again, David A.
Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said:
Just as a cucumber is transformed into a pickle as it is immersed in and
saturated with salt brine, so you and I are born again as we are absorbed by
and in the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we honor and “observe the covenants”
(D&C 42:13) into which we have entered, as we “feast upon the words of
Christ” (2 Nephi 32:3), as we “pray unto the Father with all the energy of
heart” (Moroni 7:48), and as we “serve [God] with all [of our] heart, might,
mind and strength” (D&C 4:2), then: “Because of the covenant which ye have
made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters;
for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your
hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and
have become his sons and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).[1]
Here
we find that Latter-day revelation adds and changes the simplicity of Jesus’
command to be born again. Mormonism takes simple faith in Christ and makes it a
chore, an unobtainable prize. As previously stated, Mormon teaching is littered
with the language of the Bible. They will talk about the ‘old man’ and the ‘new
man’, they will talk about the natural man being enemies of God, and the need
for spiritual rebirth but this is all interpreted through Latter-day lenses.
This
leads Mormon leaders to make ridiculous unbiblical comparisons:
Just as a cucumber is transformed into a pickle as it
is immersed in and saturated with salt brine, so you and I are born again as we
are absorbed by and in the gospel of Jesus Christ.’
What does he mean by being ‘absorbed by and in the
gospel of Jesus Christ.’? Latter-day
Saints know exactly what he means. If you want to be born again and live eternally with Heavenly Father you must pay
your tithe, attend church and participate in the sacrament meeting. You must
keep the Word of Wisdom, wear the ‘sacred’ garments and be obedient to a whole
host of other Mormon laws and dictates. Then, with no guarantee of course, you may
possibly be ‘born-again’.
Friends, this is not spiritual rebirth. Jesus was not telling
Nicodemus to do any of the things mandated by the Mormon church – how could he?
Rather the so-called teaching of the restored Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is not Biblical Christianity.
Despite their claim, true Christianity was not restored
through Joseph Smith. Rather they, like all false belief systems, keep people
back in the Garden of Eden. There they find ourselves still spiritually naked,
making every effort to cover themselves and hiding from the God they have
rebelled against.
The wonderful, good news of the gospel is that Jesus
has done it all for us. He is our covering. Through faith in his shed blood on
the cross of Calvary, we are forgiven and made right with God.
He saved us, not because of works done by us in
righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit…
Titus 3:5
Jesus
taught as an imperative that a person must experience a spiritual rebirth.
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