It is no surprise that the Book of
Mormon has something to say about spiritual rebirth. Latter-day Saint history
speaks of times of religious fervour and renewal during Joseph Smith’s younger
years. It was, they claim, this period of spiritual fervour that caused Joseph to
become confused. The First Vision account recounts what he did:
When Joseph was 14 years old, he was inspired
by James 1:5, which promises, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him
ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall
be given him.” Joseph determined to pray to know which church he should join
and to ask for forgiveness of his sins.[1]
There can be little doubt that during
such a period, Joseph would have heard preachers declaring that a person must
be ‘born-again’; that a spiritual rebirth was required to enter the Kingdom of
God. But why were these enthusiastic preachers proclaiming this? Because they
were convinced of what Jesus taught Nicodemus.
In my previous article we
considered Jesus’ words to the religious leader Nicodemus. Jesus told him that,
even though he was a ‘ruler of the Jews’[2] he
needed to be born again. Knowledge and piety, keeping all the rules, being an
expert in the law, was not the way into the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus needed a
spiritual rebirth, an awakening, a new start.
Mormons are correct in saying that the
Book of Mormon and Latter-day revelation say more about what Jesus meant by the
term ‘born-again’, but what do these extra- biblical sources reveal to us?
The Book of Mormon
Should we be shocked to find verses
in the Book of Mormon that speak about being born again? Certainly not, say the
Latter-day Saints. After all Jesus visited the Americas after his resurrection,
teaching many of the same things he taught to others before his death and
resurrection in Israel. Hence, we find lots of similarities in what Jesus says
in the Bible and what we find in the Book of Mormon. An example of this can be
found is Mosiah 27 in the Book of Mormon:
I have repented of my sins, and
have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit. And the Lord
said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations,
kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed
from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed
of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures;
and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Mosiah 27:24-26
The story goes that Alma the Younger and the sons of King Mosiah rebelled against their
fathers and the Lord and attempted to destroy the Church of God.
At
this point God sent an angel who called them to repentance. They did indeed
repent and were born again, after which they travelled throughout the land of
Zarahemla preaching the gospel and making restitution for their former
rebellion.
These
verses from Mosiah chapter 27 align with Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3.
Mosiah states that those born of God are ‘changed from their carnal and fallen
state, to a state of righteousness’ and so can ‘inherit the kingdom of God’.
Now Latter-day
Saints would be quick to point out that any agreement found between the Bible
and the Book of Mormon is obviously because they come from the same source. I
agree but would disagree with their reasons for such.
In
his work ‘An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins’, Grant Palmer claimed the
following about the Book of Mormon:
Seventy-five
percent of the content of the book is accounted for by Joseph Smith's use of
six, nineteenth-century sources of which he was very familiar. Twenty-five
percent came from the Bible and another twenty-five percent came from the
Methodist religion. The remaining twenty-five percent came from three other
sources.[3]
What
Palmer claims is that Joseph Smith was predominantly a plagiarist. As
twenty-five percent of the Book of Mormon is lifted directly from the Bible, we
should not at all be surprised that the two will concur in certain places.
This
is all good, but what of Latter-day revelation? Does this support the teaching
of the Book of Mormon and the Bible on the topic of being born-again?
Latter-day
Revelation
It
would be reasonable to believe that, knowing what the Bible and the Book of
Mormon says about the need for spiritual rebirth, those so-called guardians of
the faith, namely Apostles and Prophets within the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, would teach the same. They would claim that they do. But is
this true?
Same
Words – Different Meaning
Though
Mormon Leaders and Mormon Doctrine speak about the need to be born again, they
teach it to mean something very different.
In
the Bible, and throughout Christian history, born-again has always been
understood to have been an instantaneous event. Many well-known Christians have
documented this event in their own life. We may think of John Wesley who
recorded in his journal the night he felt ‘his heart strangely warmed’, or
of Martin Luther who upon reading Romans 1:17, ‘For therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just
shall live by faith’, had his heart illumined to the saving gospel. Many,
many others could be cited, but these two will suffice to prove the point. What
we are speaking of here is very different to the Mormon doctrine of being
‘born-again’. In part 3 we will consider how they teach this to the LDS
faithful.
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