MORMON PUBLICATION CONFIRMS DIFFERING VIEW OF CHRIST

by Lee Weeks                                                                                                                  Vol. XII, No. 2, February 1999

A statement made earlier this year by the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledging that Mormons do not believe in the same Jesus as traditional Christians confirms what most evangelicals have been claiming for years, Paige Patterson said in a September letter written to Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley. In his letter, Patterson, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, referred to comments Hinckley made during a June 6 speaking engagement in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was quoted in a Mormon publication responding to those outside the Mormon church who say Mormons do not believe in the traditional Christ.

"The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak," Hinckley was quoted on page seven in the June 20, 1998 issue of the Church News, a Mormon publication. "For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. He together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages."

Patterson described Hinckley's acknowledgment that Mormons and traditional Christians do not share beliefs in the same Jesus as refreshingly candid considering that many Mormon missionaries and church spokesmen "in recent years have sought to minimize that distinction."

"In my opinion, that enhances both your credibility and the reality that traditional Christians and Mormons believe in two different and distinctive views of Christ," wrote Patterson. "Baptists, as you know, hold to a view of Jesus Christ that is based strictly on biblical revelation and that believes that Jesus was and is eternal God. This view is clearly at odds with your own faith that, as I understand it, confesses that he was sired by God, the heavenly father, in consort with his wife. He was in that sense a literal son of God. I also realize that you believe that Jesus existed as an eternal spirit form, but not in the sense as God or as the Son of God."

Despite Hinckley's published comments on the Mormon view of Jesus, a church spokesman still contends that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adhere to the New Testament account of Jesus. "We believe that we have more information on the life of Christ than the Christian community already has," said Mike Otterson, director of media relations for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.

[Editorial comment: This admission by President Hinckley is significant and should be carefully remembered by Southern Baptists, both as armor against the misleading blandishments of Mormon missionaries, and as a response to their approaches. Undoubtedly many of them do not know the difference between their “Jesus” and the biblical Jesus. Be prepared to clarify this difference for them. They preach another gospel and unless they meet the true Jesus are bound for eternal damnation. The article is reprinted from the Winter ‘98 issue of The Olive Press, SEBTS newspaper. TCP]