The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion. B. H. Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ being the brightness of his [the Father's] glory, and the express image of his [the Father's] person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right band of the Majesty on high.

      [Footnote A: Heb. 1:1,2.]

      In the face of these scriptures, will anyone who believes in the Bible say that it is blasphemy to speak of God as being possessed of a bodily form? We find that the Son of God himself stood among his fellows a man, with all the limitations as to his body which pertain to man's body; with head, trunk, and limbs; with eyes, mouth and ears; with affections, with passions; for he exhibited anger as well as love in the course of his ministry; he was a man susceptible to all that man could suffer, called by way of pre-eminence the "man of sorrows," and one "acquainted with grief;" for in addition to his own, he bore yours and mine, and suffered that we might not suffer if we would obey his gospel. And yet we are told that it is blasphemy to speak of God as being in human form—that it is "heathenism." In passing, let me call your attention to the fact that our sectarian friends are pretending to the use of gentle phrases now. They do not propose to hurt our feelings at all by harshness. We are to be wooed by gentle methods. And yet they denounce a sacred article of our faith as "heathenism." I think if we were to use such language with reference to them, or their creeds, they could not commend it for its gentleness.

      But I have a text to propose to them:

       "What think ye of Christ?"

      I suppose that thousands of sermons every year are preached from that text by Christian ministers. And now I arraign them before their favorite text, and I ask them, What think ye of Christ? Is he God? Yes. Is he man? Yes—there is no escaping it. His resurrection and the immortality of his body as well as of his spirit that succeeds his resurrection is a reality. He himself attested it in various ways. He appeared to a number of the apostles, who, when they saw him, were seized with fright, supposing they had seen a spirit; but he said unto them, "Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."^[A] Then, in further attestation of the reality of his existence, as if to put away all doubt, he said, "Have ye here any meat?" And they brought him some broiled fish and honeycomb, and "he did eat before them." Think of it! A resurrected, immortal person actually eating of material food! I wonder that our spiritually-minded friends do not arraign him for such a material act as that after his resurrection! A Scotch Presbyterian is particularly zealous for a strict observance of the Sabbath. One who was a little liberal in his views of the law pertaining to the Sabbath was once arguing with an orthodox brother on the subject, and urged that even Jesus so far bent the law pertaining to the Sabbath that he justified his disciples in walking through the fields of corn on the Sabbath, and rubbing the ears of corn in their hands, blowing away the chaff, and eating the corn. "O weel," says Donald, "mebbe the Lord did that; but it doesna heighten him in my opeenion." And so this resurrected, second personage of the Godhead ate material food after his resurrection; but I take it that the fact does not "heighten" him in the opinion of our ultra spiritually-minded folk. It comes in conflict, undoubtedly, with their notions of what life ought to be after the resurrection.

      [Footnote A: Luke 24:36-39.]

      [Footnote B: Luke 24:41-43.]

      But not only did he do this, but with his resurrected hands he prepared a meal on the sea shore for his own disciples, and invited them to partake of the food which he with his resurrected hands had provided.^[A] Moreover, for forty days he continued ministering to his disciples after his resurrection, eating and drinking with them;^[B] and then, as they gathered together on one occasion, lo! he ascended from their midst, and a cloud received him out of their sight. Presently two personages in white apparel stood beside them and said: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."^[C] What! With his body of flesh and bones, with the marks in his hands and in his feet? Shall he come again in that form? The old Jewish prophet, Zechariah, foresaw that he would. He describes the time of his glorious coming, when his blessed, nail-pierced feet shall touch the Mount of Olives again, and it shall cleave in twain, and open a great valley for the escape of the distressed house of Judah, sore oppressed in the siege of their great city Jerusalem. We are told that "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son," and one shall look upon him in that day and shall say, "What are these wounds in thy hands and in thy feet?" and he shall answer, "These are the wounds that I received in the house of my friends."^[D]

      [Footnote A: John 21:9-13 and Acts 10:41.]

      [Footnote B: Acts 10:31, and Acts 1:2,3.]

      [Footnote C: Acts 1:11.]

      [Footnote D: Zech. the 12th, 13th, and 14th chapters.]

      What think ye of Christ? Is he God? Yes. Is he man? Yes, Will that resurrected, immortal, glorified man ever be distilled into some bodiless, formless essence, to be diffused as the perfume of a rose is diffused throughout the circumambient air? Will he become an impersonal, incorporeal, immaterial God, without body, without parts, without passions? Will it be? Can it be? What think ye of Christ? Is he God? Yes. Is he an exalted man? Yes; in the name of all the Gods, he is. Then why do sectarian ministers arraign the faith of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because they believe and affirm that God is an exalted man, and that he has a body, tangible, immortal, indestructible, and will so remain embodied throughout the countless ages of eternity? And since the Son is in the form and likeness of the Father, being, as Paul tells, "in the express image of his [the Father's] person"—so, too, the Father God is a man of immortal tabernacle, glorified and exalted: for as the Son is, so also is the Father, a personage of tabernacle, of flesh and of bone as tangible as man's, as tangible as Christ's most glorious, resurrected body.

II.

       THE ONENESS OF GOD.

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      There are some expressions of scripture to consider which speak of the "oneness" of God. Speaking of the question which agitated the early Christian Church about eating meats which had been offered to idols, Paul says: "We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one."^[A] Moreover, Jesus himself made this strange remark—that is, strange until one understands it: "I and my Father are one;" and so much one are they that he said: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. * * * Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me."^[B] Consequently our philosophers, especially those who lived when the present Christian creeds concerning God were forming, thought that by some legerdemain or other they must make the three Gods—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—just one person—one being; and therefore they set their wits at work to perform the operation.

      [Footnote A: I Cor. 8:4.]

      [Footnote B: John 14.]

      Let us seek out some reasonable explanation of the language used. I refer again to the passage I just quoted from the writings of Paul with reference to there being "none other God but one." Immediately following what I read on that point comes this language:

      For though there be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be Gods many, and Lords many). But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom СКАЧАТЬ