Joseph Smith, Salvation, and Authority

[_mentalgymnast]

But if Mormonism is Christianity, Jim, it seems that it may not be Christianity as any other significant Christian group knows it.

(Even if most Mormons nowadays haven't noticed it, because the leadership doesn't tell them.)

http://en.fairmormon.org/Jesus_Christ/G ... %22_Christ

Let's keep this conversation factual.

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

Since we are all in this great priesthood chain that goes back to Christ through Peter, and it is necessary to have the proper priesthood authority in order to have efficacious ordinances, then your baptism, confirmation, priesthood, endowment, and the whole Megillah is dependent upon your connection to the priesthood. Since Joseph Smith, who received the priesthood from the resurrected Peter, is the font of priesthood for all Mormons, and he is now exalted, then he is your channel or branch through which you receive salvation.

I think you've essentially nailed it there.

Regards,
MG

[_Tobin]

Since we are all in this great priesthood chain that goes back to Christ through Peter, and it is necessary to have the proper priesthood authority in order to have efficacious ordinances, then your baptism, confirmation, priesthood, endowment, and the whole Megillah is dependent upon your connection to the priesthood. Since Joseph Smith, who received the priesthood from the resurrected Peter, is the font of priesthood for all Mormons, and he is now exalted, then he is your channel or branch through which you receive salvation.

I think you've essentially nailed it there.

Regards,
MG

Actually, there is no priesthood chain. You get the "real" priesthood of God from God only. Everything else is a man-made yank-fest. No man can simply give you the priesthood of God and those that believe that they have it (and didn't get it directly from God) are deluded.

[_mentalgymnast]

The main thrust of this thread seems to be that according to LDS Church doctrine Joseph Smith is the file leader of this last dispensation. If we don't accept his calling as prophet, seer, and revelator of the same then we are in a position where we will be at a disadvantage. The reason may be quite simple. If we don't subscribe to Joseph's authority and accept his position in the hierarchy of those that came before him, we're going to cast off the ordinances/doctrines that have come as a result of his ministry. Baptism, the Holy Ghost, the commandments, temple ordinances for exaltation, Jesus as the Christ and leader of the church, God as our Father in whose image we are created, etc.

Can Joseph Smith be dispensed with while accepting the validity of everything that came as a result of his 'calling'? It seems as thought Rock Waterman and others would like to keep Joseph Smith and do away with the temple ordinances, saving ordinances by correct authority, Jesus as leader/Head of the Church, etc.

Isn't that apostasy?

In your opening post, Kish, I think you've rather succinctly (unknowingly?) put the actual 'truth' out there and stripped everything down to the nuts and bolts of what apostasy entails.

Regards,
MG

[_Chap]

But now I do feel a little uncomfortable when I think about the feature of Mormon belief that Kishkumen has highlighted on this thread. Is there, I have to ask, any group of self-styling Christians of any significant size and historical persistence apart from Mormons who claim that after death our ultimate fate will be decided by anybody other than Jesus?

I can't think of one. And it is a difference at a very crucial point in belief structure, perhaps none more crucial: how, to put it crudely, are we to get into heaven?

I still refuse to say "Mormons aren't Christians" on the grounds set out above. But if Mormonism is Christianity, Jim, it seems that it may not be Christianity as any other significant Christian group knows it.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Jesus_Christ/G ... %22_Christ

Let's keep this conversation factual.

Regards,
MG

I have restored the full text of my quote in your post.

Was it not clear to you that the part of my statement that you quoted followed from the bolded portion of my post above, which you did not quote?

Of course Mormon leaders often talk publicly about Jesus. That's not the point originally made by Kishkumen - which is that there also appears to be teaching that it is not just Jesus that has to decide on your salvation after you die, but Joseph Smith.

[_mentalgymnast]

...you need to wear a funny hat and shake hands with some angels in just the right sort of way in order to enter heaven.

Being able to pass by the angels I think is pretty safe doctrinally...but having to wear a special hat while doing that? I'm not familiar with the 'hat trick'. Could you give a reference that teaches special hats have to be worn after we die so that we can make it to heaven?

Regards,
MG

[_Kishkumen]

The main thrust of this thread seems to be that according to LDS Church doctrine Joseph Smith is the file leader of this last dispensation. If we don't accept his calling as prophet, seer, and revelator of the same then we are in a position where we will be at a disadvantage.

You are soft-pedaling here, mentalgymnast. If one does not accept Joseph Smith as Prophet, one has lost exaltation, period.

[_Chap]

The main thrust of this thread seems to be that according to LDS Church doctrine Joseph Smith is the file leader of this last dispensation. If we don't accept his calling as prophet, seer, and revelator of the same then we are in a position where we will be at a disadvantage.

You are soft-pedaling here, mentalgymnast. If one does not accept Joseph Smith as Prophet, one has lost exaltation, period.

As I already noted:

Brigham Young, October 9, 1859
Intelligence, Etc.
Remarks by President BRIGHAM YOUNG,
delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, October 9, 1859.
Reported by G. D. Watt
Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p.282-91

Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the vail in the great work of the last days. I can tell our beloved brother Christians who have slain the Prophets and butchered and otherwise caused the death of thousands of Latter-day Saints, the priests who have thanked God in their prayers and thanksgiving from the pulpit that we have been plundered, driven, and slain, and the deacons under the pulpit, and their brethren and sisters in their closets, who have thanked God, thinking that the Latter-day Saints were wasted away, something that no doubt will mortify them—something that, to say the least, is a matter of deep regret to them—namely, that no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith. From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are—I with you and you with me. I cannot go there without his consent. He holds the keys of that kingdom for the last dispensation—the keys to rule in the spirit-world; and he rules there triumphantly, for he gained full power and a glorious victory over the power of Satan while he was yet in the flesh, and was a martyr to his religion and to the name of Christ, which gives him a most perfect victory in the spirit-world. He reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—"Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!" But it is true.

[_Tobin]

The main thrust of this thread seems to be that according to LDS Church doctrine Joseph Smith is the file leader of this last dispensation. If we don't accept his calling as prophet, seer, and revelator of the same then we are in a position where we will be at a disadvantage.

You are soft-pedaling here, mentalgymnast. If one does not accept Joseph Smith as Prophet, one has lost exaltation, period.

I think many LDS are turning it on its head Kish. If one seeks and speaks with God (following after the example of the prophets, Joseph Smith may be one) then one can receive exaltation from God. Now, if it turns out that God tells you that he spoke with Joseph Smith as well, then you have to accept Joseph Smith as a prophet or you don't deserve exaltation.

[_mentalgymnast]

...there also appears to be teaching that it is not just Jesus that has to decide on your salvation after you die, but Joseph Smith.

I agree that there is a 'file leader' system in place by which folks are 'judged' in the afterlife. I think that we ought to emphasize that ultimately Jesus Christ and the Father are the final judges of mankind's sojourn here on earth. What seems to be the issue here is that there would be others involved in that systematic judging process after we die.

Regards,
MG