When my oldest daughter, Allison, was around the age of four she had an imaginary friend that she called Elizabeth. We used to have a great laugh in the evenings when we would sit down at the table for supper, as we would leave an empty chair at the table for “Elizabeth.” Allison wouldn’t allow anyone else to speak directly to Elizabeth. So if we wanted to ask anything of Elizabeth, we would have to ask Allison to ask Elizabeth on our behalf. I remember one specific incident when we asked Allison if Elizabeth wanted a plate of food. Allison leaned over to the empty chair and asked, “Would you like a plate of the food my mom cooked.” She then leaned back in her chair and confidently proclaimed that Elizabeth didn’t like the food that had been cooked and that she would like to have some chicken nuggets from McDonald's instead. My wife and I instantly burst into laughter because we recognized what was going on. It was Allison who wanted McDonald’s chicken nuggets because she didn’t like the meal that had been prepared on that particular night. This was the comedy behind the creation of Elizabeth. Allison was projecting herself onto “Elizabeth”, her desires, her likes and dislikes, her tastes, appetites, etc.
The creation of Elizabeth in the mind of my four-year-old daughter was all cute and fun, and she grew out of it as we knew that she would. Sadly, however, many people do the same thing with Jesus Christ as Allison did with Elizabeth. Instead of worshiping and following the Christ of the Bible, they worship a Jesus that they have created in their mind, projecting onto Christ their likes and dislikes, their preferences, their morals, and sadly even comforting affirmations of their pet sins. This is why the first two commandments in the Decalogue have to do with our worship of God. The first commandment states, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3). The very next commandment states, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” (Exodus 20:4-5). Although these two commandments are connected, there is a distinction to be made. In essence, the first commandment is warning people not to worship a false god, while the second commandment says not to worship the name of the true God falsely.
A great example of the latter is found in Exodus 32 when Aaron and the Israelites melted down their gold and formed a golden calf while Moses was away receiving the law of God. Once the calf was complete the people began to worship it. At this time Aaron declared, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” (Exodus 32:4-6). Aaron gave credit to the golden calf for being the god(s) that delivered them from Egypt, even building an altar unto the LORD (the sacred name of Yahweh). They were worshiping the name of the true God in a false way, which means that they were worshiping a false god. As a Bible-believing Christian, I humbly contest that the LDS church has erected a golden calf and called it “Jesus Christ.” This chapter will be dedicated to proving this point.
Christianity vs. the Creeds?
Without a doubt, I get more pushback from my LDS friends on this subject than any other, and it’s not even close. The LDS passionately contend that they worship the same Christ as Christians. However, merely asserting something doesn’t make it so. In an attempt to maintain civility, I would like to start by quoting former President Gordon B. Hinckley. When Hinckley was asked if the LDS church believes in the traditional Jesus he responded, “No I don't. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the dispensation of the fullness of times.” Four years later he also stated;
“As a Church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say. Our faith, our knowledge is not based on ancient tradition, the creeds which came of a finite understanding and out of the almost infinite discussions of men trying to arrive at a definition of the risen Christ. Our faith, our knowledge comes of the witness of a prophet in this dispensation who saw before him the great God of the universe and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.”
Hinckley made it clear that the LDS church gets its version of Christ from Joseph Smith and not from the ancient creeds. Now I know what the knee-jerk reaction from many of my LDS friends will be. They will make a distinction between the Christ of the Bible and the creeds of the early church. They will then claim that Joseph Smith’s witness lines up with the Biblical Jesus in contrast with the creeds. But what if I could prove that the early church creeds line up perfectly with the Biblical teaching on the person of Jesus Christ? Wouldn’t that mean that Hinckley unwittingly admitted that the LDS church doesn’t believe in Biblical Christ? The deductive argument goes like this; President Hinckley admitted that the LDS church doesn’t believe in the Christ of the ancient church creeds. The ancient church creeds line up perfectly with the Biblical Jesus. Therefore, the LDS church doesn’t believe in the Biblical Jesus. I’ve got my work cut out for me, so here we go.
Perhaps the biggest strawman in all of the teachings of the LDS church is that the creeds of the early Christian church were a corrupt departure from Biblical teaching. Please hear this; the creeds were nothing more than an encapsulation of Biblical doctrine in certain theological areas, most specifically the person and nature of Christ. Due to the rise of the Arian heresy, the church wanted to put out an official statement on its Biblical position concerning the nature of Christ. I can feel my eyelids start to twitch when I hear someone attempt to pit the creeds against the Bible. To put this into perspective, the LDS “Articles of Faith” is a type of creed. It’s a quick reference guide to 13 core beliefs of the LDS church. To accuse the ancient creeds of being a corrupt departure from Biblical Christianity would be like calling the LDS “Articles of Faith” a corrupt departure from Mormonism. It makes absolutely no sense. And only someone who isn’t familiar with LDS doctrine would believe such a claim.
The Council of Nicaea
While there are other church councils and creeds that could be discussed, for brevity’s sake I will only deal with this one. My LDS friends seem to have a special disdain for the Council of Nicaea so I thought I would go straight for the jugular on this one. When I hear the LDS describing the Council of Nicaea, they make it sound like a group of church leaders met secretly in a back room in one of those shady Italian restaurants, smoking cigars and sipping expensive wine as they sat down to decide what they wanted to remove from the Christians scriptures. Of course, I am being facetious, but you get the point. However, this simply didn’t happen. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Pastor Mallinak and I committed to not making this book too long so I can’t go into great detail, but there are a few things that need to be pointed out about the Council of Nicaea. For starters, there was a bishop by the name of Arius who was spreading a disturbing heresy concerning the nature of Christ. Arius taught that “God was alone, and the Word as yet was not, nor the Wisdom. Then, wishing to form us, thereupon He made a certain one, and named him Word and Wisdom and Son, that He might form us by means of him.” In other words, Christ is not eternal God and co-equal with the Father. Instead, Christ is a created being, a mere creature of God. This is a gross contradiction to what Christ Himself, the Apostles, and the early church all taught concerning the nature of Christ. This caused an uproar among the churches in the Roman Empire, forcing Emperor Constantine to seek a solution. I have heard my LDS friends give all kinds of conspiracy theories about Constantine’s motivations and role in the Council of Nicaea. However, his reasons for calling this council are pretty simple. This heresy had caused unrest in the empire and he needed everything to calm down. Although, to the Christian church, this was a much more important matter. To this point, Dr. Putman writes;
“Constantine had political interests in calling for the council; the new emperor feared a divided Christendom would further weaken the unstable relationship between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. But church leaders recognized something far more important than imperial power at stake in the controversy. Arius’ denial of the true divinity (and true humanity) of Jesus had two momentous implications for the Christian faith. First, if Christ is not truly God made man, then he cannot save us from our sins. No mere man can save other men from their sins. Second, if Christ is not truly God, then the church which worships Christ is guilty of idolatry and blasphemy against God. So for the bishops at the Nicene Council, this controversy was more than a political or semantic debate; it was a battle for the faith once delivered to the saints.”
Constantine called the Council of Nicaea to convene in 325 AD. Here are some quick hitters as to what needs to be known about this council. First, this was not a secret meeting. It was very public, with as many as 318 bishops from all over the empire in attendance. Second, these bishops were not Great Value Brand Christians. Many of them had suffered greatly for the cause of Christ under the iron fist of Emperor Diocletian. These were men of renown, such as Athanasius, Alexander of Alexandria, and Nicholas of Myra. These men had an impeccable reputation for their commitment to Christ in the face of unspeakable evil. Third, this council was not simply a monologue. It was an open debate between Arius and his handful of followers and the bishops. Before I move on I also need to insert that contrary to popular belief, this was not a meeting of the Roman Catholic Church. This was a council of the unified Christian church. The word “catholic” means “universal” or “worldwide.” The catholic church of the first 400 years of church history was simply the unified Christian church. The Roman Catholic Church came along later and hijacked the name in an attempt to try and prove that they are the one true church, but it isn’t so.
One of the most telling things about the Council of Nicaea was the vote. The council voted against the Arian heresy by a count of 314 to 2. Now I do want to be transparent in that there isn’t a perfect consensus among historians as to the exact numbers. Some accounts say that there were as few as 214 Bishops in attendance as opposed to 318. Some accounts also state that Arius initially received 17 votes in his favor until Constantine threatened them with exile. However, all the accounts that I have seen state that two bishops decided not to vote, and in the end, there were only two votes in favor of Arius and his position. So let me be as generous as I can be and say that the final vote total was 214 to 17 against the Arian heresy (although 314 to 2 seems to be the most widely accepted account). Even with my generosity, over 92% of this council voted against Arius’ teaching that Christ was not eternal God, but that He was a created being.
I recognize that truth can't be discerned by simply counting heads. However, honest objectors must ask themselves “Why?” Why did such an overwhelming majority of these sound Christian leaders renounce the Arian heresy? What information did they use to guide this decision? What standard did they use as a measuring stick to direct their theology? Did they just come up with this out of thin air? Was this just the result of a “finite understanding proceeding out of the almost infinite discussions of men trying to arrive at a definition of the risen Christ” as President Hinckley stated? Or could it be that the bishops at Nicaea recognized that Arius’ teaching flew squarely in the face of the clear Biblical teaching concerning the nature of Christ? The latter is the obvious answer. So when Joseph Smith, President Hinckley, and the LDS church condemn the Council of Nicaea and its creed, not only are they siding with the losing team, but they are aligning themselves with the Arian heresy against the Biblical Christ. As we are about to see, the LDS doctrine of Christ is much closer to the Arian heresy than it is to the Christ of Biblical Christianity.
