Saturday, April 2, 2011

Save Us, or Tell us How to Save Ourselves?

3 Nephi 12:20 [Book of Mormon]
“Therefore ‘come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”
May I ask what salvation is? Why should I come to Jesus to be saved if that means nothing more than taking upon myself to follow his commandments. This is gibberish, absolute gibberish! Either Jesus saves us or we save ourselves. If we follow his commandments we save ourselves. But we proved we couldn’t do that. By the way it was Jesus who gave the commandments to Moses, even as it was him who spoke to Moses from the Burning bush.
And what follows this verse is nothing more than a really bad paraphrase of the Sermon on the Mount! Who has managed not to be angry with his brother? Seriously? The Mormons around here teach their kids to be angry with their brothers and sisters. Because the way Jesus uses it here, brother is meant to convey all who have been created by the Father. These kids go to school and start bullying and harassing their classmates about crosses they are wearing around their neck, and that in the second grade! Disdainful behavior.
I might invite a few adults to a debate here and there, but I can’t imagine teaching my kids to hate others for their religion, or for wearing a religious symbol.
In any case, I don’t know of anyone who has managed to go through life without being angry with his brother. So in reality if that is salvation Christ has save d no one. There can be no salvation by the law, or by commandments as Paul points out:
“Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. [22] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. [24] So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:21-24 (ESV)

12 comments:

Christy said...

Thank you for having the courage to tell the truth. Children are harassed in Utah's public school system simply for wearing crosses.

Benjamin McLean said...

I do not know what you are talking about in regard to what the Utah Mormons tell their kids, but I think you are misinterpreting the Book of Mormon. Perhaps the Mormons and you are both misinterpreting it together - I don't know, but I don't think the Book of Mormon means what you're saying it means, for it never teaches that we can save ourselves.

> "Either Jesus saves us or we save ourselves."

This is true, and Jesus saves us. We do not save ourselves.

> "If we follow his commandments we save ourselves."

This is not true.

Steve Martin said...

It's no wonder Mormoms hate crosses.

It's no wonder there are no crosses on top of their buildings.

The cross did not accomplish everything for them (It did for Christians).

Mormons are just religionists, hell bound to get to these "levels of heavens" by their own works. That's not Christian.

No crosses = my works.

Bror Erickson said...

Benjamin,
I'm just reading what the book of Mormon says, and comparing it to what the New Testament says. And by the way it is no different than what the Mormons say in tract after tract. The problem is, it isn't much different than what many baptists and American evangelicals teach either, it is part and parcel of what John Wesley taught. But it is worlds apart from what the New Testament in fact does teach. It makes Christ out to be a new Moses.
Of course I welcome you to try put a better spin on what the book of Mormon says.
By they way, how did you find this site? I've been posting these for almost two years now, and no really has come around, a couple people but they haven't commented on more than one post and seem to head out pretty fast. Thanks for staying around.

Jonathan said...

“Therefore ‘come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”

There's a semicolon there between Jesus' first statement and the next idea in the same sentence. (I guess Reformed Egyptian has a high level of grammar and puctuation.)

In English, the semicolon is meant to *join* two thoughts; or more precisely, it indicates that the second statement further explains the meaning in the first thought.

So, this statement of Jesus can only be read to mean, "Come to me to be saved; and this is how you come to me and are saved, you must keep my commandments that I have given you to keep."

Otherwise, what is the value of commandment keeping, especially when we know we don't, never have, never will?

This teaches that Jesus saves on account of our keeping his commandments. So, we are all screwed.

Bror Erickson said...

Well done Jonathan. It is exactly how the sentence reads.

Benjamin McLean said...

> "It's no wonder Mormoms hate crosses."

I'm not a Mormon, I'm RLDS. And my church has a cross on a steeple on top of it. And three crosses as stained glass windows. And even a cross decoration somebody made out of rocks on a wall in the back.

Benjamin McLean said...

> "It makes Christ out to be a new Moses."

Moses never rose from the dead or claimed to be God. Jesus in the Book of Mormon does both.

Benjamin McLean said...

We could do much worse than to be compared with John Wesley.

Benjamin McLean said...

BTW I don't know if you'll be able to see this photo but these are our stained-glass window crosses, check 'em out http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/50236_68828042788_8499_n.jpg

Benjamin McLean said...

I wasn't aware that Mormons didn't like crosses

Bror Erickson said...

Sorry Benjamin, But you cannot do much worse than be compared to John Wesley in my book.
And yes, Mormons hate crosses.
As for Jesus dying and rising from the dead, he did, which is why I give creedance to what he says in the New Testament.
As for the Book of Mormon, it lacks historical witness, and speaks of a different Jesus. dying and rising do nothing for me if I am still under the yoke of the law. But that is not what the Jesus of the New Testament says, He says my sins are forgiven.