Occasionally, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will express belief in the Trinity, which typically means he believes in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.[1] However, it’s rare for a member to embrace the doctrine as expressed in the orthodox confessions, which they have been taught are an abomination. Many LDS church members view the doctrine of the Trinity as the Achille’s heel of orthodox Christianity. This perception stems from its challenging and seemingly illogical nature, the discomfort many Christians experience when discussing it, and the inability many have to give satisfactory answers to common objections raised against it.
How can the Father be the Son? If the Father and Son are one, why does the Son pray to the Father? Some believers have made the issue more confusing with their explanations. We have probably all heard the egg being used to illustrate the Trinity since an egg has a shell, white, and yolk but is one egg. If you have heard that illustration, you may have noticed that it proves the opposite in reality. Nobody would argue that the egg yolk is the shell, the egg white is the yolk, or the shell is the whole egg.
It matters who God is. The God of the Bible doesn’t gloss over this. In fact, He makes a specific demand: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” [2] That makes us responsible for knowing which God is the true God and for worshipping Him alone. Jesus taught us that the first commandment goes beyond knowing “who” or even knowing “about” God. We don’t fulfill the first commandment unless we love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We must know the God who reveals Himself in the Bible and love that God with all our being.
The God who speaks in the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments is the one true God. You might agree with that. But who is He? What is His nature? What kind of being is He? We want to know and believe what He tells us about Himself. This will be the subject of this essay.
“Heavenly Father,” as he is called in the LDS church, is nothing like the God who makes Himself known in the Bible. Despite the struggles Christians may have with explaining or understanding the doctrine of the Trinity, the God of the Bible is a Triune God. But the differences between the God of the Bible and Heavenly Father are far more extensive than this “novel” doctrine. To demonstrate this, we must consider some key differences between the Triune God and Heavenly Father.
What the LDS church teaches about God
First, the LDS church teaches that we have heavenly parents, including a heavenly father and a heavenly mother.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. This understanding is rooted in scriptural and prophetic teachings about the nature of God, our relationship to Deity, and the godly potential of men and women.1 [3]
Second, the doctrine of eternal progression is an immediate result of our divine parentage.
All human beings are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents. Because of our divine parentage, we each have divine potential.[4]
This “divine potential” refers to the doctrine of eternal progression.
Latter-day Saints see all people as children of God in a full and complete sense; they consider every person divine in origin, nature, and potential. Each has an eternal core and is “a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.”1 Each possesses seeds of divinity and must choose whether to live in harmony or tension with that divinity. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, all people may “progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny.”2 Just as a child can develop the attributes of his or her parents over time, the divine nature that humans inherit can be developed to become like their Heavenly Father’s.[5]
Third, the LDS church teaches that God is an exalted man with a body like ours.
“God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another. …”[6]
Answering the question, “What has been taught in the Church about divine nature since Joseph Smith?” the church website says,
Since that sermon, known as the King Follett discourse, the doctrine that humans can progress to exaltation and godliness has been taught within the Church. Lorenzo Snow, the Church’s fifth President, coined a well-known couplet: “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”43 Little has been revealed about the first half of this couplet, and consequently little is taught. When asked about this topic, Church President Gordon B. Hinckley told a reporter in 1997, “That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.” When asked about the belief in humans’ divine potential, President Hinckley responded, “Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression. Very strongly.”44 [7]
Fourth, the LDS church strongly alludes to the idea that God Himself needed a Savior. This seems clearly implied in this statement from Joseph Smith’s “Sermon in the Grove,” where Joseph Smith argued that God the Father had a Father and was a Son himself.
If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. [8]
In fact, Joseph Smith went so far as to say that there was a “Head one of the Gods” who appointed Elohim to be the God of this world, which would certainly indicate that this is the course of things for every god in every world.
“In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on. The word Eloheim ought to be in the plural all the way through—Gods. The heads of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take [that] view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfection of the Gods.” (Teachings, p. 372.) [9]
What the Bible says about God
If the Bible highlights anything about God, it is the fact that He is eternal. God’s eternal self-existence doesn’t extend from a specific starting point into an indefinite future. The Bible clearly states that God exists “from everlasting to everlasting.”
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. (Psalm 90:2)
God the Father calls Himself “alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last.”
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: (Revelation 1:8, 10-11)
God covers all the tenses in describing His own eternal, self-sufficient existence: “which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” “Alpha” is the first letter in the Greek alphabet; “omega” is the last. This is equivalent to saying that God is the letter “A” and the letter “Z” in the English alphabet. As we cannot conceive of any letter before A or after Z, so there is nothing before God and nothing after Him.
In the second half of Isaiah 43:10, God states this directly.
before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Similarly, God declares,
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6)
Yet, in Revelation 22:12-13, Jesus makes the same claim for Himself.
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Let me make a blatantly tautologous statement. Either God has a beginning, or He doesn’t. If God has a beginning, then the Bible tells lies about God and should be rejected. Nor is this a matter of indifference, like how different people might pronounce “tomato.” We aren’t misreading or misinterpreting. The Bible couldn’t be more explicit when it says God is eternal.
Second, the Bible tells us quite emphatically that “There is but one only, the living and true God.”
Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. (Isaiah 44:8)
Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, (Isaiah 46:9)
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: (Isaiah 45:5)
Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him. (Deuteronomy 4:35)
Since every other god is a false god, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Third, God is unchanging and unchangeable. “For I am the LORD, I change not.” [10] He is a rock. His way is perfect. Nothing can be added to or taken away to improve Him. The Bible insists that what can be said of God can also be said for Jesus. He is “the same yesterday, today, and for ever.” [11] God has no room for improvement, no place to advance, nothing higher to reach. He fills heaven and earth.[12] The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him.[13]
Fourth, God is an infinite spirit, which means He is not and cannot be contained in a finite body. On this point, we should consider two things. First, God strictly forbids us to worship any creature.[14] If God were an exalted human with a body, that would disqualify Him from the very worship He demands in the Bible. Second, the Bible tells us that God is a Spirit.[15] No physical human body could contain God, not when the heaven of heavens can’t contain Him.
No doubt this raises an immediate objection in your mind. Didn’t God show Himself to Moses? Wouldn’t that mean He has a body? A quick look at the passage will reveal that God didn’t pass before Moses in bodily form. He caused His glory to pass before Him.
And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. (Exodus 33:18-23)
We can’t be sure what Moses saw in this encounter, except that He saw what God showed Him. God promised to show Moses His glory. While His glory passed by, He removed His hand, and Moses saw His back parts – the back parts of God’s glory.
To claim, as Joseph Smith did, to have met God the Father face-to-face is to claim something nobody in the Bible ever claimed to see. In fact, quite the opposite. Men of the Bible refused to boast about such things and feared for their lives if they suspected they might have seen God. [16]
A Contrast
We can now make several vital comparisons between the God of the Bible and Heavenly Father.
First, the Triune God is the Creator, but Heavenly Father is a created being.
Second, the Triune God is not a man (Numbers 23:19), but Heavenly Father once was a man.
Third, the Triune God is unchanging and unchangeable, while Heavenly Father has progressed and is progressing.
Fourth, the Triune God is exclusively God and demands to be worshipped as such, while Heavenly Father is one of many gods.
Fifth, the Triune God is a most holy Spirit, while Heavenly Father has a body.
Sixth, the Triune God is the only Savior (Isaiah 43:11; 45:21; Hosea 13:4), while Heavenly Father needed a Savior.
Clearly, the Triune God and Heavenly Father are not the same God. Heavenly Father is no God at all. Rarely do LDS church members consider the incoherence and self-contradiction. Fathers don’t travel infinitely backwards. There must be One Who is uncaused, yet caused all. Heavenly Father is but a few steps above me. How can He save me? He has no more power to rescue me from my sins than a floating log has power to keep a man from being swept over a waterfall. In favor of a god they can grasp, members of the LDS church have embraced a false god.
The doctrine of the Trinity can be pretty challenging to understand. It is hard to explain and even harder to address all questions satisfactorily. But, of course, that doesn’t make it false. We should acknowledge that our finite minds shouldn’t expect to fully grasp an infinite God. I could never believe in a god who is like me.
While we can know what God has revealed about Himself in nature and in Scripture, even that knowledge is, to some extent, incomprehensible. We can grasp some of what He says about Himself, but much remains mysterious and complex. “Can a man by searching find out God?”
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Joseph Smith’s arguments against the Trinity display a fundamental misunderstanding of the Trinity.[17] So, before arguing for the Trinity, let me clear up some common misconceptions. Orthodox Christianity has never taught or believed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same. Believers have historically taught that there are three distinct persons and one divine essence.[18] For hundreds of years, believers have used a statement like this to teach their children to understand the Trinity:
There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one God, the same in essence, equal in power and glory.
Several of the orthodox confessions have offered helpful descriptions of the Trinity. The most excellent of these may be the Athanasian Creed, which offers this explanation:
We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost. But the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost have one divinity, equal glory, and coeternal majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Ghost is. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Ghost is uncreated. The Father is boundless, the Son is boundless, and the Holy Ghost is boundless. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Holy Ghost is eternal. Nevertheless, there are not three eternal beings, but one Eternal Being. So there are not three uncreated beings, nor three boundless beings, but One Uncreated Being and One Boundless Being. Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Ghost is omnipotent. Yet there are not three omnipotent beings, but One Omnipotent Being. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. However, there are not three gods, but One God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Ghost is Lord. However, there are not three lords, but One Lord. For as we are obliged by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person singly to be God and Lord, so too are we forbidden by the Catholic[19] religion to say that there are three gods or lords. The Father was not made, nor created, nor generated by anyone. The Son is not made, nor created, but begotten by the Father alone. The Holy Ghost is not made, nor created, nor generated, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. There is, then, one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Ghost, not three holy ghosts. In this Trinity, there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less. The entire three Persons are coeternal and coequal with one another. So that in all things, as has been said above, the Unity is to be worshiped in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity.
We must address this question: “Does this confession accurately reflect what the Bible teaches about God?” The answer is a resounding “Yes!” We could prove it in various ways. I prefer to let the Bible speak for itself. Let me direct your attention to the first five verses of John 1, where John the Apostle tells us six things about Jesus, the Word.
Jesus is the Logos
First, the Logos was in the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word.” If we could travel back in our minds to the dawning of time, back to the edge where time first met eternity, the Word was there. John uses an imperfect verb of being, which shows continual, repeated action in past time while pointing to the absolute existence of the Word. The Word didn’t come into being; he already was as He always has been. John points us to the first day and tells us that the Word was there already.
Second, the Logos was distinct from God. “…and the Word was with God.” John uses the most intimate Greek word for with, indicating that the Word was not merely gathered with God or standing side-by-side with God. Christ the Word was in a living union and communion with God. From eternity, the Word was in a living, active relation of communion with the Father. [20]
But though they are eternally associated with each other and eternally inseparable from each other, yet the Word is eternally distinct from the Father. [21]
Third, the Logos was God. “…and the Word was God.” This verb “was,” like the first “was,” is an imperfect tense verb of being. So, the One Who from eternity past kept on being the Word, kept on being God as well. John means that there was no beginning point for this claim. At no time did the Word become God. He did not progress into deity. He was eternally distinct from God, and yet he was eternally God. Before anyone coined the term “Trinity,” the Bible proclaimed the doctrine.
John doesn’t say that the Logos was the God. Take note: those who deny the deity of Christ make much of the fact that John doesn’t use the definite article when he says, “and the Word was God.” They claim that this makes it “and the Word was a God,” which is nonsense. If John had said that the Logos was the God, he would have taught something false. The Logos is not the sum of all that God is. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The definite article emphasizes identity. The definite article is left out to stress the essence of a thing. John doesn’t mean to say that Jesus is a deity. He means that “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” [22] “What God was, the Word was.”
In the phrase before this, when John says that “the Word was with the God” (the Greek uses the definite article there), he doesn’t mean that Jesus was with the essence of God. He means that Jesus was with the very God. Then, John tells us that the Word was God’s very substance and essence.
Fourth, the Logos has been all these things eternally. Notice the 2nd verse: “The same was in the beginning with God.” In case we are confused, John emphasizes that this same Word who was both present and who was God in the beginning is the one who was with God.
Fifth, the Logos created all things. John says this two ways in verse 3: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” So, the Word of God made whatever exists in our world. Nothing was made without the Word.
Sixth, the Logos is the life of the world. The fourth and fifth verses say, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Again, John uses the imperfect tense to say that His life has always been and will always be in Him — “In him kept on being life.” The verb of being points to absolute existence – no growing, no progressing. Christ the Word gave life to the world and isthe life of the world. John focuses on Creation here. Salvation will be the focus in John 3. For now, the Word can save the world because the Word gave life to the world.
The life that the Logos had and has is also the light of men. Once again, John uses an imperfect tense verb of being to describe the eternal reality of the Logos. There is no growth, no progress, no becoming – this is what He has been and continues to be. The verse characterizes this light, powered by the Christ-life, in one way: it shines in darkness.
That “light has gone forth continuously and without interruption from the beginning until now, and is still shining.” [23] But, John gives us the bad news: the darkness comprehended it not.
The religions of this world are okay with the idea of God. They hold on to this vague concept of “a higher power,” and they worship it and praise it and are devoted to it. They call it by different names: the Great Spirit, Allah, “Heavenly Father,” and so forth. They accept any God, so long as that God is not named “Jesus of Nazareth.”
It isn’t that they hate Jesus of Nazareth or even that they reject Him as a person or as a man. They like the Jesus of popular conception. They praise Him as a great philosopher, a great teacher. But here, they draw the line. Jesus can be whatever they want Him to be; He just can’t be what He says He is. He can’t be God. The religions of this world won’t have Him to be that.
This is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion. Because Christianity points to the Galilean Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one, and says to the world, “Behold your God.” John opens His gospel this way:
I want you to consider Jesus in His teaching and deeds. But you will not understand the good news of Jesus in its fullest sense unless you view Him from this point of view. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, and His words and deeds are those of the God-Man.” [24]
[1][1] Latter-day Saints also believe strongly in the fundamental unity of the divine. They believe that God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost, though distinct beings, are unified in purpose and doctrine.47 (from “Gospel Topics Essays” at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god?lang=eng
[2] Exodus 20:3
[3] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/mother-in-heaven?lang=eng
[4] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/heavenly-parents?lang=eng
[5] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god?lang=eng
[6] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-2?lang=eng
[7] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god?lang=eng
[8] https://www.newcoolthang.com/index.php/joseph-smiths-sermon-in-the-grove/
[9] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/old-testament-student-manual-genesis-2-samuel/enrichment-section-a-who-is-the-god-of-the-old-testament?lang=eng
[10] Malachi 3:6
[11] Hebrews 13:8
[12] Jeremiah 23:24
[13] I Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 2:6; 6:18
[14] Exodus 34:14-17; Psalm 115:2-8; Deuteronomy 4:15-19; Romans 1:22-23
[15] John 4:24
[16] Judges 6:22; 13:22
[17] “Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God! I say that is a strange God anyhow—three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. “Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me.” “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.” All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God—he would be a giant or a monster.” (from Joseph Smith’s “Sermon in the Grove”)
[18] “Essence” refers to the essential nature that distinguishes a being from all other beings, or “the peculiar nature; the very substance; that which constitutes the particular nature of a being or substance” (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)
[19] The “Catholic” religion is not a reference to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the whole of the Christian faith.
[20]Sproul, R.C.: Following Christ. Wheaton, IL : Tyndale House Publishers, 1996, c1991
[21]Jamieson, Robert ; Fausset, A. R. ; Fausset, A. R. ; Brown, David ; Brown, David: A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. Oak Harbor, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. Jn 1:1
[22] Colossians 2:9
[23] Vincent, M. R. (1887). Word studies in the New Testament (Vol. 2, p. 40). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
[24]Walvoord, John F. ; Zuck, Roy B. ; Dallas Theological Seminary: The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL : Victor Books, 1983-c1985, S. 2:271
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