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“As man is, God may become; as God is, man may become”  — Section 17

Can man become like God?

Representative of a Christian church:

Let’s consider some of the teachings of your ‘apostles’.  I have before me an article written by Mr. Lorenzo Snow, a Mormon apostle and Church president.  He says, “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”  In other words, Latter-day Saints teach that God was once a man, and that we can become Gods.  However, the Book of Mormon teaches, in Moroni 8:18 – “For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being, but  he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity”.  Apostle Lorenzo teaches in one place that God was once a man like you and me, yet Mormon in the Book of Mormon says God was and has been ‘unchangeable’ from eternity to eternity.   Those two teachings are incompatible.

Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We believe these statements are not contradictory.  Lorenzo Snow uttered a teaching taught by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and it was Joseph Smith who beheld in the great plan of salvation, the beginning of God and how He became God.  He was once a man, and became a God.  When He became a God, He created you and me and all mankind and that was the beginning of eternity for us.  Moroni 8:18 speaks of eternity such that we can understand it, and Lorenzo Snow uttered a truth that existed before we were even thought of.  President Snow refers to two different periods of time — one before we were created, and the other after our creation.

Representative of a Christian church:

Can you give me any proof from the Bible that God was once a man?  Surely such an important doctrine would be included in the Bible!

Representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

As a matter of fact, we can give you proof from the Bible.  In John 8:17-18, Jesus compared himself and the Father to two men.  Both ‘men’ bore witness to the divinity of Jesus.  Surely we can all agree to Christ’s human aspects while he was in the flesh on earth.  He was a human being like you and me, but he did have godship within himself.  We read in John 5:19: “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the son likewise.”  We also read in the scriptures, “As the Father hath power to Himself, even so hath the Son power.”  (John 5:26).  The answer seems very plain.  What was Jesus going to do?  John 10:17-18 states, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it up again.  No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.  I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”  This is why the prophet taught these truths.  Christ said he could do nothing of himself, but what he had seen His father do, and here we read where he was to take his body and lay it down and take it up again.  There is the answer from the Bible.  Since Christ had a body which he willingly laid down, and since he did only that which he witnessed the Father do, the father also must have had a body which he laid down and took up again.


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