Mester
Blaine: Jesus, indeed, is the same. The notion that he has spoken in
this dispensation is apparently given credence (in your thinking)
because of the claim to fame
-- 4th largest denomination. What does the comparison of numbers mean
when you compare to ---- say -- Buddhism? How are you doing in
that exchange. Could it be that numbers mean absolutely nothing when
it comes to the establishment of truth. I mean, my family is larger
than yours....... 7 kids and 12 grandchildren. That makes us
--------------------------- what? Right?
Secondly, the Mormon revelations have nothing to do with the
First Church. There was no doctrine in the first church that provided
for polygamy.
Blacks were welcome. Grace, not works, was the theme of the day, God
as expressed in the Godhead, was and is the only God, salvation was a
gifted occurrence
apart
from the law, the church was never "right" in terms of the thinking and
actions of its membership, and the governmental structure
of the first church was nothing similar to what you have today
-- dispite
the use of such words as "elders" and "bishops." &n
bsp; No one believed that Temple righteousness
played a role in securing new heavens and new earths for the faithful
-- becoming gods to the same degree as the god of this earth.
I mention the "first church," because the justification for the
revelations of Mormonism have
everything to do a supposed apostasy from the True Church of the first
century. such an opinion ignores the fact that "first church" was
divided based on doctrine and if we count heads, doctrinal error (works
salvationism -- Jewish
style) was, by far, the majority opinion. The notion that the church and its leadership had
controls over the individual members (a false doctrine) led to the
establishment of the Pope and the continuance of works salvationism. There would have been
no Pope if the membership understood that the rule of the bishop was a rule of example
---------------- only. The first
church did not understand the theology of accepted diversity as taught
in Romans 14. In fact, if we cut out all the material in the NT letters, if we cut all the
material that was written to inform and correct the thinking of the
first church - we would have nothing left but a pamphlet of NT instruction.
JD
