From: tensmekl@infonode.ingr.com (Kermit Tensmeyer)
Subject: Re: Are Mormons Christians? (Was: WANTED: Former LDS, ...)
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 13:56:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.215104.4840@newsgate.sps.mot.com> ACUS10@WACCVM.SPS.MOT.COM (Mark Fuller) writes:
>From: psyrobtw@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Robert Weiss)
>> In article <1992Oct14.151642.9653@infonode.ingr.com>, tensmekl@infonode.ingr.c
>> >In article <Bw3Juu.6x6@acsu.buffalo.edu> psyrobtw@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Robe
>> > The first part of the quoted material expresses the sentiment,
>> > that salvation and exalation are not the same thing,
>> >
>> 	I recall during an investigators meeting with two LDS
>> missionaries, that it is taught that when the Bible uses the phrase
>> 'eternal life' that it refers to exaltation. Sister Johnson and Sister
>> Curtiss couldn't answer a question that I had. If exaltation is as a
>> result of one's performance and endeavors, why does Jesus in John
>> 10:28 say that eternal life is a gift? "I give them eternal life, and
>> they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand."
>
>        Robert, you are correct in your statement that the LDS
>call 'eternal life': 'exaltation' -- and this being available only to
>those who are married in a Mormon temple.  Kermit is playing games
>with the words 'Celestial Kingdom', 'saved', 'exaltation' and
>'eternal life'.  (actually there is a "you have a second chance"
>clause for those people who, through poor luck in this life, were
>unable to except Joseph Smith's purported restoration.  They
>can do it in the afterlife.)

  Nicly done:

  Eternal Life (in an LDS sense) generally refers to the Celestial
  Kingdom. Exaltaion is a part of that Kingdom. Thus there will be
  many you have (in a full LDS sense) eternal life and yet not be
  exalted with God.
>
>        In fact, Mormon leaders believed that God himself had to
>go through these ceremonies to become Diety.

   "these ceremonies" Which ceremonies are _you_ refefing to.

   The only LDS claim I've heard is that God when through a life, and
   testing much like the life we have or that Jesus had.

   The rest of such like drivel is speculation: beyond the mark.

>        Mormon leaders have always proclaimed that the temple ritual--
>often referred to as the "temple endowment" because the recipients are
>supposed to be "endowed with power from on high"--was given to Joseph
>Smith, the first Mormon prophet, by revelation. The ordinances in this
>ritual, which are performed for both the living and the dead (by proxy),
>are considered to be "most sacred." A person has to go through these
>ceremonies before becoming a missionary and those who desire to be
>married in the temple for "time and eternity" must first have their
>"temple endowments."

  So far so good....

>        Mormon theology teaches that those who are married in the temple
>can eventually become Gods and rule over their own creations. Apostle
>Bruce R. McConkie affirmed that the righteous who are married in the
>temple "for time and eternity" have "gained eternal life (exaltation),
>the greatest of all the gifts of God... Those so inheriting are the sons
>and daughters of God... They are joint-heirs with Christ... becoming
>gods in their own right.'- (Mormon Doctrine, 1979, pp. 117-18) 


>        Mormons who go through the temple ceremony and are sealed in
>marriage for eternity believe that they will not only become Gods, but
>will also continue to have children throughout all eternity. They will
>people other worlds with their spiritual children and these children
>will worship and pray to the husband as God. Mormons feel that the God
>of the Bible was not always God and that he also had to pass through the
>same endowments to achieve deity. 

>        According to a revelation given by Joseph Smith, those who will
>not submit to Celestial Marriage are "appointed angels in heaven, which
>angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of
>a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory... these
>angels... remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their
>saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not Gods, but
>are angels of God forever and ever." (Doctrine and Covenants 132:16-17)

 These also have "Eternal Life" and in the Celestial Kingdom...

>Mark
 
  The point being made earlier was that not all references in the
  NT can categorically be designated to be talking about either
  the Celestial Kingdom and/or Exalation.

  Not all refereces in the NT that talk about "salvation" could be
  the same as references to exalation.





-- 
         Kermit Tensmeyer                         | Intergraph Corporation
Life is sometimes a bowl of Cherries; Watch out for the pits;
   klt@kt8127.b23a.ingr.com                       | 
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