In this book, Starting at the Finish Line: The Gospel of Grace for Mormons, John spends almost all of his time exploring what Christ Jesus did for us on the cross. He shows what the Bible teaches about our sin, God’s unapproachable holiness, Christ’s eternal deity and righteousness, and how his death on the cross cancels the power of sin in our lives without any work from us.
Is Christ Jesus completely righteous? Yes, but he was made sin on our behalf and punished for our sakes. Does He give us His righteous completely? Yes. We cannot earn it. We cannot improve on it. When the Lord Jesus Christ said from the cross, “It is finished,” he paid for everything for us. His perfection became ours in the eyes of God.
John says, “Mormons believe the Bible to be the Word of God ‘as far as it is translated correctly…’ I aim to show my readers that the Bible has been translated correctly and that it points to the cross of Christ Jesus.”
Moreover, the Bible is not compatible with LDS doctrine. Speaking to Mormon readers, John remembers that Latter-day Saints believe that God will look down on us and if He sees that we are trying to obey Him in everything, He will give us eternal life. Moroni 10:32 says almost exactly that, but the Bible says salvation is by grace through faith, not by works so that no one can boast of earning anything.
With painful honesty, John describes his personal walk of faith toward God’s all-sufficient grace. He lovingly explains what the Bible teaches and how it conflicts with LDS teaching by quoting LDS prophets, elders, and sacred writings. His focus, however, is not to criticize the Mormon church. It is to explain how God’s grace is so much better than the “miracle of forgiveness” taught at LDS temples. It’s something to celebrate.
John writes: “If nothing else, I want my LDS reader to come away with these three things:
- The Bible is the Word of God. It is trustworthy and reliable, able to teach you and guide you through his life and into eternal life.
- Christ on the cross, suffering and dying to pay the penalty for your sins, is the gospel. There is no other gospel, and there is no other name (or combination of names) under heaven by which you can be saved.
- Any attempt on your part to add to Christ’s sacrifice with your own efforts nullifies God’s grace and severs you from Christ as Savior. He is the Way—and He’s not asking for help.”
As a Mormon, I can’t say that this gent seems to have understood Mormonism very well. If that’s what he got out of it, It’s probably best that he went elsewhere.
Well, this is barely a digest of the book. He says many things and spends almost all of his time in the Bible, not criticizing Mormonism. Do you disagree with his main point that the Bible is an accurate record of the Word of God and has not been corrupted like many Mormon teachers have said or implied? It’s still one of the four scriptures of the LDS church, isn’t it?
I don’t blame you for not knowing this, but there are scads of books that make arguments like this, and there is nothing at all in your summary that shows anything new or non-jejune that this book brings to the table.
The reason Mormons continue to be Mormons isn’t because someone has simply failed to explain the reformed Protestant position on grace sufficiently.
Sure. I get that. The reason the author began to doubt Mormonism was he learned through the grapevine that Heavenly Father was once a man who obeyed the commandments and was deified and placed over Earth. We are all his spirit children, and if we follow the commandments or the process of godly living, we will become gods like him and given a planet like this to populate with spirit children.
John said he learned this from friends and wondered how such a groundbreaking doctrine was not taught to him directly. He went to a trusted teacher to ask him directly, and the man dodged the question at first. Then he admitted it was true, that we would become gods. John couldn’t accept that, but he didn’t leave Mormonism for many years.
That’s not credible. His description is a bit of a mishmash, but the basic belief that God intends us for deification/theosis is bog-standard Mormonism that’s found in the basic Sunday School manuals and in the Doctrine and Covenants and that any Mormon who is half awake is aware of in childhood.
There’s a standard trope in anti-Mormon books that we Mormons laugh at a lot, where the author says something like “After 30-years after a faithful Mormon, why was I just now discovering that Mormons believed in a prophet named Jacob Smith? Why was this shocking information kept secret?” This book fits that trope. I would move it from the ‘jejune’ category to the ‘meretricious.’
Would you say he is lying then?
I did, but in charity perhaps I ought not to have. I myself have deeply, even shockingly, unobservant before so its possible that he was too. On the other hand, its not just the ignorance of the basic Mormon doctrine of deification, its the deep distortion of Mormon views on grace and works. If he’s not lying, he’s superimposing over his former beliefs the beliefs that his current milieu says he should have had.
He said he was a junior in high school at the time and had been in the church with his whole family since he was 8 years old.
What do you think of Spencer Kimball’s Miracle of Forgiveness? He quotes from it a few times. Here’s one of them: “Eternal life hangs in the balance awaiting the works of men. Living all the commandments guarantees total forgiveness of sins and assures one of exaltation… Perfection, therefore, is an achievable goal.”
This, he says, shows that Mormons don’t believe they can earn their way to heaven entirely on their own. They believe they need Christ’s grace to make up the difference. They do not believe Jesus paid it all.
We don’t believe that God is indifferent to sin or that its possible to accept Christ while still embracing sin. We don’t believe our own actions are completely pointless. But that’s a far cry from saying that we believe it is necessary or possible to achieve perfection on our own–that’s a complete misstatement of the gospel and of human experience. No one who had really been Mormon could describe that as a Mormon belief in good faith. Perfection is possible because Christ makes it possible.
Does the author quote from the Book of Mormon? Here’s a famous passage among Mormons:
” I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.”
It would be difficult for someone to read the Book of Mormon many times, or just go to a Mormon church, without being aware of this passage.
So does this passage mean that if I give my all to God I will still be an unprofitable servant, because it’s by God’s grace that anything I do is made profitable?
When does the grace come, because Moroni 10:32 seems to give us a progression: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”
So I take this to mean that I follow hard after God and when I do, he will perfect my effort unto perfection. Is that right?
I’m not following your exegesis there, but even on your interpretation its pretty clear that the author’s contention that Mormons believe they have to be perfect on their own is wrong.
He gives an illustration of the gospel as being like two men in a boat, rowing to a distance island. Four miles out, the boat takes on water and sinks. The two men begin swimming, but one of them can barely tread water and drowns. The other is a championship swimmer and makes it another four miles toward the island, but the conditions overwhelm him and he drowns. The application is that without Christ we can’t make it to the island (where there is eternal life). So when our boat sinks, we can cry out to Jesus and be saved.
A Mormon friend of the author applied that illustration this way. He said when the boat sank, God would look down on the one who was swimming, giving it all he had to get to the island, and reach down to save him.
That’s a significant difference of interpretation.
Now I am sure that the author is lying.
Good morning Adam G. I only have a minute here but thought I’d weigh in to clarify one quick thing…and to extend an invitation.
First, the clarification. When I first heard the doctrine of the literal deification of man (ie. Lorenzo Snow’s couplet) at the age of 17, it was indeed “news” to me at that time. But this was 1982, long before the internet. I had certainly heard of guys that were digging into the “deeper doctrines” of Mormonism (guys that read Dialogue, for example) but that sort of literature was not really available to me. Nor was I inclined to seek out anything that would have shed unfavorable light on my religion.
Now, unless I was asleep every Sunday (for 9 years), the doctrines of literal deification, eternal procreation (ie. celestial polygamy), and the attaining of God-like creative (organizing?) powers was most certainly NOT taught to me in Sunday School or Primary. (Nor am I suggesting that those topics would even be appropriate for an 8 or even 12 year old). My only point in any of this is to assure you that I was completely clueless as to the ultimate objective of my own religion (to become “as God” someday) until I was 17 years old, in 1982.
You seem intent on insisting that I am lying about my own life and life experiences. This concerns me greatly. I don’t claim to understand exactly where that is coming from, although I have a few ideas. Better, I think, to allow you to clarify yourself.
But this leads to my invitation, Adam. I encourage you to read my book. I think you’ll enjoy it and it might challenge you. I see that you have a keen intellect and I, for one, would love to dialogue with you (in good faith — that’s the key, Adam) after you’ve read it. It’s a pretty quick read… you could probably zip through it in a couple days.
In the meantime, God bless.
John
I’m not going to read your book because I don’t trust you. Unless Phil is deeply mistaken in his description here and he’s badly misunderstood you, you either are lying or have an experience that is so unrepresentative that what you have to say about it can be of little interest. I’ve seen nothing so far that is any different from any other plain-vanilla “”escape from Mormonism” caricature.
You might just be surprised, Adam. But fair enough. Just thought I’d reach out.
You take care,
John
Tim Challies has a post on a Christmas campaign Mormons are doing this year.
What nonsense. One can say anything on the internet, apparently.
Did you know that beneath the facade, Tim Challies real purpose is to induct you into a toenail-clipper MLM founded by . . . BEEZELBUB? Absolutely.
I hadn’t seen the video, though, so thanks for the pointer.