LDS One Essence

Peter1000 said:

And so your 37 years of learning gives you the right to either except or reject what the bible says?

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It means that I am reasonably confident in my knowledge of the Bible, as I have been reading for about as long as I could read at all, and have studied--not in a vacuum--but with others, and have built my foundation of study upon the hard work, discipline, and faith of two thousand years of Christians who came before me.

I mention it, not as an arrogance or boast, but merely to point out that I'm not someone who has never read the Bible before that I could be so easily tricked by those who--demonstrably--don't have a clue what they're talking about.

-CryptoLutheran

Andrewn said:

An unfortunate mistranslation renders "eis" as "with." In fact, in the KJV itself this preposition is translated as follows:

KJV Translation Count — Total: 1,774x
The KJV translates Strong's G1519 in the following manner: into (573x), to (281x), unto (207x), for (140x), in (138x), on (58x), toward (29x), against (26x), miscellaneous (322x).

Strong’s Definitions [?](Strong’s Definitions Legend)
εἰς eis, ice; a primary preposition; to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etc.); also in adverbial phrases:—(abundant-)ly, against, among, as, at, (back-)ward, before, by, concerning, + continual, + far more exceeding, for (intent, purpose), fore, + forth, in (among, at, unto, -so much that, -to), to the intent that, + of one mind, + never, of, (up-)on, +perish, + set at one again, (so) that, therefore(-unto), throughout, til, to (be, the end, -ward), (here-)until(-to), …ward, (where-)fore, with.

As you can see that the primary meaning of "eis" is "to" (It is translated into, to, unto 60% of the time.)

So, taken in context, the Apostle Paul prays that Ephesians would be filled with grace to all the fullness that comes from God, i.e. up to the great limit that God provides.

This is very different from Col 1:19 & Col 2:9. There it is declared that all God's fullness _dwell_ in Christ.

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(New Testament | Ephesians 4:13)

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Andrewn said:

The whole context is about the Lord's discipline. V. 10 says that discipline is necessary to obtain the holiness that comes from God. V. 14 emphasizes that necessity of the pursuit of holiness.

The word rendered "partake" in your translation simply means to have or to receive.

KJV Translation Count — Total: 6x
The KJV translates Strong's G3335 in the following manner: be partaker (2x), eat (1x), have (1x), take (1x), receive (1x).

Strong’s Definitions G3326 and G2983; to participate; genitive case, to accept (and use):—eat, have, be partaker, receive, take.

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That we might receive of His holiness?

Andrewn said:

The Greek word translated "partakers" here is different from the word translated "partakers" in Heb 12:10.

Strong’s Definitions G2839; a sharer, i.e. associate:—companion, × fellowship, partaker, partner.

KJV Translation Count — Total: 10x
The KJV translates Strong's G2844 in the following manner: partaker (5x), partner (3x), fellowship (1x), companion (1x).

So, in this passage we are encouraged with the fact that through the knowledge of Christ and the promises of God our human nature may be transformed and we may have fellowship in the divine nature.

We receive the adoption and become sons of God and thus attain incorruptibility and immortality. We never become gods. Only God is God.

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Paul was looking forward to this special calling:

(New Testament | Philippians 3:13 - 15)

13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

(New Testament | 2 Peter 1:4 - 10)

4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Andrewn said:

I don't know bec I haven't read them all. But the Nicene-Constantinople Creed is a short excerpt that I'm sure you and other LDS have read.

Actually, LDS websites state specifically that they don't accept that Creed bec of it states that Christ "is of the essence of the Father." They don't give an explanation for the reason this statement was deemed unacceptable.

Thank you for the response.

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Hello Andrewn. It may be that someone else has already answered this question, but we (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) reject the statement because we understand it to be inaccurate. We understand that the Father and Son are of distinct substance. That they are in every literal sense different beings. Their oneness we understand to be intangible—one in purpose.

Hope that helps.

Andrewn said:

This beautiful passage describes the perfected mystical Body of Christ in its unity (v. 3-6). God has given each one of us _a measure_ of grace (v. 7). Some of us received the grace to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, others pastors, and others teachers (v. 11). The purpose of these graces is to build up the mystical Body of Christ in its unity of faith and knowledge of God's Son (v. 12-13).

This is until the Body of Christ becomes like a mature adult, fully grown, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature (v. 13). Christ is the Head of a perfected mystical Body which lives by His sacred Life and is His incorporate “limbs,” His immortal vehicle of action.

Note that word "teleios" is translated as "perfect" in KJV but it really means "mature" or full-grown. Also, note that the word "aner" translated "man" is singular. We all grow together into one man (or adult, to use politically-correct language), that is the Body of Christ.

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The word "teleios" has more than one meaning depending on how it is used:

G5046 - teleios - Strong's Greek Lexicon (KJV)

To become perfect is a true meaning of the word.

Andrewn said:

This beautiful passage describes the perfected mystical Body of Christ in its unity (v. 3-6). God has given each one of us _a measure_ of grace (v. 7). Some of us received the grace to be apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, others pastors, and others teachers (v. 11). The purpose of these graces is to build up the mystical Body of Christ in its unity of faith and knowledge of God's Son (v. 12-13).

This is until the Body of Christ becomes like a mature adult, fully grown, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature (v. 13). Christ is the Head of a perfected mystical Body which lives by His sacred Life and is His incorporate “limbs,” His immortal vehicle of action.

Note that word "teleios" is translated as "perfect" in KJV but it really means "mature" or full-grown. Also, note that the word "aner" translated "man" is singular. We all grow together into one man (or adult, to use politically-correct language), that is the Body of Christ.

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This.

Christ is the new man into whose image our own humanity is being conformed to. As the Apostle says, even as we bore the image of the earthly man (Adam) so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man (Christ). For through Adam's disobedience came sin and death, so by Christ's obedience has come life and resurrection from the dead; so that in Adam all die, in Christ all shall be made alive. For what was damaged, wounded, and slain through Adam is now given life by Christ.

As St. Irenaeus writes,

"but when He became incarnate, and was made man, He commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam — namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God — that we might recover in Christ Jesus." - Against Heresies, 3.18.1

And also

"He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as you can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, 'And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for your head, and you on the watch for His heel.' For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, 'that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.' This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: 'But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.' For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man's opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned, in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death." - Against Heresies, 5.21.1

What was lost is restored; what was wounded has been healed; what was slain is now alive. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death; and to those in the tombs, bestowing life.

-CryptoLutheran

Andrewn said:

I wrote, "This is until the Body of Christ becomes like a mature adult, fully grown, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature (v. 13). Christ is the Head of a perfected mystical Body which lives by His sacred Life and is His incorporate “limbs,” His immortal vehicle of action."

You want to change this to "This is until the Body of Christ becomes like a perfect adult."

This is less accurate but it doesn't change the overall meaning of the passage. However, no modern translation that I'm aware of renders "teleios" as "perfect" in this passage.

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And that's because (and this seems to get ignored by some of our Mormon friends here) the word "perfect" in modern English has slightly different connotations than what it meant in early modern English. "Perfect" in early modern English meant something closer to "complete" or "fulfilled", the modern sense tends to mean something closer to "free of error", "faultless", etc.

St. Paul can speak of us having already received "perfection" in Christ, not to mean that we are sinless or faultless, or even that we have already "won the race" as it were; but rather that we have received the fullness of Christ as grace; toward which we are now being conformed and transformed by the ongoing work of the Spirit, with the intented goal from God that, in the end, we will be raised up and the work began in us will be completed. What having received as grace now will, in the end, become reality. We, as members of Christ's Body by grace, have been joined to Christ, joined to His death and resurrection, and thus we have Him already who who is the perfect new man; but this is grace to us, gift. Thus we have the new man by grace, through faith; even though we still tread through this world in this "body of death" as the Apostle calls it, the mortality and corruptibility of our present life--but we look forward to the day when what has been given to us as gift will bring us through to the other side, and it becomes manifest. The day when Christ returns and transforms our "lowly body" to be like His "glorious body", from corruptible flesh to incorruptible flesh. Sown a "soulish body" it is raised a "Spiritual body", for "if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells also in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies", and so, "This mortal must put on immortality, this corruptible must put on the incorruptible" and so "death is swallowed up in victory".

-CryptoLutheran

Andrewn said:

I wrote, "This is until the Body of Christ becomes like a mature adult, fully grown, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature (v. 13). Christ is the Head of a perfected mystical Body which lives by His sacred Life and is His incorporate “limbs,” His immortal vehicle of action."

You want to change this to "This is until the Body of Christ becomes like a perfect adult."

This is less accurate but it doesn't change the overall meaning of the passage. However, no modern translation that I'm aware of renders "teleios" as "perfect" in this passage.

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I don't agree with the modern translations. I believe that the KJV is better than they are.

Andrewn said:

In the parable of the wedding banquet, the Lord Jesus concludes by saying, "Many are called, but few are chosen.” (Mat 22:14)

Phi 3:14 shows that the Apostle Paul was pressing on for the prize of his heavenly call by God. The words “call,” “calling,” denote not merely the external invitation but the internal and effectual drawing of the soul by grace.

Similarly, in 2Pe 1:10, we are exhorted to make every effort to be sure of our calling and election by God into the kingdom of heaven by means of our works. We make sure that we're not only called but also chosen.

The calling is offered by God's Grace but it is up to us to ratify or rescind the invitation / calling.

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Paul did not say calling by God, he said: "the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

I believe that he means that God is a calling.

Andrewn said:

Yes, God is calling. It seems that we agree. I don't see a difference. We are not called to be Gods.

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Yes we can indeed be called as Gods.

[ring]
Hello?
Hi, it's God calling.
God? Oh hi! Does this mean I am a God too?

BigDaddy4 said:

[ring]
Hello?
Hi, it's God calling.
God? Oh hi! Does this mean I am a God too?

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Is this from the modern BigDaddy scriptures after phones were invented?

Religious calling - Wikipedia