Not the Jesus of Joseph
I forever cut my ties with Mormonism after I discovered the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of Mormonism were not the same person. Jesus was never an elder brother who had the most valiant plan in the pre-existence during a Council in Heaven. Jesus was, is and always has been absolutely God, co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Only blood from the real Jesus can wash away the stench of our sin.
Soon after experiencing this spiritual cleansing, I devoured all the supposedly “anti-Mormon” literature I could find and realized it was actually “truth literature” that carefully and concisely peeled away the layers of Mormon deceptions. Everything I read only confirmed my suspicions that the Jesus of Joseph Smith could not and did not produce the fruit of the true Holy Spirit.
Underneath the “Families are Forever” slogan with the pictures of neat, clean freshly scrubbed families lay a darker truth. The reality was a bloody and checkered history of a religion whose founder and immediate successor had no compunction about breaking God’s laws concerning adultery, divination, prophecy and possibly murder. Everything was focused on building an earthly kingdom with strict obedience to human rules and regulations, where allegiance to the latter-day prophet and his “restored church” reigned supreme. Loyalty to God was hopelessly intertwined with loyalty to the church. Only their “true church” held the keys to eternal life and no one else. Relying upon Jesus alone for salvation was not in LDS church theology.
As I read the Bible with new eyes I came to understand that Jesus was never my elder spirit brother, or the spirit brother of Satan, or only a perfect example. Jesus was God in the flesh who loved me and gave himself for me in spite of all I’d ever done or left undone.
Kathy F. Sanders
