“Many people find it easy to believe in the prophets of the past. But it is much greater to believe in and follow the living prophet.”—Gospel Principles, 42.
The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints rightly affirms that God has revealed
essential truth about himself through the agency of
prophets—human
beings who speak his word. However, the LDS Church makes the
controversial claim that it is led by a “living prophet”
whose teaching all Christians should accept and obey.
Mormons view the LDS Church President as that prophet. They
believe that he has the authority to lead the only true
church on the earth today and to interpret what all of the
scriptures mean.
The LDS Church actually fosters a kind
of devotion to its prophets. Several hymns in the LDS
hymnbook extol the contributions of the living prophet in
ways one never sees, for example, in the Book of Psalms.
Gospel Principles
(39) quotes one of these hymns: “We Thank Thee, O God, for a
Prophet” (#19). The hymn “We Listen to a Prophet’s Voice”
(#22) concludes: “Attend, ye earth! The prophet speaks; come
listen and obey. He is the man who holds the keys of
priesthood pow’r today.” “We Ever Pray for Thee” (#23)
addresses the prophet as “our prophet dear.” “God Bless Our
Prophet Dear” (#24) uses the same language and speaks of the
prophet’s “noble heart.”
The reference in hymn #22 to “the keys
of priesthood pow’r today” expresses another crucial,
controversial claim of the LDS Church. As
Gospel Principles
puts it: “A true prophet is always chosen by God and called
through proper priesthood authority” (39). This means that
every true prophet supposedly receives his authority to
function as a prophet from another man who lays hands on
him—and that man must likewise have had hands laid on him to
receive his authority, and so on. In short, every true
prophet must have his authority conferred on him in a ritual
ordination involving the laying on of hands.
The best place to begin learning about
prophets is from the Bible.
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Did prophets living before Jesus came know his name and exactly what he was going to do for our salvation?
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If Jesus did not think there was anything wrong with the Old Testament Scriptures, what should we think about claims that they are unreliable?
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Did Old Testament prophets receive authority to prophesy through a ritual ordination of laying on of hands?
True prophets of God in the Bible
generally spoke from one of two perspectives: either from
before Christ’s coming looking forward to it or after
Christ’s coming looking back on it. Prophets before the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ looked forward to his
coming without knowing exactly what was going to happen. As
that time approached, they spoke in gradually clearer terms
about what the Messiah would do (see Luke 24:25-27, 44; John
5:39-47; Hebrews 1:1-2):
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Abraham (ca. 2000 BC) was a prophet to whom God revealed that through his descendants—one of them in particular—God would bring blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3; Acts 3:25-26).
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Moses (ca. 1400 BC) was a prophet through whom God gave Israel its law covenant. He prophesied that in the future another prophet would arise from the Israelite people (Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Acts 3:18-24).
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David (ca. 1000 BC) was a prophet whose songs (in the Psalms) implicitly described his descendant, the Messiah, dying and rising from the dead (Psalm 16:8-11; 22:1, 14-18; Matthew 27:35, 41-46; Acts 2:22-32).
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Isaiah (ca. 700 BC) was a prophet who spoke about the coming Messiah as a Servant who would suffer and die for our sins (Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Acts 8:32-35).
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Daniel (ca. 550 BC) was a prophet through whom God revealed a general timetable for when the Messiah would come, and specified that shortly after the Messiah died the temple would be destroyed for a second time (Daniel 9:24-27; Mark 1:15; 13:2, 14).
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John the Baptist (AD 30) was the last prophet before Jesus. He prophesied that the Messiah was about to show up, and he warned that God was about to bring judgment on the Jewish religious establishment (Matthew 3:1-12; 11:7-15).
By the way, the Bible says nothing
about any of these prophets receiving their authority to
prophesy from another man, let alone in a ritual ordination
ceremony. Samuel did anoint David (1 Samuel 16:13), but that
ritual was to designate David as king, not as a prophet. Nor
does the Bible ever teach the doctrine that a prophet must
receive authority to prophesy from another man or in an
ordination ritual. As a matter of fact, the Book of Mormon
also says nothing about prophets needing such an ordination.
The prophets who lived before Jesus’
death and resurrection spoke the truth that God revealed to
them. Jesus Christ himself affirmed the validity of what
they taught (Matthew 5:17-18; 22:29; Mark 7:13) and treated
the Old Testament Scriptures as the unfailing word of God
(John 10:35). Not once did Jesus ever even hint that there
was anything wrong with the Old Testament.
Yet the Scriptures those prophets left
behind show that they did not know or understand the details
about Jesus. Thus, the Old Testament prophets never referred
to “Jesus” by name, and none of them gave the whole picture
of who Jesus was and what he would do. Even John the
Baptist, who had met Jesus, was uncertain enough about the
details that at one point he sent a message to Jesus asking
if he was the one (Matthew 11:2-6). The apostle Peter
explains:
“Concerning this salvation, the
prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours
searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or
time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he
predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent
glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not
themselves but you, in the things that have now been
announced to you through those who preached the good news to
you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which
angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:10-12 ESV).
It is interesting to compare how the
Old Testament prophets spoke about the coming Messiah with
what we find in LDS scriptures supposedly written by
prophets centuries before Jesus. Several of the books in the
Book of Mormon are dated between 600 BC and the time of
Jesus. These books refer repeatedly to Jesus, frequently
calling him “Jesus Christ” (2 Nephi 25:19-20; 30:5; Mosiah
3:8; etc.) and even “the Lord Jesus Christ” (Mosiah 3:12;
Alma 37:33; 38:8; 46:39; Helaman 13:6). Nephi, supposedly
writing about the same time as Daniel, speaks about Jesus
with “plainness” (2 Nephi 25:4, 7) never seen in the Old
Testament:
“Behold, they will crucify him; and
after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days
he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and
all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in
the kingdom of God…. For according to the words of the
prophets, the Messiah cometh in six hundred years from the
time that my father left Jerusalem; and according to the
words of the prophets, and also the word of the angel of
God, his name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And now, my brethren, I have spoken plainly that ye cannot
err” (2 Nephi 25:13, 19-20).
This “plainness” with which the Book of
Mormon “prophets” speak about Jesus Christ is simply not
consistent with the way that God revealed truth about the
coming Messiah through the prophets of the Old Testament. It
is, however, consistent with the conclusion that the Book of
Mormon actually originated in the nineteenth century when
Joseph Smith—who of course knew about Jesus from the New
Testament—published it.
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What important function did prophets who came after Jesus perform?
People in Jesus’ day often referred to
him as a “prophet” (Matthew 21:11; Luke 24:19; John 9:17;
etc.). That description is correct though quite an
understatement, since Jesus was so much
more than a prophet. In a sense, he was
the Prophet (see John 6:14; 7:40); he not only spoke the word of
God, he was the
Word of God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14). This means that the
rise of any prophets after Jesus was bound to be something
of an anticlimax: “God, after He spoke long ago to the
fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
in these last days has
spoken to us in His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2 NASB).
On the other hand, after Jesus had
risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, the early
church needed to know the truth about Jesus, what he did,
and what it all meant. That is why Jesus appointed apostles
and authorized them to speak in his place after he had
ascended to heaven (John 15:26-27; Acts 1:8, 21-26). It is
why the early church had both apostles and prophets (1
Corinthians 12:28-29; etc.). The apostles and prophets of
the early church played a foundational role in establishing
the church (Ephesians 2:20; 3:5; 4:11).
Whereas the Old Testament prophets
looked forward to Messiah’s coming without seeing how it all
fit together, the New Testament prophets looked back on the
coming of Jesus Christ with the benefit of hindsight as well
as inspiration. They explained what his coming meant,
interpreted the Old Testament Scriptures in light of Christ,
and spoke about Christ’s future return in glory to
consummate the salvation of his people and to bring the
final judgment on the wicked.
Within less than a century after Jesus’
death and resurrection, the early church’s apostles and
prophets passed from the scene. Before that happened, they
had produced the body of writings that we know as the New
Testament. For nearly two thousand years, those 27 books of
the New Testament, combined with the 39 books of the Old
Testament, have taught literally billions of people about
Jesus Christ. In the Bible, God has given us a permanent,
authoritative revelation of the gospel, putting the life,
death, resurrection, ascension, heavenly ministry, and
second coming of Christ into proper perspective.
Christians can and should be grateful
to God that through the testimony and teaching of these
individuals, we know who Jesus was, what he did, and what it
all means. However, there is no biblical basis or precedent
for the sort of devotion to “the prophet” that characterizes
LDS religion.
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Does Amos 3:7 mean that we should look for a living prophet to follow today?
A basic element of Mormon doctrine is
the belief that God has appointed men in modern times as
prophets to lead and teach God’s people. In support of this
doctrine, Mormons commonly cite Amos 3:7, “Surely the Lord
GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets” (KJV). Gospel Principles quotes this
verse in its chapter on prophets (39). The LDS
Old Testament Student Manual, commenting on Amos
3:7, quotes N. Eldon Tanner (a member of the First
Presidency for twenty years) to explain its significance:
“There are many scriptures which assure us that God is as
interested in us today as he has been in all his children
from the beginning, and thus we believe in continuous
revelation from God through his prophets to guide us in
these latter days” (citing
Conference Report,
April 1975, 52).
Jeff Lindsay, a popular online Mormon apologist,
explains Amos 3:7 this way: “God has always worked through
apostles and prophets, and has not changed in that regard….
If there are no prophets, then something is missing.”
The problem is that Amos 3:7 does not
say that God always works through prophets; it says nothing
about revelation from God coming on a continuous basis in
all periods of history. What Amos 3:7 is saying is that God
will not bring about any sort of major change in his
dealings with his people without first warning them through
his prophets. In context, God is warning the northern
kingdom of Israel (the tribes that had broken away from the
rule of David’s descendants in Jerusalem) of coming
judgment. In other words, Amos 3:7 means that God gives
Israel fair warning before he brings judgment on them. It
does not mean that God’s people will always have living
prophets to speak to them or to lead and guide them. In
fact, Amos flatly contradicts this claim when he warns in
the same short book that a time was coming when the northern
kingdom would not
have prophets bringing them God’s word:
that I will send a famine in the land,
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for
water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord:
And they shall wander from sea to sea,
and from the north even to the east,
they shall run to and fro to seek the word
of the Lord,
and shall not find it.”
Amos 8:11-12 KJV
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Is it true that Christians who don’t accept the LDS prophets “live in darkness”?
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Why is it essential to the New Testament gospel to affirm that we can have a relationship with God without any earthly intermediaries?
According to the LDS manual
Gospel Principles, people who do not have living prophets on the
earth to guide them live in darkness: “Many people live in
darkness, unsure of God’s will. They believe that the
heavens are closed and that people must face the world’s
perils alone. How fortunate are the Latter-day Saints! We
know that God communicates to the Church through His
prophet” (39). This is a pretty hard slap coming from a
religion that repeatedly claims that they never criticize
other faiths. Yet these statements express a common
criticism that the LDS Church makes of Christians who
consider the Bible a sufficient revelation of the truths of
the Christian faith and who do not believe that the church
needs prophets living on the earth today. Are these fair
criticisms of evangelical, Bible-believing Christians?
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Have the LDS prophets reliably told the truth?
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Does it matter to you whether they have or not?
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Joseph Smith
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Brigham Young
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Wilford Woodruff
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Is it wrong to test prophets to see if they are from God?
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Should we apply biblical tests to the LDS prophets?
2.
The
prophecy test: Does the prophet make predictions in the
name of the Lord that come true, or do his predictions in
God’s name turn out to be false (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)?
Joseph Smith made a number of
predictions that failed, perhaps most notably his
Missouri temple prophecy.
3.
The
consistency test: Does the prophet’s teaching agree with
the teaching of what we already know to be Scripture (Acts
17:11)? In particular, does it agree with the gospel of
Jesus Christ that we have already received from God’s word
(2 Corinthians 11:4; Galatians 1:6-9; Jude 3)? This test is
the focus of this Gospel Principles Scripture Study Guide,
along with other
resources
examining LDS doctrine available on our website.
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