The God Who Is and the God Who Hopes To Be

Why the Mormon Jesus and the Christian Jesus are not the same being

Christ made one belief the line between life and death: “Unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). He did not say believe I am a good teacher, or a god, or the greatest of the Father’s sons. He said believe that I AM.

That name is not a title He wears. It is what He told Moses from the burning bush, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), and the same name YHWH commands belief in at Isaiah 43:10. It means the one who does not receive His existence from anyone, but who simply is existence itself. Everything else that exists was given its being. He alone is being. That is the whole meaning of the name.

The Mormon Jesus cannot be that being. In LDS teaching he had a beginning: he was begotten as a spirit in the premortal world, he is made of matter, he is one god among many, and he depends on the Father to be exalted. A being who was brought into existence, who is built out of parts, and who climbed to godhood cannot be the source of all existence. That would make the Mormon Jesus the source of his own Father, the very one who exalted him. So the being Mormonism calls Jesus is not the being the name describes. They have the name without the nature.

And this is not a small quarrel about words. It is the very reason Christ can save. Isaiah puts both halves in one breath: “Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and beside me there is no Saviour” (Isaiah 43:10–11). The same being who alone is uncreated is the same being who alone can save. No one can give what he does not have. Salvation means being lifted into the life of God (2 Peter 1:4), and only the one who is that life can hand it to you. A Jesus who had to be exalted himself has no divine life of his own to give. He is in the same predicament we are.

That is why Scripture treats the denial of who Christ is as the mark of the antichrist: “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist” (1 John 2:22; cf. 4:2–3; 2 John 7). To deny Christ His uncreated, necessary, and infinite nature is to deny that He is the Christ, because that nature is not a feature of the Christ; it is what makes Him the Christ. Only the uncreated I AM can save, and the Christ is the one who saves. So remove the nature and you have not described a humbler Christ; you have described someone who is not the Christ at all. The conclusion is not that Mormons are bad people. It is sharper and quieter than that: the being they call Jesus is not the Jesus of John 8:24, and by Christ’s own terms a being who is not the I AM cannot save. They have the name. They do not have the I AM.

The argument in steps

P1. Christ makes salvation depend on believing He is the I AM (John 8:24).

P2. The I AM is the one who does not receive existence from anyone but is existence itself, the source of all reality (Exodus 3:14; Isaiah 43:10).

P3. The Mormon Jesus received existence: begotten as a spirit, made of matter, exalted by the Father, one god among many.

P4. So the Mormon Jesus cannot be the source of all existence. (If he were, he would be the source of his own Father, the very one who exalted him, which is absurd.) (from P3)

C1. Therefore the Mormon Jesus is not the I AM. He has the name, not the nature. (from P2, P4)

C2. Therefore, by Christ’s own condition, belief in him cannot save. (from P1, C1)

P5. Only the uncreated I AM can save, since no one can give a life he himself had to receive (Isaiah 43:11; 2 Peter 1:4).

C3. Therefore a Jesus who had to be exalted has no divine life of his own to give. (from P3, P5)

C4. And to deny Christ this nature is to deny that He is the Christ, since that nature is what makes Him the Christ, which Scripture marks as the spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:22). (from C1, C3)

Conclusion: The Mormons have the name. They do not have the I AM. And by Christ’s own terms, a being who is not the I AM cannot save.

The one objection that makes the whole point

Objection: But Latter-day Saints do believe Jesus is Jehovah, the I AM who spoke to Moses. We affirm the very name this argument says we deny!!!

The objection concedes everything that matters. The question was never whether Mormonism applies the name to Jesus. It is whether the being Mormonism describes is the kind of being the name names. The I AM never received existence. The Mormon Jesus was begotten in the premortal world and had to be exalted to godhood. A being with a beginning and a climb is not the being who simply is. To speak the name over such a being is to empty it of the one thing that makes it true. So affirming “Jesus is the I AM” while describing a Jesus who came to be does not answer the argument; it commits the very error the argument exposes. The disagreement was never about the name. It is about what kind of being is allowed to wear it.

Imagine a stranger in your favorite uncle’s clothes. Give him the same haircut, the same mustache, the same gravelly laugh. Call him by your uncle’s name, every nickname your family ever used, and insist with all your heart that he is the same man.

Is he?

No matter how perfect the costume, no matter how hard you believe it, the one thing the stranger cannot put on is your uncle himself. The name fits. The man is missing.

Be honest. You already know the answer.

And the same answer holds for the Christian Jesus and the Mormon Jesus. Same name. Same titles. A different being underneath.

One IS the Christ. The other one is Not-Christ.

You want the real one. Everyone does.

Which brings you to the one question you actually have to answer.

Which matters more: what you want to believe, or what is demonstrably true?

Answer as if your life depends on it, because it does.

It was Jesus, not I, who said: “Unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”