So, You Want To Be A God?

BECOMING GODS (according to LDS teaching and doctrine)

Mormonism teaches that God the Father (whom they refer to as Elohim) was once a
man
Lorenzo Snow
1
, during his mission to England in the spring of 1840, reported that he
was sitting on day, listening to Elder H. G. Sherwoods explanation of Matthew 20: 1-16
(The parable of the laborers in the vineyard), when the Spirit of the Lord opened his
eyes.
the Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon methe eyes of my understanding were
opened, and I saw as clear as the sun at noonday, with wonder and
astonishment, the pathway of God and man. I formed the following couplet
which expresses the revelation, as it was shown me, and explains Father Smiths
dark saying to me at a blessing meeting in the Kirtland Temple, prior to my
baptism, as previously mentioned in my interview with the Patriarch.
As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.
2
Snow did not immediately share this revelation with Joseph Smith, Jr., but did share it
with his sister Eliza and Brigham Young (both of whom served with Lorenzo Snow in
England). He nally shared the couplet with the Prophet Joseph Smith in January of
1843. The Prophet responded, Brother Snow, that is true gospel doctrine, and it is a
revelation from God to you.
3
About 15 months later, on April 7, 1844, Joseph Smith delivered his famous King Follett
Discourse, in which he afrmed Lorenzo Snows couplet:
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in
yonder heavens! . . . I am going to tell you how God came to be God.
We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute
that idea. . . . It is the rst principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the
Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses
with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself,
the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself . . .
1
Lorenzo Snow (1814-1901) was the fth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(Mormons).
2
Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret
News, 1884) 10.
3
LeRoi C. Snow, Devotion to Divine Inspiration, Improvement Era (June 1919) 656.
you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to
God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one
small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace,
from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of
the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as
do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.
4
Further, on June 16, 1844, in his last public sermon, Joseph Smith inaccurately
concluded that a God above the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
5
is shown to be true
from Revelation 1:6:
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father (KJV)
A correct translation of this verse, from the original language (Koine Greek) is:
and did make us kings and priests to his God and Father (Youngs Literal
Translation)
The point I am attempting to make here is not that the KJV is confusing here, but rather
that Joseph Smith believed and taught that God was once a man and progressed to
Godhood. That teaching continues in the LDS Church today.
As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.
The ultimate goal of a Mormon is to progress to godhood himself. They desire to be
gods.
BECOMING GODS (according to the Bible)
There are two instances of attempting to attain godhood in the bible. The rst is found
in Genesis 3:
Genesis 3:
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the eld which the Lord God had
made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree
of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden:
4
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (comp. Joseph Fielding Smith; Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret,
1976) 345-47.
5
Millennial Star 24:108
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6
In this passage of Scripture, Eve is in the garden of Eden being tempted by Satan. She
has not yet sinned and Satan wants her to. He seeks her rebellion against God. He
tempts her by the same thing (as we will see in the second instance in the bible) what
tempted him: ye shall be as gods.
Evidently God did not look too favorably at His creations desire to become gods. He
kicked them out of the garden and cursed them heavily. Now they would toil, suffer,
and nally, die.
The second instance is found in Isaiah:
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down
to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the
north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Here we nd Lucifer (Satan) himself committing the same sin he pushes Eve to commit.
He tries to be a god. The result of His attempt is that he is brought down to hell, to
the sides of the pit.
It should be clear from these two passages that seeking to attain godhood is a serious
sin against God. It is Satans sin, and the sin Satan himself wants man to commit.
The God of the bible, the only true God, did not progress. He is did not become God.
He was not born. He had no beginning and will have no end, and He is a jealous God.
He will not stand for our self-idolatry, and you, my beloved Mormon friends, will not
become gods any more than Satan did.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
7
6
Genesis 3:1-5 King James Bible (KJV)
7
Proverbs 3:5-6