Original title: New Perspective(s): Justification(s), adoption(s) - and "then shall they be gods"

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the thirty-fourth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (Aug. 14-20) is titled "Overcome Evil With Good" and covers Romans 7-16.

We invite you to worship with us on any Sunday - either at First Baptist Church of Provo or Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna. We welcome visitors!

Pastor Brendon's Colossians series can be found here.

*Correction - - at 32:04, Skyler obviously misspoke very badly and meant to say (as the context makes clear): "Nobody's saying that God was once a man" or “Nobody’s saying that God was once a man who became God.” Some disputing the full divinity of Jesus still comes out of a monotheistic assumption which all forms of Mormonism deny. 

**Correction - - George Foot Moore was a Presbyterian, and was a "Jewish scholar"...meaning to say: a scholar of Judaism. In terms of influence, his work in 1920's didn't seem to have the impact that E.P. Sanders would later in his book Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977).

D&C 20; 50.26-28; 76.92-95; 84.38; 88.107; 132.19-21; Abraham 3 

Seminary Manual: here, here and here, here, here 

Gospel Principles: here 

“Justification and Sanctification” (D. Todd Christofferson) 

“The Challenge to Become” (Dallin Oaks) 

“Hearts Knit In Righteousness and Unity” (Quentin Cook); look for the citation The Life and Work of St. Paul by Frederic Farrar (1898); also his complete lack of quoting from the actual text of the “profound epistle” - yet, his citation of the LDS heading (which disagrees with the actual text of Romans) as if it were the actual text of Romans. 

The New Testament Made Easier by David Ridges 

Achieving A Celestial Marriage manual 

Joseph Smith: here and here; also The Words of Joseph Smith, edited by Andrew Ehat and Lyndon Cook 

Jesus the Christ by James Talmage 

Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie 

A Rational Theology by John Widtsoe 

“Becoming Like God” (Gospel Topics Essays) 

Understanding Paul by Richard Lloyd Anderson 

Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems with Theism and the Love of God by Blake Ostler 

“Latter-day Saint Perceptions of Jewish Apostasy in the Time of Jesus” by Matthew Grey 

Alfred Edersheim: Jewish Scholar for the Mormon Prophets by Marianna Edwards Richardson 

The Apostle Paul: His Life and His Testimony (Sidney B. Sperry Symposium on the New Testament); esp. “Hebrew Concepts of Adoption and Redemption in the Writings of Paul” by Jennifer Clark Lane 

Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right by Matthew L. Harris 

The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints by Thomas Wayment (published by Deseret Book), pg. 266: 

• Footnote on Romans 1, vss. 26-27: “These verses have become one of the primary pieces of evidence for the discussion of homosexuality in the New Testament. In Paul’s day, pederasty and other abhorrent sexual practices were more common, particularly in accusations made by religious individuals against foreign religious cults. It is therefore unclear that Paul is condemning the practice of homosexuality but instead may be condemning what he perceives to be strange and foreign sexual practices such as pederasty. From such scant evidence, it remains unclear what actions Paul had in mind here, but it is obviously abhorrent to him.” 

Joseph Smith told Alexander Neibaur that he saw Jesus with a light complexion (white skin) and blue eyes (A.N. Journal, May 24,1844) - thus, looking a lot like...Joseph Smith. Whiteness is also true of Mary in 1 Nephi 11.13-15, who is even claimed by some LDS to actually be from England, based on legend.

Some Joseph Smith quotes on these passages: 

• “We need not doubt the wisdom and intelligence of the great Jehovah. He will award judgment or mercy to all nations according to their several deserts, their means of obtaining intelligence, the laws by which they are governed, and facilities afforded them of obtaining correct information, and his inscrutable designs in relation to the human family. And when the designs of God shall be made manifest and the curtain of futurity be withdrawn, we shall all of us eventually have to confess that the Judge of all the earth has done right...To say that the heathen would be damned because they did not believe the gospel would be preposterous. And to say that the Jews would be damned that do not believe in Jesus would be equally absurd...Consequently, neither Jew nor heathen can be culpable for rejecting the conflicting opinions of sectarianism, nor for rejecting any testimony but that which is sent of God...” 
• “No man can attain to the joint heirship with Jesus Christ without being administered to by one having the same power and authority of Melchizedek.” 
• “To become a joint heir of the heirship of the Son, [one] must put away all [one’s] traditions.” 
• “[It is] to inherit the same power [and] exaltation, until you ascend the throne of eternal power, same as those who are gone before.” 
• “What is it? To inherit the same glory, power, and exaltation, with those who are gone before.” 
• “[You will] enjoy the same rise, exaltation, and glory, until you arrive at the station of a God.” 
• “The scripture says those who will obey the commandments shall be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.” 

MRM (Romans): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

MRM (Becoming Like God): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross by Leon Morris 

Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray 

The Letter to the Romans (NICNT) by Douglas Moo 

Father, Son, and Spirit in Romans 8: The Roman Reception of Paul’s Trinitarian Theology by Ron Fay 

Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (NSBT) by Trevor Burke 

We Become What We Worship; Union with the Resurrected Christ by G.K. Beale 

Knowing God; Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by JI Packer

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen 

Confessions by St. Augustine 

The Trinity: An Introduction by Scott Swain 

The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Text and Hermeneutics by Robert Gagnon 

Reformed Forum: here, and here

Jason Wallace: here and here ; An Earnest Plea to LDS 

The Victorian “Lives of Jesus” by Daniel L. Pals 

“Christian Writers on Judaism” by George Foot Moore 

In response to the New Perspective on Paul: Here; here; here and here 

Cracking the Foundation of the New Perspective on Paul: Covenantal Nomism versus Reformed Covenantal Theology by Robert Cara 

Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The "Lutheran" Paul and His Critics by Stephen Westerholm

Justification (2 vol.’s); Covenant and Salvation by Michael Horton 

"A Vindication of Imputation: On Fields of Discourse and Semantic Fields" by D. A. Carson

Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism and Vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul, edited by D.A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien and Mark A. Seifrid 

Where Is Boasting?: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5 by Simon Gathercole

The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson 

One book that is very important in regard to addressing some of the exegetical weaknesses of past commentary on the early parts of Romans, and yet demonstrates the inability of the New Perspective scholars to answer them is Uncovering the Theme of Revelation in Romans 1:16-3:26 by Marcus Mininger. Often, the New Perspective has pointed out a weakness and then used that as a springboard for their own view, without actually answering the very exegetical questions they have asked of others. Mininger's book is incredibly important work.

One scholar's concluding remark regarding the NPP is worth including: "In spite of recent challenges, I believe [the traditional, forensic] understanding of Paul's justification does better justice to the Pauline texts. It cannot be dismissed by the claim that the ancients were not concerned to find a gracious God (how could they not be, in the fact of pending divine judgment?); or that it wrongly casts first-century Jews as legalists (its target is rather the sinfulness of all human beings); or that non-Christian Jews, too, depended on divine grace (of course they did, but without Paul's need to distinguish grace from works); or that 'righteousness' means "membership in the covenant" (never did, never will) and the expression "works of the law" refers to boundary markers of the Jewish people (it refers to all the 'righteous' deeds required by the law as its path to righteousness).

Modern scholars are correct in noting that Paul first focused on language of justification in response to the question whether Gentile believers in Christ should be circumcised. They are right to emphasize the social implications of Paul's doctrine of justification (what it meant 'on the ground') in his own day, and are free to draw out its social implications for our own. But the doctrine of justification means that God declares sinners righteous, apart from righteous deeds, when they believe in Jesus Christ. Those so made righteous represent the new humanity, the people of God's new creation." (Justification Reconsidered by Stephen Westerholm)

The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany by Susannah Heschel 

The Lie That Wouldn't Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or (a more recent edition) The Lie That Will Not Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Hadassa Ben-Itto

The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Antisemitism by David Kertzer 

Theologians Under Hitler by Robert P. Ericksen

Our Hands Are Stained with Blood; Christian Antisemitism by Michael Brown 

The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung by Richard Noll