Written by John Carson
If you have the Holy Spirit abiding in you, He desires to work through you in bringing glory to God.
John 14:17 says that those who do not have the Spirit in them cannot know Him. Romans 8:9 reads, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." In other words:
A person that does not have the Holy Spirit does not belong to God.
Furthermore, without the Holy Spirit there is still a need for sanctification. And since the Holy Spirit is the One who purifies us, or makes us clean (1 Peter 1:22), then without Him, our so-called righteousness is viewed by God as filthy rags.
Mormons will say that you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by baptism and the laying on of hands by one who holds the authority. But in Mormonism this so-called "gift" is not, nor can it be the actual Person of the Holy Ghost. Mormons do not believe that the Person of the Holy Spirit can actually dwell in the believer. Read for example, to what Mormon Doctrine says on pages 359 and 753 about the Holy Ghost:
"He can be in only one place at one time... The Holy Ghost may visit men... but may not tarry with them."
Whatever description is applied to this supposed "gift" that is received, it is clear that it is not actually the Person of the Holy Ghost.
The Bible is very clear that the Holy Spirit does not have this limitation which Mormon Doctrine described. He is omnipresent. Please take the time to prayerfully read Psalm 139:7-10. The same Holy Spirit who lives in me and abides in me at this very moment in time, is at the same time living and abiding in someone else on the other side of the world, and in all other true Christian believers around the globe. 1 Corinthians 6:19 is very revealing about this fact. It reads:
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”
In this passage, Paul is describing the Christian believer's body as a temple that God gave. Who does the temple of the Christian believer belong to? It tells you right in the passage: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit..." It belongs to the Holy Spirit! Why would God make the Christian believer's body a temple? The answer is obvious: So that the One to whom it belongs (the Holy Spirit), may dwell in it... "the Holy Spirit who is in you." Our temples are not built for anything less than for God Himself to dwell in. Now since Paul did not write this epistle to only one person, but to all believers who would read this letter, the Holy Spirit cannot be limited to be with one person at a time. No. He dwells in all true Christian believers all the time.
Remember what I said earlier, "Without the Spirit, there is still a need for sanctification. Since the Holy Spirit is the One who makes us clean, then without Him we are still filthy." We are still stained by our sins.
See also Eternal Spirit
Latest comments
14.09 | 00:17
Is it your intent to share your faith with me? I'm a devout Latter-day Saint.
30.06 | 17:21
Let's add, the keys to Death and Hades (Revelation 1:18) the key of David (Rev. 3:7) the key of knowledge (Luke 11:52) and the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt.16:19) only given to Simon/Peter.
24.05 | 06:04
Intuitive
10.02 | 23:31
Checked out the great video. 👍 Thumbs up!
The Mormon Religion was officially founded by Joseph Smith Jr. on April 6. 1830 after the Book of Mormon (BOM) was published in that same year.
Joseph Smith Jr. was born in Vermont on December 23, 1805. He claimed that when he was 14, he received a vision from God the Father and Jesus Christ in a grove of trees near his home where he received instructions not to join any of the Christian churches because they were all wrong.
Three years later, Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni (a character found in the BOM) appeared to him in his bedroom whom he said revealed to him that he was selected to translate "Reformed Egyptian" (a language that does not exist) from gold plates into old English. These plates were supposedly hidden near Palmyra, New York and are said to be written around the 4th century. The BOM was named after Moroni’s father, Mormon. Mormons view the BOM as sacred. No one is able to study the original plates because Joseph Smith claimed the angel took them back on May 2, 1838 (History of the Church 1:60).
Smith had a scribe named Cowdery. Smith did not actually translate directly from any plates. Rather, in his writings, he said he placed a "seer stone" in a hat and covered any light from entering it as he placed his face in the hat. According to Martin Harris, “By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet . . . , and when finished he would say, ‘Written,’ and if correctly written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected,” Smith said, “By the power of God I translated the Book of Mormon from hieroglyphics".
Despite such methods of translation, there have been at least 3,913 changes made in the BOM from the time it was first published. Joseph Smith stated, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” Smith also claimed that John the Baptist appeared to him on May 15, 1829 while he was translating the BOM, and instructed him to restore the church by preaching the only true gospel.
Mormons regard the BOM as sacred writings, and view it in higher standing than that of the Holy Bible. Mormon Missionaries will ask you to pray that it is true. (See our page Pray to Know)