No Repentance After Death

14 Responses to No Repentance After Death

1. Violet says:

   April 11, 2011 at 8:07 am

   Romans 8:1-11
   << Romans 7 | Romans 8 | Romans 9 >>
   Life in the Spirit

   8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [1] 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you [2] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [3] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

   9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
2. falcon says:

   April 11, 2011 at 1:17 pm

   That is of course unless you are in Mormonism as opposed to being in Christ Jesus. Mormonism is a separate and distinctive religion that has absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with the God of the Bible and His message of salvation.
   Mormonism cannot be found in the Bible and that's why Mormons have to twist, turn and shape the passage where Paul is addressing the folks who were baptizing for the dead, to try and make it mean what it doesn't mean. But that's Mormon Biblical interpretation. There are no set rules or any systematic approach to assigning meaning to the Biblical text.
   Andy Watson told me about a Mormon he knows who would tell him (Andy) that he was going to "do the work" in the next life to attain to Mormon deification. He obviously thought he could do whatever was necessary to become a Mormon god after he died. Thankfully, the guy woke up and left the Mormon church.
   Cults put all kinds of odd twists on the simple message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that the message is clearly written in the Bible, Mormons miss it. Accepting a distorted view of God, Jesus and God's plan of salvation will blind a person to the pathway to the Father which is through Jesus Christ, period. There is no other way to obtain eternal life.
3. Brian says:

   April 11, 2011 at 3:31 pm

   This is a fine posting, falcon. (And beautiful passage you've shared, Violet.)

   When Andy spoke of how he would "do the work," it reminded me of something. Once, an LDS friend asked a relative if the "work has been done" for a certain ancestor.

   Has the work been done? Yes, friends, it has. Only not by a set of rituals. Not in a beautiful, elaborate white building. The work was done nearly 2,000 years ago on a cross. All the work necessary to make you righteous. All the work necessary to bring you into the very presence of the one true and everlasting God forever.

   Not because of promises you have made, but because of promises God has made. And God keeps his promises.
4. wyomingwilly says:

   April 11, 2011 at 4:20 pm

   Brian, that was well said .

   ww
5. f_melo says:

   April 11, 2011 at 4:32 pm

   Falcon, i agree 100% with you. One of the things i heard the most about throughout my life in the Church was people talking about how harsh some priests would be to dead babies and how they were declared to go to hell. I didn´t think that was fair, and i think that´s what makes people buy into that doctrine and embrace temple work. I couldn´t tell if those stories i heard are even true to begin with or if they are just straw men used to get people angry and then reaffirm their faith in the "truthfulness" of Joseph´s revelations on the last days.

   Whatever the case, the thought that God would give second chances not only challenges scriptures(Bible), it challenges also the BoM and it also challenges God´s justice and holiness. It makes His word void, and, like the example you cited, makes people think that they are guaranteed a second chance, since that´s the heart-warming position most mormons take when faced with difficult realities, such as a family member who knows the "gospel" but decided not to be baptized. Those people are baptized by proxy anyways even though they were perfectly able to make the choice in life(that happened within my family).

   You also see the discrepancy of how they worry about people not getting baptized after death as if they believed in hell to begin with. The people who will go to the telestial kingdom will pay their debt with a thousand years of suffering(as if spirits could discern time) and after that they won´t suffer anymore and they´ll be alright in their own kingdom, the only thing they´ll miss will be to reproduce like rabbits for eternity and have the chance to create their own solar systems. Wow, what hell that will be, right? I want that!

   You know what´s funny, thinking about it now, if i had a wife who was inactive and she passed away prematurely and i knew that by doctrine she would go to the telestial kingdom, in order to stay forever with her i´d have to go to there as well. I´d make sure to make it there. Mormon leaders would tell me to get rid of her and get married again because they care so much for families… sure… My point is, when you actually think about that whole doctrine, it doesn´t make any sense whatsoever, at least sense enough to make you a faithful tithe paying member.
6. f_melo says:

   April 11, 2011 at 4:42 pm

   Let´s see what the Book of Mormon has to say about that:

   Alma 34:

   31 Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you. 32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors. 33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. 34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

   Oh, there comes the night of darkness wherein no work can be done… hmmm… why are mormons doing work for people whom no more work can be done?

   35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked. 36 And this I know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell; yea, and he has also said that the righteous shall sit down in his kingdom, to go no more out; but their garments should be made white through the blood of the Lamb.

   Wow, it couldn´t be clearer! Mormons, i extend to you Alma´s exhortation: Repent and come to Jesus.
7. Kate says:

   April 11, 2011 at 4:43 pm

   Brian I love that. The next time a family member calls me wanting all of our information for their genealogy, I'm going to tell them no thank you, our work has already been done by Christ. This really hit home for me, Thanks!!
8. falcon says:

   April 11, 2011 at 5:22 pm

   So we have to ask ourselves, "Where do Mormons get this stuff?" I mean the whole package of multiple gods and men becoming gods and attempts to "save" people after they have died through ripped off Free Masonry rituals. What a joke! Think of it, just do some retread Masonic rituals and insure someone's opportunity to move into the god-prep program. Do these Mormons really want to depend on this form of religion to provide them with eternal life?
   God has His own plan and it won't be supplanted by a false prophet's fantasy. The point, as WW has pointed out above, is that Mormonism is a work in progress and can be what ever it wants to be at any given point in time.
   The body perishes but the soul lives on. It is appointed once for a man to die and then the judgment. Mormons need to ask the sobering question as to whom they are counting on for eternal life. A combination of themselves and a false Jesus won't make it!
9. falcon says:

   April 12, 2011 at 6:20 am

   I know someone who years ago lost a young adult child to suicide and the parent's view was that the child was now a star in the night sky. Where did that idea come from? I don't know but it's as plausible as anything that Mormonism has come-up with. I'm sure I could find some Biblical support via the use of Mormon Biblical interpretation methodology for this concept.
   Rank and file Mormons don't quite get the fact that their "prophets" over the years get thoughts and declare those thoughts as inspired revelation. It's easy to see this in the proclamations of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and the early set of Mormon leaders. Today the boys in SLC pretty much keep their mouths shut and just give inspirational messages on generic moral topics. I think their days of spinning straw into Mormon revelatory gold has come to a close. First of all, their proclamations can be out into the main stream of society relatively quickly and the record never goes away. Secondly, the Mormon prophets have a very poor record when they take a shot at foretelling future events. I don't think that any of them have taken a shot at that for over a hundred years or so.
   The whole complex system of Mormon doctrine regarding the nature of God, man and salvation is about as inspirational as a common pancake batter made with Bisquick!
10. falcon says:

    April 12, 2011 at 6:51 am

    Mormons can't seem to wrap their minds around the idea that their leaders, past and present, might be wrong. It doesn't seem to matter to them, that reflecting back on the wild and wacky world of prophetic history reveals some really dumb stuff. What the leaders say/said doesn't even have to make sense or have any sort of Scriptural support. If a leader said it, it must be true, or at the very least had been true for a certain length of time.
    The entire body of Mormon knowledge regarding the after life and the judgment of God is nothing more than a free-fall, grab bag of thought that could best be described as comical inspiration. There is no support for it and it has meaning only in as much as Mormons are willing to assign revelatory status to it. If a Mormon leader said it, it's true. No questions need to be asked.
    The burning in the bosom experience has acted once and for all as the determination that anything a Mormon prophet proclaims at General Conference for example, is true. So the initial error of the burning in the bosom experience gets compounded at every turn in assigning inspirational status to the Mormon leaders' words. Private inspiration and personal revelation by individual members, while it can provide a real adrenaline rush in some, is just as faulty.
    I ask myself, is there nothing these Mormons will question regarding their church and its doctrines? Risking the eternal status of ones' soul on such a dubious test of faith as to how it makes you feel is a chance I certainly wouldn't want to take.
    The Bible is very clear on the sequence of events when someone dies. There is no second chance! I don't care how good it makes someone feel to believe that they can be snatched from the fires of hell by someone performing Masonic Temple rituals for them, there is no Scriptural support for such a notion.
    I don't like to think about hell. It makes me feel bad. But I don't base my views about it on how it makes me feel. Final judgment, the separation of the goats and the sheep, I'd rather think happy thoughts but my happy thoughts and subsequent positive feelings they produce don't add-up to the truth. It simply means I created the mental conditions that provide me with a euphoric or warm feeling.
    If someone wants to know what God has revealed about Himself, the condition of man, and His (God"s) plan of salvation, it can be found in His revealed Word. It's not all that complex. It's straight forward. Man is separated from God based on our nature to commit sin. God in His benevolence, love and mercy offers us eternal life through the sacrifice on the cross of His Son Jesus Christ. Through faith, we enter God's rest, knowing that He did for us what we could never do for ourselves. Salvation is not about avoiding hell, it's about reconciling ourselves to God and spending eternity with Him.
11. Kate says:

    April 12, 2011 at 9:58 am

    f_melo,

    Mormon's twist the BoM just as much as they do the Bible. It's clear that at least in the beginning, Joseph Smith's beliefs lined up more with traditional Christianity. It makes me wonder what lead him to the weirdness. Did he get so caught up in the power that he had over other people or maybe he had some sort of mental illness? I'm sitting here picturing him and others doing chanting and waving around in some sort of ritual. Creepy. I've watched a few clips on the internet of temple rituals. I wanted to get married in the temple so badly from the time I was a little girl. It is so romanticized for us girls. My husband really wasn't into it and we ended up marrying in the church with a promise that we would go to the temple. I dragged the poor guy to temple prep classes 3 times, but he just wasn't "ready" yet. I can just see me, I would have been so weirded out that I would literally have left. My poor husband would have gone through it all just for me (not really believing) and I can see him waiting for me at the alter, while I was waiting for him in the parking lot! I had NO idea that the temple is so strange. I wonder how many people go the first time, get the creeps and never go back? The only part of the passages you posted that mormons today agree with is:

    "but their garments should be made white through the blood of the Lamb."

    They will read the entire thing that you posted and come away with, "Hey! The BoM is true! Our garments are white!
12. falcon says:

    April 12, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    I just think the guy was so full of himself and given the era he lived in there was a lot of religious experimentation going on. He picked up things here and there from others; polygamy from the free love crowd, temple rituals from the Masons, the Celestial Kingdom et al from Swendenborg (I think that's the spelling) and on and on. He got his ideas for the BoM from the "View of the Hebrews"; many of the other things came from Evangelical Christian revivalism, and as Grant Palmer points out many of Smith's ideas were "in the environment" including the idea of the Indians being a lost tribe of Hebrews. Mix in his folk magic for extra measure and we have a real religious entrepreneur in Joseph Smith.
13. wyomingwilly says:

    April 13, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    Repent after death ? I know that questions relevant to this topic can be somewhat difficult to give
    a satisfying answer to for the person that asks about those who may not have heard the gospel
    and then died. While many people are to quick to assume that there are those who never got a
    chance to hear the truth ,it is important to realize that God has always been working behind the
    scenes as, as it were, to leave a witness of Himself. We know that it is his will that everyone be
    saved [ 2Pt.3:9 ]. Also, we know that God's judgement will be fair, as He knows everyones heart
    [ Acts 17:31 ]. I have to leave it there. The job for christians is to get the gospel to all [ Matt 28:18;
    Acts 4:12 ]. But what does Mormonism do with this thread topic , repentance after death ?
    Mormon prophets and apostles may attempted to give answers to this question, but they are an
    attempt that has gone awry. Mormonism only raises more questions than it claims to answer.
14. wyomingwilly says:

    April 13, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    [part2]
    One example relative to any repentence after death is that seen in research by Helen Radkey, she
    has uncovered Mormon records concerning Rulon Allred, a polygamist, he was excommunicated
    in 1940.He was a apostate, the leader of the Utah based church, " the Apostolic United Brethren ".
    He was murdered in 1977 by orders from a leader of a rival polygamist sect, Ervil LeBaron.
    Yet this apostate, Rulon Allred has been sealed by proxy to five of his wives, one instance was
    in 2008 in the Ogden Utah LDS Temple. Furthermore, Ervil AeBaron has also had proxy work
    done for him in 2002. How did these men repent in order to have "saving" ordinances done
    for them ? This clearly is not part of the gospel of Jesus Christ , but it is the Mormon gospel .