6. A sixth proof of the truth that God has not a body, and therefore is not an exalted man, is the fact of the incarnation of the Son of God. The "Mormons" admit that Jesus Christ is the Great I Am, (from all eternity to all eternity) therefore, God (Doctrine and Covenants section 39). By the by, I see no mention of this fundamental Christian truth of the incarnation, in the sacred books of the Latter-day Saints, not even in their catechism. Yet what is more capable of winning cold hearted, careless people to the love of God than the exposition of this mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: (Col. 1:26) "God so loved the world as to give us his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish but may have everlasting life" (John 3:16.)
So the "Mormons" admit that Jesus Christ is God for all eternity. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ became a man at a specified time; therefore, Jesus Christ, or God was not man before that specified time.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1-14). It is plain that the Son of God became flesh only at the time of his sojourn on earth. Now, had he been flesh, or man, before, as "Mormons" hold, how could he become what he was already from all eternity? No; not from the beginning of the world, but only now once, at the end of ages, he (Jesus) hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. When he came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast fitted to me." Then said I: "Behold I come" (Heb. 9:26 and 10:5, 7). "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form (nature, glory, majesty) of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (deemed it not fitting to assume to his human nature the glory and majesty due him without labor and suffering) but emptied (stripped) himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and in habit (in his whole exterior) found as a man" (Philip. 2:5), etc. Again: "In him (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally" (Col. 2:9). Had God a body (Latin corpus) what sense would there be in St. Paul's corporally or bodily? All save "Mormons," understand St. Paul to mean that in Christ the true God manifested himself in the flesh, or as man.
"Because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same, that through death he might destroy him who hath the empire of death. For nowhere doth he take hold of the angels, but the seed of Abraham, he taketh hold, wherefore, it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren" (Heb. 2:14-16). "Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God" (I John 4:2). "Many seducers are gone out into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" (II John 1:7). Why do the New Testament writers lay so much stress upon the taking of flesh by Jesus Christ? Evidently we must see in those expressions (the Word was made flesh, etc.) more than a Hebraism, for "He became man" (Gen. 6:12; Is. 40:5). The inspired authors want to teach us humility by impressing upon our minds the excessive abasement of the Eternal Son of God in uniting his Divinity, not to the nature of an angel, but to that of an inferior creature, as man is. They have still the further aim of impuning the heretics, of the early days of the Church the Docetae, Cerinthus, Ebion, etc., who, attributing the flesh to an evil principle, and therefore holding it as utterly polluted, maintained that Christ had not a real body of flesh but only an apparent body. This we learn from SS. Irenaeus, Jerome, Clem. of Alex., etc.
7. Another proof that God is not an exalted man; that is, that he was not what we are now, and became perfected into God, is the direct statement of the Bible: "God is not as a man that he should lie, nor as the Son of man that he should be changed" (Num. 23:19). "I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath because I am God and not man" (Psalm 11:19).
8. Another most striking proof is to be found in God's immutability. The Latter day Saints teach that God was once imperfect, as man is; the Bible teaches the very opposite: "Thou art always the self-same" (Psalm 101:26). "I am the Lord and I change not" (Mal. 3:6). "The Father of lights with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration." (The Latin alter means other. So the Lord is never other from all eternity.) (James 1:17.)
9. Finally, the Latter-day Saints' theory of the Man-God supposes a past and present with God. The Bible excludes that succession of time, and speaks of God as the Everlasting Present "I Am Who Am." "Before Abraham was, I am." "From eternity and to eternity thou art God" (Psalm 89:2). "His power is an everlasting power" (Daniel 7:14).
PHILOSOPHICAL PROOFS OF GOD'S SIMPLICITY OR SPIRITUALITY.
The "Mormons" admit that God existed from all eternity; consequently, there was no time at which God did not exist. Therefore, the Eternal Being, or God, must be simple.
A compound is, at least by nature, posterior to its component parts. If God is a compound, he is posterior to his component parts. Therefore, he would not be eternal; therefore, not God.