[Footnote A: Mill. Star Vol. 24, p. 108, et seq.
The Prophet's text was: "And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father: to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen." (Revelation of St. John 1:6.)
It is altogether correct in the translation. Now, you know that of late some malicious and corrupt men have sprung up and apostatized from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they declare that the Prophet believes in a plurality of Gods; and, lo and behold! we have discovered a very great secret, they cry—"The Prophet says there are many Gods, and this proves that he has fallen."
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I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for the express purpose. I wish to declare I have always, and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders fifteen years. I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a spirit; and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural; and who can contradict it? The text says—"And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father." The Apostles have discovered that there were Gods above, for Paul says God was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. My object was to preach the Scriptures, and preach the doctrine they contain, there being a God above the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ I am bold to declare. I have taught all the strong doctrines publicly, and always teach stronger doctrines in public than in private. John was one of the men, and the Apostles declare they were made kings and priests unto God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It reads just so in the Revelations. Hence, the doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine. It is all over the face of the Bible. It stands beyond the power of controversy. "A wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein."
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Paul says there are Gods many, and Lords many, * * but to us there is but one God—that is, pertaining to us; and he is in all and through all. But if Joseph Smith says there are Gods many, and Lords many, they cry:—"Away with him! Crucify him, crucify him!" * * * Paul, if Joseph Smith is a blasphemer, you are. I say there are Gods many, and Lords many, but to us only one; and we are to be in subjection to that one. * * * Some say I do not interpret the Scriptures the same as they do. They say it means the heathen's gods. Paul says there are Gods many, and Lords many; and that makes a plurality of Gods, in spite of the whims of all men. You know, and I testify, that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods. I have it from God. * * * I have a witness of the Holy Ghost, and a testimony that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods in the text.
I will show from the Hebrew Bible that I am correct, and the first word shows [the existence of] a plurality of Gods. * * * Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aushamayeen vehau auraits, rendered by King James' translators, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I want to analyze the word Berosheit: Rosh, the head; Sheit, a grammatical termination. The Baith was not originally put there when the inspired man wrote it, but it has been since added by a Jew. Baurau signifies to bring forth; Eloheim is from the word, Eloi, God, in the singular number; and by adding the word heim, it renders it Gods. It read first—"In the beginning the head of the Gods brought forth the Gods," or, as others have translated it—"The head of the Gods called the Gods together."
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The head God organized the heavens and the earth. * * * In the beginning the heads of the Gods organized the heavens and the earth. * * * * If we pursue the Hebrew text further it reads Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aushamayeen vehau auraits.-"The head one of the Gods said, Let us make man in our own image." I once asked a learned Jew if the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in heim in the plural, why not render the first, Eloheim, plural? He replied, That is the rule with few exceptions; but in this case it would ruin the Bible. He acknowledged I was right.
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In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. * * * The word Eloheim ought to be in the plural all the way through—Gods. The head of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take a [this] view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness, and perfection of all the Gods.
Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are only one God! I say that is a strange God, three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. "Father, I pray not for the world; but I pray for them which thou hast given me." * * * * I want to read the text to you myself—"Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." I am agreed with the Father and the Father is agreed with me, and we are agreed as one. The Greek shows that it should be agreed.
"Father, I pray for them which thou hast given me out of the world, and not for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they may all be agreed, as thou, Father, art agreed with me, and I with thee, that they also may be agreed with us," and all come to dwell in unity, and in all the glory and everlasting burnings of the Gods; and then we shall see as we are seen, and be as our God, and he is as his Father.
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I want to reason a little on this subject. I learned it by translating the [Egyptian] papyrus which is now in my house. I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven. "In order to do that," said he, "suppose we have two facts: that supposes another fact may exist—two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically show that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them." If Abraham reasoned thus—If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God, the Father of Jesus Christ, had a Father, you may suppose that he had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way: Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly. Hence, if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that he [that Father] had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such doctrine, for the Bible is full of it. * * * Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as his Father had done before him. As the Father had done before, he laid down his life, and took it up the same as his Father had done before [him].
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They found fault with Jesus Christ because he said he was the Son of God, and made himself equal with God. * * * What did Jesus say, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods? If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scriptures cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God?" It was through him that they drank of the spiritual rock. * * * * Jesus, if they were called Gods unto whom the word of God came, why should it be thought blasphemy that I should say I am the Son of God?
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They who obtain a glorious resurrection from the dead are exalted far above principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, and angels, and are expressly declared to be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, all having eternal power. The Scriptures are a mixture of very strange doctrines to the Christian world, who are blindly led by the blind. I will refer to another Scripture. "Now," says God, when he visited Moses in the bush, * * * "Thou shalt be a God unto the children of Israel." God said: "Thou shalt be a God unto Aaron, and he shall be thy spokesman." I believe those Gods that God reveals as Gods, to be sons of God, and all can cry Abba, Father! Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods, even from before the foundation of the world, and are the only Gods I have a reverence for. John said he was a king. "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." O thou God who art King of kings and Lord of lords, the sectarian world, by their actions, declare—"We cannot believe thee."
USE OF THE WORD ELOHIM.[A]
BY PROFESSOR W. H. CHAMBERLIN, OF THE BRIGHAM YOUNG COLLEGE, LOGAN, UTAH.
[Footnote A: During the progress of the discussion between the Rev. C. Van Der Donckt and myself, as published in the Improvement Era, Professor William H. Chamberlin of the Brigham Young College, Logan, Utah, contributed the following brief though valuable paper on the use of the word "Elohim" in the Bible, which by his kind consent I am permitted to publish here.]
Two words, El, of which Elim was the plural form, and Eloah, of which Elohim was the plural, were applied generally to Deity by the Hebrew people. All these forms are found in the other Semitic languages, and are, therefore, very ancient in origin.
Under severest discipline the people of Israel were educated in the school of monotheism, in order that God's nature might be revealed to man, and in order that unity might be introduced into the moral life of man. Under this discipline, the people of Israel must have learned to apply the plural form Elohim, which their fathers had used of Deity, in speaking of the one God whom they had been taught to serve.
The Hebrew language would allow them to do this, for a few nouns, when used by them in the plural, seemed to magnify the original idea. In such cases the plural form was treated grammatically as singular. An example may be found in Job 40:15, where the plural form behemoth is used to intensify the image of the animal there being described, as is shown by context. In the same verse, the behemoth is referred to by the singular pronoun he.
But the use of Elohim, in this sense, by the later writers of Israel, is not necessarily opposed to the view that in the earliest documents or writings which the Hebrews possessed, it was applied to a plurality of Gods.