SIN AND THE FALL:
MORMON AND BIBLICAL TEACHINGS CONTRASTED

When our doctrine on deity is wrong, all our other doctrines will be wrong too, as all our beliefs stem from our understanding of God.

The LDS God bears no resemblance whatsoever to the deity of the Bible and Joseph Smith's doctrines are all radically anti-biblical. For that reason Mormons do not understand sin or its implications for what they are. So they have their own exclusive version of the fall and the atonement.

This article discusses both the biblical and the LDS teachings on sin and the fall. But in order to avoid any misconceptions in bridging the gap between what the Bible teaches and what Mormons have been led to believe, we'll need to start right at the beginning.



THE BIBLICAL DEFINITION OF SIN

Because we were made in the image of a pure and holy God, when we live the way He created us to live we glorify Him. But when we miss that mark we dishonour Him. All unrighteousness, disobedience, transgressions of the law and even not doing what we ought to do is sin, because it opposes what God stands for. But sin goes even further than that. As the Lord Jesus explained, entertaining or harbouring bad attitudes, evil thoughts, or wrong ideas in our hearts is also sin because it affects and influences our judgment, motives, and actions:

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. (Luke 6:45, KJV)

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man ... (Matthew 15:19-20, KJV)

Then too, sin amounts to much more than wrong thoughts or actions. It's a determination to please ourselves rather than to please God; it's a rejection of His purposes for us, and it is a declaration of independence that severs our natural bond with our Creator.

J. Sidlow Baxter puts it this way:

"Sin is not just a breaking of His law, but a wounding of His heart."

The Bible often illustrates hard to understand concepts by using picture language. And in the book of Genesis, it likens involvement in sin to the eating of forbidden fruit.

Once we've eaten a substance, it passes through our digestive tracts and is absorbed into our systems. After that there's no turning back. It is distributed via our blood vessels, and assimilated by every organ in our bodies. If the substance eaten was good, the nourishment provided will contribute to our health and quality of life. But if it contained impurities or was tainted, its effects will be detrimental. And if it was poisonous, the consequences will be catastrophic.

Just so, when mankind became involved in sin, its fatal influence permeated our entire beings like an invasive poison, affecting even our powers of reasoning. And there was no turning back. From that moment on, instead of seeing life through the eyes of the purity, goodness and righteousness of God, we viewed everything through the grid of our fallen, corrupted 'selves.' Consequently we became self-centred, biased and prejudiced; and this warped our judgment. The lines between right and wrong became blurred and we could no longer clearly distinguish between them. Truth became relative. Furthermore, our motives were no longer what we imagined them to be, because we become adept at subconsciously justifying, promoting and protecting our 'selves.' Even our very hearts deceived us:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV)

In biblical days leprosy was a fatal, wasting and infectious disease. Lepers were compelled to leave their families, friends and loved ones, and live in isolation. As they walked along the road they had to ring a bell and shout out "unclean, unclean," to warn others not to come near them. And sin is like the disease of leprosy in that it makes us unclean in God's sight; it is contagious, and it contaminates everything that comes into contact with it.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6, KJV)

Then too, the Bible likens sin to insanity, where fallen man relates to everything that goes on around him through the prejudiced grid of his "self," as though he was the centre of the universe. His "insane" attitude and actions cripple, blight and destroy his own life, as well as the lives of others.

..... the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live ..... (Ecclesiastes 9:3, KJV)

God knows that fallen man is incapable of contributing anything at all to his salvation. That's why compassion compelled Him to send His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our redemption, in our place, on the cross at Calvary.



THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE

Every command God gives us is always for our own good, and the negative commandment He gave Adam and Eve about not eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil was no different. To put it simply, God wanted them to avoid the terrible consequences that sin always brings in its wake. He knew that once sin had entered into their lives mankind would become a polluted, ruined and doomed race. But instead of heeding God's warning, they chose to believe Satan's lies.

As a consequence of their deliberate and sinful disobedience, God cast them out of the garden of Eden. And through their fall the whole of creation became cursed. But it didn't stop there. Worse was to come. Mankind was never intended to die, but God told Adam that because of his sin he'd lost his mortality. Not only that, he would have to work by the sweat of his brow in order to survive. Furthermore, He told Eve that her life would also change for the worse. Childbirth would become excruciatingly painful, and she would be subservient to her husband.

On the catastrophic day that they chose to follow Satan's leading and disobey God, hardship, pain, suffering, heartache, enmity, disease and death were ushered into the world.

No, sin didn't cause them to progress, as the LDS claims it did. As they reluctantly and dejectedly walked out of the paradise they had once called their home into a cursed earth, with the sentence of death hanging over their heads, their lives went downhill all the way.



THE LDS VERSION OF THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE

(It needs to be borne in mind that not only is LDS teaching on sin and the fall absolutely unbiblical, so is their teaching on pre-existence and on the council in heaven who supposedly planned the fall and salvation. These doctrines and teachings were included as a "package," so to speak, when, twelve years after the LDS had come into existence, Joseph Smith changed the entire LDS doctrinal set up from one that had been similar to what the Bible teaches, to that of unbiblical, man-centred, eternal progression. Consequently, the main reason why Mormon doctrines are not to be found in the Bible is not that Mormon teachings were removed from the Bible by evil people, as is claimed, but that Joseph Smith changed Mormon doctrines to the extent that they no longer bore any resemblance to what the Bible teaches.)

The most peculiar reasoning the LDS exhibits concerning sin and the fall is illustrated by Assistant to the Twelve Apostles Sterling W. Sill, when he said, regarding Adam's fall:

"Adam fell, but he fell in the right direction. He fell toward the goal. Adam fell, but he fell upward" (Deseret News, Church Section, 31 July 1965, page 7).

The LDS wrongly maintains that the forbidden fruit was procreation, and that in order to obey God's command to multiply, Adam and Eve were forced to disobey His other command not to partake of the forbidden fruit. They say that this was a test that God gave them, to see whether or not they would have the wisdom to choose the right commandment to obey. So in their eyes it was a wonderful moment when Adam was wise enough to disobey God's command about the forbidden fruit, because his "right" choice enabled the other spirit beings who were waiting, to come down to earth so they too could inhabit bodies of flesh and bone, in order to progress eternally.

"Of course for this whole plan to work, physical bodies had to be prepared in which Heavenly Father's spirit children could dwell. Thus, the first commandment on record is the commandment to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. Mormonism teaches this was a greater and more important commandment than the commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" (LDS Apostle Talmage, Articles of Faith, pages 64-65).

"There was as yet neither procreation nor death. These would enter the scheme of things only after the fall. Adam and Eve had to break the lesser commandment, and incur the Fall, in order to fulfill the greater commandment." (LDS Apostle McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, pages 84, 91).

However, the biblical God is not devious. He is pure, holy, righteous and true. The Bible tells us that He is light, and that in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). He would never ever plan for anyone to have to progress through disobedience or sin. Besides which, because of His attribute of righteousness, the laws of the universe that He created are moral, in that good actions benefit us and build us up and sinful actions degrade us. The consequences of sin are always negative or destructive, never positive or constructive. Sin always spoils, harms, hurts, destroys and kills. So sin or disobedience could never be the means of improving mankind or of enabling us to progress spiritually.

Furthermore, Adam and Eve were declared husband and wife long before they ate of the forbidden fruit. And God doesn't move His goalposts concerning what He has declared to be sinful. Truth is eternal. It never changes. And what God has declared to be sin will always be sin. So if procreation between a married couple had been declared sinful whilst Adam and Eve were living in the Garden of Eden, it would still be a sinful act on the part of all married couples today. But that's not what the Bible teaches. God has never ever declared procreation between a married couple to be sinful, either before or after the fall.

Then too, the very fact that He had commanded Adam and Eve to multiply is proof in itself that it was not a sin. God stands for all that is good, true and right, and He would never promote evil. So He would never have commanded Adam and Eve, or anyone else for that matter, to commit a sin. And to insinuate that He had done just that is a slur on His character, a denial of His goodness and an insult to His integrity.

If the fall had been part of God's plan for mankind, and if He had been hoping that Adam and Eve would be clever enough to disobey His command, then why did He punish them both so severely? Only a sadist would have deliberately engineered things that way. Through their version of the fall, the LDS has dragged a holy and good God of truth and righteousness down to the level of devious, sinful man.

The primary motivation behind all sin is pride, which manifests itself in self-will and independence from God (the very traits that caused Satan to rebel against Him). The truth of the matter is that the bait Satan used when he tempted Adam and Eve to follow his ways rather than God's, was that if they disobeyed God and took control of their own lives, they would become like God. He was enticing them to join him in his own ambitious plan, which was to raise himself above the throne of God (Isaiah 14:13-14). And Joseph Smith perpetuated Satan's lie to the full. He actually taught the LDS that because of Adam's act of disobedience, mankind can be enabled to progress to godhood. Furthermore, they celebrate the fall of Adam and Eve in a temple ceremony, with Satan playing a prominent role as though he was a hero for having engineered the situation so that they did the "right" thing and disobeyed God.

This is what LDS scriptures say about the jubilation of Adam and Eve immediately after the fall:

"And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy and again in the flesh I shall see God. And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we should never have had seed, and we should never have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient." (Moses 5:10) (Italics inserted by the writer.)

This verse is contradictory in that it treats transgressing God's commandment and obedience as being one and the same thing. It also insinuates that God is someone who promotes and rewards disobedience. Moreover, the Mormon version of the fall portrays God as being someone who takes a sadistic delight in deliberately giving us conflicting commands so that we will be forced to disobey Him, one way or the other.

Contrary to what the LDS Book of Moses says, Adam and Eve knew full well that what they had done was wrong. That's why they both tried to put the blame for their disobedience on to someone else. Furthermore, the Bible tells us that rather than feeling godlike as Satan had said they would, they felt guilty, ashamed and fearful (Genesis 3). They realized with hindsight that they had made a massive mistake in disobeying God. So they desperately tried to hide from the One they had wronged, dishonoured and disobeyed. And as a consequence of their sin they became alienated from and lost their fellowship with their Creator, the human race became a fallen people, and the whole of creation became cursed.

But Mormons celebrate the fall of the human race.



THE LDS JUSTIFIES SIN

Because Mormons don't fully understand sin or its implications they tend to justify it. LDS Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:

"I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin ...... This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin in the strict sense, for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!" (Doctrines of Salvation, volume 1, pages 114, 115)

"The fall of Adam and Eve was not a sin but an essential act upon which mortality depends" (Answers to Gospel Questions, Volume 5, page 15).

But if Adam and Eve did not actually sin, why were they cursed with death?

For the wages of sin is death ..... (Romans 6:23, KJV).

THE BIBLE TEACHES THAT FALLEN MAN IS BORN A SINNER

The Bible teaches that the whole of the human race has inherited a sin bias, due to the fall. But LDS Apostle James Talmage opposes that teaching:

"Divine justice forbids that we be accounted sinners solely because our parents transgressed" (Articles of Faith, page 475).

However, we are not accounted sinners merely because our parents transgressed. We sin because we have inherited fallen natures, and we are accounted sinners because we sin.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Romans 5:12, KJV).

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, KJV)

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:10, KJV)

The LDS also maintains that children are born sinless. But their teaching in this regard is proved wrong by the undeniable fact that all babies are born self-centred. Furthermore, as they grow into childhood it soon becomes obvious that they are naturally inclined to be selfish, willful, dishonest and disobedient. They have to be disciplined not to be that way. And this is an uphill battle.

Another LDS misconception is that by nature man is inclined to righteousness:

"It is fully proved in all the revelations that God has given to mankind that they naturally love and admire righteousness, justice and truth more than they do evil. It is, however, universally received by professors of religion as a Scriptural doctrine that man is naturally opposed to God. It is not so." (Journal of Discourses 9:305)

Regarding the above, the writer has personally never ever seen a single revelation of God that intimates that mankind is naturally inclined to righteousness. On the contrary, the Bible is full of God's revelations that tell us not only that man is an incorrigible sinner, but that he was born that way. Nowhere does the Bible teach that man is naturally good. This is purely an LDS idea.

As far as the LDS denial that man is naturally opposed to God is concerned, the Bible reveals that fallen man is born self-centred, not God-centred. He sees and reacts to everything in life through the grid of his corrupted "self," as though he was the kingpin of the universe, which is the place that by rights belongs to God alone. In other words fallen man usurps God by denying Him His sovereign right to be central and supreme. And because of his fallenness, even if he wants to, man finds it impossible to remove himself from that central, dominant, position in his life.

The only man in the entire world who was selfless and who lived a completely God-centred life, was the Lord Jesus Christ. And there was a reason for that. He didn't inherit a fallen nature, because he was miraculously conceived by a virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is exactly why Mary's conception had to be that way. It was a divine, miraculous event, where Christ's embryo was supernaturally formed inside Mary's womb, bypassing the use of her ova, which contained her genes. Mary was only Christ's surrogate mother, not His biological mother (as the LDS so very wrongly teaches she was).

This is why when Christ was unjustly treated, maligned, insulted, falsely accused, and so on, he never ever responded as a fallen man would have done, with self-centred displays such as anger, hurt feelings, resentment, sulking, bitterness, bad attitudes, threats or thoughts of revenge, and so on. The only time He showed anger was when it was righteous to do so, i.e. when the courts of the temple, that were supposed to have been set aside for prayer and worship, were being used for commercial purposes, and so on. He lived to do the will of God alone, and his life was totally God-centred.

Contrary to LDS teaching that man is by nature inclined to righteousness, the Bible tells us that at one stage God became so fed up with the human race because of their evil bent that He wiped out the then entire population of the world, except for Noah and his family. Listen to how He described fallen mankind's natural inclination to sin:

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:5-8, KJV)

But that wasn't the solution, because in no time at all Noah himself was overcome by sin, as were his sons (Genesis 9:20-25).

When one reads how many times God had declared fallen man to have a corrupt heart throughout the Bible, it is difficult to understand where the LDS gets the idea that mankind is basically good. Another example of God declaring mankind to be basically corrupt happened directly after the flood. When dry land first appeared, Noah built an altar and offered a sacrifice, whereupon God pronounced that although man's heart is evil from his youth, this would never again cause him to destroy the entire population of the earth:

And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. (Genesis 8:20-21, KJV) (Italics inserted by writer.)

When we look at the violence, corruption, immorality and perversion that fills the world today, it becomes obvious that mankind hasn't changed at all. We've just become more clever and sophisticated, and more perverted too, at doing what is sinful. The awful truth of the matter is that if the sinful bent in man was not restrained, chaos would reign supreme. Our overflowing prison cells and choked up law courts are a testimony to this fact.

And if we were honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that we too would be capable of these self-same evil deeds if the circumstances were right and we were sufficiently tempted or provoked or had reached the relevant stage of desperation. That's why in John 8:3-9, when they confronted the Lord Jesus with a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, His response was to invite anyone who was without sin to cast the first stone at her. These were religious people, who worshipped God and lived according the very strict laws and ordinances of Judaism, yet they all walked away, one by one, as their consciences smote them.



BIBLICAL TEACHING ON SIN

The biblical teaching is that we are all born with an inherited sinful bias in our natures, due to the fall of our ancestor, Adam:

I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5, KJV)

..... the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth Genesis 8:21, KJV)

..... the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives (Ecclesiastes 9:3, KJV)

The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good [continually], no, not one. (Psalm 14:2-3, KJV)

If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) ...... (1 Kings 8:46, KJV)

For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not. (Ecclesiastes 7:20, KJV)

Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? (Proverbs 20:9, KJV)

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:10, KJV)

Until we become convinced of our helpless state of sinfulness that has come about because of the fall, we will never reach the place of humility where we are not only prepared, but eager, to fully and completely surrender ourselves to Christ for salvation. This involves abdicating faith in ourselves and our own abilities, and transferring that faith to Christ instead. But in order to be able to do this, we need to understand, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is nothing good in us and that without Christ we are doomed. In other words, our pride needs to be broken. (Pride is the basis of all sin.)



SIN FORMS A BARRIER BETWEEN US AND GOD

Sin is the cause of all the injustice, lawlessness, cruelty, violence, immorality, perversion and heart-rending suffering that we see in the world today. But its most devastating consequence is that it separates us from our Creator. How could a pure, righteous holy and good God in whom there is no darkness condone or tolerate sin in any form, or even associate with anyone who does?

Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amos 3:3, KJV)

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13, KJV).

But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2, KJV).

SINFULNESS IS AN INNER CONDITION

Because sin is subtle, we often don't recognize it as such. For instance, on the outside, the lives of the Pharisees looked good. They were the authorities on righteous living and set an example by obeying their religious laws, tithing on everything they possessed, giving to the poor, attending all the religious services, fasting and praying, and so on. But Jesus explained that it was our hearts that mattered, not just our external actions. He said that on the outside the Pharisees were like a beautiful, sparkling, clean cup, but that on the inside they were tainted with sin; corrupt and putrid, like a rotting corpse (Matthew 23:27-28).

And we're no different. We've learned to be good hypocrites. We're nice, congenial and civilized on the outside, but all the while our hearts and thought life are filled with things that should not be there. And our motives are often wrong. In many instances the real, deeply hidden reason behind our actions is that we want others to have a good impression of us (the sin of pride/self-worship). And not only do we fool them, but we also pull the wool over own eyes. We wrongly imagine that our motives are always pure, because we've become adept at justifying, nurturing and protecting our "self". As Pogo so rightly said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."



SIN HAS CONSEQUENCES

Just as there is a law of gravity that decrees that everything we drop will fall downwards and not upwards, so there is also a moral law that decrees that our actions are always followed by consequences.

Some people insist that their sin doesn't hurt anyone. But they're wrong. Sin doesn't only affect the guilty parties. Our actions, whether good or bad, have a ripple effect that touches the lives of a great many others. And all too often innocent folk are negatively influenced, discouraged, hurt, or even have their lives ruined, because of our sinful actions. The problem is that because of our self-centred way of reasoning, we're seldom aware of the terrible effect our actions and/or attitudes have on others.



GOD IS GOING TO JUDGE SIN

J. Sidlow Baxter comments as follows:

"It is inconceivable that the all-holy God should govern His universe with even the slightest moral laxity. If the principles of absolute righteousness were not strictly upheld, there could be no true heaven; the universe would become a moral chaos, if not an inferno. The very safety of the universe depends upon the inflexible righteousness of the divine administration. Sin, whether in Satan and his angel-confederates, or in the human race, is not only moral leprosy, it is ugly enmity against Him who is pure light and love." (Page 91, "Awake My Heart," by J. Sidlow Baxter)

God has decreed that there will be no sin in heaven. Otherwise it wouldn't be heaven, would it? He has set aside a day when He will judge sin and consign every trace of it to hell. With this in mind He made a colossal sacrifice to provide a way for fallen man to escape that judgment and to eventually become conformed once again to His moral likeness. Those who scorn His infinite sacrifice will bring the judgment of hell down upon themselves.

Sadly, because of LDS indoctrination, Mormons have been conditioned to believe Joseph Smith's claim that, in spite of everything that the Bible teaches to the contrary; they need to, and are able to earn the right to the forgiveness of their own personal sins through obedience to the laws and ordinances of their church organization (plus righteous living). But firstly this scorns the way of salvation that God has provided for us at such a colossal cost, through Christ. And secondly, if it was possible for us to earn our own forgiveness, why then does the Bible teach that Christ died to earn the forgiveness for our sins on the cross? (1 Peter 2:24)

Furthermore, Mormon teaching on the three degrees of glory is unbiblical and originated purely in the imagination of Joseph Smith. The Bible teaches that there are only two destinations after death, heaven or hell. And so it's no good Mormons consoling themselves with the LDS claim that if they don't make it to the highest degree of glory, they'll still be okay because even the second and third degrees of glory are more wonderful than anything we could ever imagine. The three degrees of glory is the teaching of a proven false prophet whose aim was to deceive you and lead you astray.

I am asking Mormons to carefully consider what is written in this article, bearing in mind that the Bible has been proved over and over again to be truthful and reliable both historically and archaeologically. Conversely, nothing out of all the massive amount of evidence that is still being unearthed today, has ever proved anything in the biblical record to be wrong. On the other hand, no proof has ever been found anywhere, to back up any Mormon teachings or scriptures. The Bible contradicts them all. And where we do have available evidence, such as in the case of the Egyptian papyri from which Joseph Smith "translated" the book of Abraham, reputable scholars all agree that his translation is fraudulent. (See the article on the Book of Abraham.)

I pray that God will open your eyes to the truth, so that you can turn your back on deception and be set free to experience the wonder and the joy of truly knowing Him through His gift of salvation in the biblical Jesus Christ, our Lord.

You are invited to write to this site if you have any queries, or if you need to share any problems you may have. The email address is:

reply@bibtruth.com


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