By Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson

According to 1 John 3:2,

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

To be “like him” is taken by Mormons to mean that humans could possibly end up having all of the attributes of God Himself, including omnipotence, or “all powerfulness.” President Spencer W. Kimball said as much when he wrote,

“To this end God created man to live in mortality and endowed him with the potential to perpetuate the race, to subdue the earth, to perfect himself and to become as God, omniscient and omnipotent.” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, 2)

However, since only one being could hold “all power,” having more than one omnipotent being defies the very meaning of the word. In his commentary on 1 John, Christian theologian Simon J. Kistemaker writes,

“Scripture discloses that at the coming of Christ we will be glorified in body and soul. ‘We shall be like him.’ The Bible nowhere states that we shall be equal to Christ. Instead it tells us that we shall be conformed to the likeness of the Son of God. We share his immortality. However, Christ has the preeminence, for the Son of God is ‘the firstborn among many brothers’ (Rom. 8:29).”(New Testament Commentary: James, Epistles of John, Peter, and Jude, 295)

Mormonism’s version of who God once was and what man may become hardly concur with the descriptions found in the Bible. This is no small issue.

For other passages discussing common passages used by Latter-day Saints, click here.