Cloud of Witnesses Radio

Why Mormonism Is Still Not Christian: LDS Teachings From Their Sources - Many LDS Don't Know?

• Cloud of Witnesses cast and crew

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Jeremy Jeremiah, Cloud of Witnesses, reacts to and answers the call from: bayliebelieves, Baylie Clarke, (https://www.tiktok.com/@bayliebelieves) viral video.

Jeremy quotes directly from 19th Century documents, original source, discourses by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to demonstrate that the LDS faith is anything but Christian (by any stretch of the imagination).  Joseph Smith and Brigham Young taught that God the Father was once finite, and was once "a man" just like you or me.  

The conversation turns on a single hinge: does Latter-day Saint theology align with historic, orthodox Christianity? We explore this by defining terms, citing primary sources, and testing claims against scripture. The starting point is the Trinity, not as a word-game, but as a boundary-setting confession about who God is. Classical Christianity says God is one being in three persons, sharing one divine essence, without confusion of persons. That means the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, yet each is fully and eternally God. This guardrail matters because it protects both God’s oneness and the real distinction among Father, Son, and Spirit, and it anchors the meaning of the incarnation as God the Son taking on human nature without ceasing to be what he eternally is.

From there, the critique of LDS claims comes into focus: the Mormon teaching that God the Father was once a man who progressed to godhood, and that humans may likewise be exalted as gods as taught clearly for years by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Mormonism's first two so called prophets). The episode reads from Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse and Brigham Young’s Journal of Discourses to show how these ideas are presented within early LDS leadership. The claim is not a stray footnote; it is a thread that runs through the sources. If God was once finite, then divine eternality and aseity are compromised. Historic Christianity insists that God is uncreated, without beginning, dependent on nothing beyond himself. If deity is an achievement, the word “God” loses its unique, absolute meaning and turns into a rank one can attain.

The discussion then tests LDS proof texts. Stephen’s vision in Acts 7 is cited and corrected: Stephen sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, which fits the Christian confession that no one has seen the Father in his essence, yet the Son reveals the Father. The host clarifies essence and person using simple analogies: two humans share humanity yet remain distinct persons; similarly, the divine persons share one divine essence while remaining truly distinct. This is not modalism and not three gods; it is the mystery of one God in three persons, confessed in the creeds and rooted in scripture.

A second axis is the incarnation. Jesus did not “become God”; he became man. The eternal Son took on flesh through Mary, remaining what he was while assuming what he was not. If one imports the idea that the Father once gained godhood, the logic pressures the incarnation into a story of divine ascent rather than divine condescension. Historic Christianity resists this inversion: salvation is not climbing into deity by degrees, but being united to Christ by grace, participating in God’s life without becoming gods by nature. The difference between deification in classical theology and exaltation in LDS teaching is not semantic; it concerns whether God is eternally God and whether creaturely nature can ever cross the Creator–creature line.


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SPEAKER_00:

Why is the LDS faith not a Christian faith? Here it goes.

SPEAKER_01:

But really, only Trinitarians who openly criticize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yippee. Because I'm not here to bash religion, I'm here to clear misconceptions. And this is about the criticism that Mormons can't be Christian because they believe God was once a man.

SPEAKER_00:

That is correct. Mormons do believe God was once a man, and that is one of the major reasons why the LDS faith is not a Christian faith.

SPEAKER_01:

But let's talk about the Trinity for a second. If you believe in the Trinity, you believe that God the Father is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God the Father.

SPEAKER_00:

No. No. That is absolutely and patently false. Jesus Christ is not the Father. The Father is not Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01:

And the Holy Ghost is all of them. In essence. They're all the same essence being manifested in three different beings.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think you understand what essence even means, with all due respect. A simple lesson here: nature essence, we are both humans, right? So this creator here, she is a human being. She has the essence of humanity. She is by nature a human. I myself am also a human being, believe it or not. I am by essence a human. That does not mean that I am her and she is me, even in 2026. This is wild.

SPEAKER_01:

So using that logic, let's talk about the fact that we believe God was once a man. So we don't believe that God was first a man.

SPEAKER_00:

Your very own prophet, your Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of your religion, on April 7th, 1844, said, This is Discourse 7. He says that it is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. He was once a man like us. God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on earth the same as Jesus Christ Himself did. Dwelt on a earth, a different earth, the same as Jesus Christ did. And again, Brigham Young, your prophet, the second prophet of the Mormon LDS faith, he carried on Joseph Smith's clear teaching. This is uh Journal of Discourses, volume 7, page 333 through 334. When you can thus feel, then you may begin to think that you can find out something about God and begin to learn who He is, who God is. He, God, is our Father, the Father of our spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now, and is now an exalted being. Do you even know your own faith?

SPEAKER_01:

We believe that God is eternal. We believe Jesus Christ is also eternal.

SPEAKER_00:

Whereas Brigham Young, again, a prophet of your own faith, Brigham Young said in that same discourse, it appears ridiculous to the world under their darkened and erroneous traditions, he's talking about other denominations, that God has once been a finite being, and yet we are not in such close communion with him as many have supposed. He has passed on and is exalted far beyond. In other words, Brigham Young says clearly that God has once been a finite being. This is in direct contradiction to what you are saying in this video. This is in direct contradiction to the founding principles and teachings of the LDS faith. This is why the LDS faith is not a Christian religion.

SPEAKER_01:

But we also believe that God the Father has a tangible body of flesh and bones. Take the story of Stephen in the Bible.

SPEAKER_00:

No, he didn't. Do you read the text, or are you just making things up that fit your narrative? So let's go to that text. That's Acts chapter 7, verse 55. Stephen, when he was martyred, looks up to heaven and says, and being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw what? As she says, God the Father? No. And saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So what did Stephen see? He saw the glory of God, which Orthodox theology is very clear. This is the uncreated light, right? The glory of God. It's a beautiful, amazing thing, but he did not see God the Father, because we know very clearly from Scripture that no one can see God the Father and live, right? No one has seen God other than obviously God incarnate in Christ Jesus. So we'll let the misquoting of Scripture go. Let's see what she has in store for us.

SPEAKER_01:

So, in order for Jesus Christ himself to get a body, he came to earth. He was born of Mary and was fully God and fully human. Which makes sense. Yeah, Jesus Christ was a man. Except for when you realize that Trinitarians also believe God the Father is Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00:

No, yet again, we do not believe that God the Father is Jesus Christ. Like I said, we are both humans, we both share the same essence of humanity, yet I am not you and you are not me.

SPEAKER_01:

That they are the same essence. To logically, it would only mean that God the Father was once a man.

SPEAKER_00:

We know God is infinite. God is forever. God is everlasting to everlasting. God is spirit, not flesh and blood, which is why the incarnation of Christ is so special. Brigham Young says, How many gods are there? I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not gods and worlds, and when men were not passing through the same ordeals that they that we are now going through. That course, that course has been from all eternity, and it is and will be to all eternity. You cannot comprehend this. When you can, it will be to you a matter of great cons consolation. So Brigham goes on to say it appears ridiculous to the world under their darkened and erroneous traditions that God has once been a finite being, and yet we are not in such close communion with him because he has passed on. Yes, you do. Again, reading from your own prophet, your founding prophet Joseph Smith himself. First, God Himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heavens, is a man like unto one of yourselves. That is the great secret. And Joseph Smith, time and time again in this discourse, by the way, tells them continually, I tell you the truth. And he says, and I will prove it to you from the Bible. And he continues. In other words, there was a time when God was not God. And Joseph Smith here is going to tell you how God became to be God. That is not God eternal. Joseph Smith continues. And there are some that this is incomprehensible to, but they are simple and the first principles of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, that we may converse with him as one man with another, and that God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ. And he will show up from the Bible. By the way, Joseph Smith's here here, he says, I wish I had a trumpet of the Archangel and I could tell the story in such a manner. He is telling his congregants, he's telling these sorry LDS people, these people who are caught up in the charisma of and the fables of Joseph Smith, and he's telling them what he believes is truth. So if your attempt at responding to this video is to say anything along the lines of, oh, but that's not LDS doctrine, when your own prophets, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, taught these doctrines again and again for years.

SPEAKER_01:

He became God in the same way that when Jesus Christ was born, he was already God. Jesus Christ didn't become God when he was born.

SPEAKER_00:

No, he didn't. Christ became man when he was born. See, again, you have it backwards.

SPEAKER_01:

He also didn't become God when he died.

SPEAKER_00:

Not according to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

SPEAKER_01:

So the criticism that we believe that God was once a man doesn't really make any sense unless you're willing to admit that you were also wrong by thinking since Jesus Christ was once a man, God was also once a man. Because I promise you there aren't any Mormons over here that believe God the Father was just one of us.

SPEAKER_00:

I just now read to you from your own prophets, two of your most important prophets of all of Mormon history, which is barely history at all, couple hundred years. And you're telling me, and even your listeners right here, I think it's fascinating. You put in a little caveat, right? The redefined text of what you put there. You said, except for those who were wrongly taught. Who, wrongly taught? Joseph Smith and Brigham Young's teachings? Those LDS who were wrongly taught. It is absolutely amazing to me that the LDS faith has been so successful in evolving and modifying its doctrines to be more palatable and fit into a more generally Christian audience, that people like this young woman are so utterly confused and don't even understand their own doctrines, let alone accurately describing true Christian doctrines such as Trinitarianism. It's absolutely astounding. And so I would encourage any and all of you, look for yourselves. These documents that I quoted from in this video, these are not from ex-Mormon websites. These are not, you know, anti-Mormon sources. This is directly online. One of them is the Joseph Smith Papers. Um, they've published pretty much everything he's got. And you also have BYU, has extensive um screenshots and scans of the Journal of Discourses. There's volume after volume of them. You can read Brigham Young and Joseph Smith yourself. Don't take my word for it. Go and double check this. The bottom line is that her understanding of her own faith, one, it's incorrect. And two, it is a clear indication that your general Mormon on the street, they don't know what Mormons have actually taught.

SPEAKER_01:

And he was exalted to be this God, created and not eternal.

SPEAKER_00:

And again, Joseph Smith, April 7th, in 1844. You have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done. Did you hear that? The same as all gods have done. This is mimicking what Brigham Young's going to go on to talk about. By going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory, as doth those who sit enthroned in everlasting power, joined heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it? To inherit the same glory, the same power and the same exaltation until you ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who are gone before. What did Jesus do? Why I do the things I saw my father do when the when the worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same. And when I get my kingdom, again, this is Joseph Smith. This is your prophet. And when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he obtains kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt his glory, so that Jesus treads in his tracks to inherit what God did before. It is plain beyond disputation, and you thus learn some of the first principles of the gospel. This is why the LDS faith is a cult. It is a cult of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and those that followed. It teaches a different gospel as Galatians warns us about. This is a gospel where you have the opportunity to be exalted as a God yourself, as Brigham Young pointed out, gods of gods of gods of gods of gods. And it's been going on for eternity, so that you will get your own planet and procreate spiritual children to your own planet, and you will be worshipped as God the Father is worshipped even now. Brothers and sisters, please do not be deceived. Flee the LDS faith. You can believe in Jesus Christ and the truth of his glorious life, death, and resurrection and ascension into heaven. Because the faith that Joseph Smith perverted was a faith that had already been around for 1800 years prior to his coming. And it still exists to this very day. Find an Orthodox church near you today. Christianity preserved for the past 2,000 years.