The Truth of God Doesn't Change

The Truth of God Doesn’t Change

The Truth of God has not changed since time began. God is the same yesterday, today and forever regardless of how people change and how hard they try to make God into their own image. When Joseph Smith started his religion in 1830 he was teaching of a God who is Spirit and of Jesus who is God who became a man…and that there is only one God - anywhere. We can still find this teaching in the Book of Mormon (Alma 11:26-40; 18:24-28), and in his Doctrine and Covenants of five years later (1835 ed.), but as his following grew, he started to change his doctrine of who God is, inventing a god who is like himself.

The Word of God had warned about coming prophets like Joseph Smith. “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or a wonder come to pass, therefore he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice, and ye shall serve Him, and cleave unto Him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God…So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.” (Deut. 13:1-5.) It was in 1839 that Joseph Smith started to speculate and lead people into different ideas about God. This could be what Paul was referring to when he wrote in Romans:1:21-23 [21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. [22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, [23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
See All..., “…when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man…”

Joseph Smith indeed changed his God to be like him, a “corruptible man." It took a few more years before he, in 1844, publicly declared his new doctrine of God, but just before he revealed it, he said, “Every man has a natural, and in our country, a constitutional right to be a false prophet, as well as a true prophet…," he continued, saying, “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.… We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil, so that you may see… you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves… same as all Gods have done before you…” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 344-346; emphasis added).

(H.I.S. Ministries February 2013 Newsletter, covering January 2013, Sandy, Utah, 2/1/13)