WIFE OF GOD? A Contrast between Christianity and Mormonism
Does God have a wife? How you answer this reveals what kind of God you believe in. It also demonstrates how wide is the divide between historic biblical Christianity and that of Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).
The accepted teaching of Mormonism is that God the Father has a physical body and a wife in heaven (heavenly mother) and it is through procreation with this wife (and possibly other wives in heaven) that all of humanity is created spiritually. If someone were to ask a Mormon, ‘Does God have a wife?’ the answer would be ‘Yes, of course he does.’ (This easily demonstrated through looking at standard work of Mormon teaching. I was reminded of this recently in a conversation I had with a Mormon family here in Illinois).
The accepted teaching of historic, biblical Christianity is that God is spirit and has no physical wife in heaven. This one God—who has always existed; who exists in 3 persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)—does not have a physical wife. Humans are created by God, not through sex with a physical wife, but by God’s creative act (Genesis 1). We are made in God’s image. Humans marry each other, but human marriage is temporary and there is no marriage in heaven (Matt 22:30).
Though God does not have a physical wife, the Bible does use the analogy of marriage to speak of God’s relationship with his people. God is the groom and His people are the bride, redeemed and made beautiful by God’s grace. There is an unimaginable intimacy, closeness, and commitment we have with God, that human marriage is only a picture of. This means that in one sense, a Christian would say yes, God does have a wife, but not in the way that Mormonism or the Roman gods did. God is committed to His people and loves them with love even greater than the greatest human love within a marriage.
