When the Gospel Needs to Be Restored

There is a point in any serious discussion about Mormonism when the conversation has to move beyond Joseph Smith, church history, priesthood authority, temple ceremonies, and competing claims about which institution possesses the proper authority. Eventually, all of those questions have to give way to something much more fundamental: Who is Jesus Christ, and is the gospel taught by Mormonism the same gospel that Jesus Christ and His apostles preached?

From a Christian perspective, that is where the examination should begin.

This is not an argument against Mormon people. Many Mormons are sincere, moral, hardworking, devoted to their families, and genuinely convinced that they are following God. There is no reason to question the sincerity of every person who belongs to the Mormon church. Sincerity, however, is not a test of truth. A person can sincerely believe something that is not true, which means that religious claims have to be examined by something more reliable than personal conviction.

For Christians, that standard is Scripture.

The most important place to begin is therefore not with Joseph Smith but with Jesus Christ. Everything depends upon who Jesus is. If Mormonism and historic Christianity have fundamentally different understandings of Christ, then the disagreement is not about minor denominational differences. It concerns the very foundation of the Christian faith.

John's Gospel begins by taking us back beyond Bethlehem and beyond the creation itself, declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John then tells us that this Word “was made flesh.” The Jesus revealed in these words is not a created being who eventually progressed into godhood. He is the eternal Word who was with God and was God.

Jesus made an equally profound claim when He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” His audience understood what He was claiming, which is why they attempted to stone Him. After the resurrection, Thomas saw the risen Christ and responded, “My Lord and my God.” These passages establish something that cannot simply be pushed aside as a secondary theological disagreement: the Christ of the New Testament is divine in a way that is fundamentally different from the Mormon concept of God and humanity.

That difference becomes even more important when we examine salvation.

The New Testament consistently directs the sinner toward Jesus Christ and His finished work rather than toward a modern prophet or an institution through which a person must obtain additional saving authority. Paul told the Ephesians that salvation is “by grace through faith” and described it as “the gift of God.” When the Philippian jailer asked what he needed to do to be saved, Paul and Silas answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

That does not mean the Christian life has no place for obedience, holiness, or good works. Scripture plainly teaches otherwise. The issue is the foundation upon which salvation rests. Christianity places that foundation in Jesus Christ rather than in a later restoration of priesthood authority and religious ordinances.

This brings us to one of the central claims of Mormonism: the idea that the original Church of Jesus Christ disappeared through a great apostasy and that its authority and gospel eventually had to be restored through Joseph Smith.

That claim deserves to be examined carefully because it carries an enormous implication. If Christ's original Church completely disappeared from the earth, then the Church Christ established ultimately failed to continue as He promised.

Yet Jesus said, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Christians should certainly acknowledge the failures of Christianity throughout history. Churches have been corrupted by politics, greed, pride, ambition, false teaching, and the sins of the people within them. Christians have sometimes behaved in ways that have brought shame upon the name of Christ. None of that should be denied.

But there is a difference between saying that Christ's followers have repeatedly failed Him and saying that Christ's Church disappeared completely for centuries.

Human corruption does not prove divine abandonment.

The New Testament itself warns Christians that false teachers would arise and that churches would struggle with division and sin. Those warnings actually demonstrate that Christ knew His followers would have problems. The existence of those problems does not establish that Christianity ceased to exist and needed to be reconstructed by a nineteenth-century prophet.

Then there is the question of revelation.

Mormonism ultimately rests upon the claim that Joseph Smith received heavenly revelations, including revelations associated with an angelic messenger. But the New Testament gives Christians a principle that should cause every such claim to be examined carefully. Paul told the Galatians that even if “an angel from heaven” preached another gospel, that message was not to be accepted.

That is a remarkable warning because it means that an angelic claim does not automatically establish the truth of a message.

The message itself must be tested.

Therefore, the Christian does not need to begin by arguing over whether Joseph Smith sincerely believed his revelations. That is a separate question. The more important question is whether the message attributed to those revelations agrees with what Jesus Christ and His apostles already taught.

If a later revelation changes the nature of God, changes the identity of Christ, changes the gospel of salvation, or introduces doctrines that cannot be reconciled with the apostolic message, then Christians have every biblical reason to reject that later teaching, regardless of the supernatural claims surrounding it.

This is why someone examining Mormonism should not simply trade one religious authority for another. The answer is not to say, “My denomination says Mormonism is wrong, so believe me.” That would merely replace one appeal to authority with another.

Instead, open the Bible.

Examine what Scripture says about God. Examine what it says about Jesus Christ. Examine what it says about salvation. Examine what it says about the Church. Then compare those teachings honestly with Mormon doctrine.

That approach removes personalities from the center of the discussion and puts the claims themselves on trial.

The question should not be whether Mormonism agrees with Catholicism, Baptist theology, Methodist theology, Presbyterian theology, or some other Christian tradition. Christians themselves disagree about many secondary matters. The more important question is whether Mormonism agrees with the teachings of Christ and His apostles as they are recorded in the New Testament.

If a person reaches the conclusion that Mormonism teaches a fundamentally different understanding of God, a fundamentally different understanding of Christ, and a fundamentally different gospel, then leaving Mormonism does not necessarily mean abandoning faith in God.

It can mean the opposite.

It can mean deciding that loyalty to an institution must never become more important than loyalty to Christ. It can mean examining beliefs that have been accepted since childhood and having the courage to ask whether they are actually supported by Scripture. It can mean recognizing that family tradition, religious culture, personal testimony, and institutional authority cannot substitute for truth.

That decision can be extraordinarily difficult. Religious belief is often connected to family, friendships, marriage, community, identity, and an entire way of life. Leaving a religious institution can therefore feel like losing much more than a set of doctrines.

But truth cannot be determined by how difficult it is to accept.

If Jesus Christ truly is who the New Testament says He is, then His authority must come before every prophet who came after Him. His gospel must come before every later religious system. His apostles' teaching must be tested against every subsequent claim of revelation.

That is why the Christian argument against Mormonism should ultimately be an argument for Christ, not merely an argument against Joseph Smith.

The goal should not be to make a Mormon hate Mormonism. The goal should be to encourage that person to examine the claims honestly and discover whether the Christ being proclaimed is the Christ revealed in Scripture and whether the gospel being offered is the gospel preached by the apostles.

Paul's warning in Galatians leaves little room for complacency. If even an angel were to preach another gospel, Christians were instructed to reject that message. The warning applies precisely because religious claims can sound convincing while still being wrong.

So the most important question is not whether Joseph Smith was persuasive, whether Mormon families are good people, or whether Mormonism has produced admirable communities. Those questions do not settle the theological issue.

The question is much more important:

Is the gospel taught by Mormonism the gospel Jesus Christ and His apostles preached, or is it a later gospel built upon the claim that the original Church and gospel were lost and had to be restored?

For someone who has become convinced that Mormonism teaches a different God, a different Christ, and a different gospel, leaving Mormonism is not necessarily walking away from Christianity.

It may be the beginning of walking more closely toward Christ.

And that is ultimately where the discussion belongs.