Our ultimate authority is God. But how can we know what God is like and what he wants? Both Latter-day Saints and traditional Christians agree that God has revealed himself in written scriptures. But the similarities end there. Let’s take a look at what Mormonism teaches about scripture and revelation compared to the biblical perspective.

A SUFFICIENT BIBLE?

The LDS Church recognizes four standard scriptures: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price (which includes the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham). As one of four volumes of scripture, then, the Bible alone is not enough for Latter-day Saints. In fact, in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 29:10), God describes how more scripture, beyond the Bible, is needed: “Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.”

For traditional Christians, however, the Bible stands alone. The early Christian church went through an extensive process to discern what writings had the features that validated them as being from God. Many books claiming divine authority did not make the cut. And unlike other books that claim to be scripture, the Bible is well supported by the external evidence of history and archaeology, as well as its internal consistency over thousands of years.

Christians recognize that Jesus, not any book, is God’s final revelation of himself to humanity. Hebrews 1:1 declares, “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.” Jesus himself is the highest revelation of God. Yet the Bible is the source by which we know Jesus. It tells us the history of God’s action leading up to his coming. It reveals his life and work. It explains his message and describes how it spread. It details how his people learned to follow him in the practical issues of life. 

A CORRUPTED BIBLE?

Mormons revere the Bible. Yet paradoxically, they also believe that the Bible cannot ultimately be trusted. The Bible Dictionary published by the LDS Church says:

Joseph Smith taught that ‘many important points touching the salvation of men, had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled.’ He also said that the Bible was correct as ‘it came from the pen of the original writers,’ but that ‘ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.’

This explains one reason why the Bible is not the final authority for Mormons. They believe it has been changed over time. Errors have crept in. Thus, the Bible can only be understood in light of LDS scriptures and modern prophets. In fact, Joseph Smith undertook a major revision of the Bible called the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), in which he attempted to correct the errors he believed had corrupted the Bible. (For various reasons, the JST is not the official Bible of the LDS Church. Instead, they use the King James Version.) 

By contrast, historic Christianity holds that the Bible has been divinely safeguarded. Latter-day Saints cannot provide any specific example of a text in the Bible where an important truth has been lost, or where intentional corruption has occurred. To the contrary, an abundance of evidence points to the remarkable preservation of the biblical text. 

Consider the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the 1940s. One of the scrolls is a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah dating to about 200 BC. Before this discovery, the oldest copy of Isaiah was written in the 10th century, over 1,000 years later. When compared, these two documents proved to be amazingly similar. This undermines LDS claims of intentional or unintentional corruption, demonstrating how sophisticated and successful were the copying methods used to accurately transmit the biblical text.

CONTINUING REVELATION?

The LDS view of scripture and revelation diverges from historic Christianity in another important respect. Mormons believe that their church is led by modern day prophets who continue to receive direct revelation from God. One of their recent prophets, Spencer W. Kimball, said, “But again we testify to the world that revelation continues and that the vaults and files of the Church contain these revelations which come month to month and day to day.” For example, consider one important example from Kimball’s own tenure as the LDS prophet. From the early years of Mormonism, Black men were not allowed to receive the LDS priesthood. In 1978, Kimball received a revelation changing this policy. 

While most of the revelations received by LDS prophets are not added to the LDS standard scriptures, a few have been and others might yet be. In the Pearl of Great Price, we read, “We believe that [God] will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”

The Bible never really claims that God will not or cannot ever reveal himself again in formal scripture. Yet we saw in Hebrews 1:1 that the coming of Jesus rendered the old approach to prophetic revelation obsolete: “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.” This verse describes two eras of revelation. God revealed himself in the “long ago” era partially and sporadically through prophets. Now, “in these final days,” God has revealed himself through Jesus, the ultimate prophet. Why would we want to go back to an imperfect form of revelation that marked a bygone era, when we now have something greater?

The Bible also makes it clear that any claims of new revelation must be tested against what God has previously revealed. Deuteronomy 13:1-3 outlines the standard: 

Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come, let us worship other gods’—gods you have not known before— do not listen to them.

Anything a prophet says that leads in a new direction is illegitimate. It doesn’t even matter if the prophet demonstrates supernatural power. If his words lead to a new conception of God previously unknown, that prophet and his teaching must be rejected.

If we want to know God’s character and will, the Bible is perfectly reliable and complete. The additional scriptures and revelations of Mormonism fail the test in many ways, including leading people in a very different direction from what God has already revealed.

What does it mean to be human? What kind of beings are we, and how do we relate to God and everything God made? While Latter-day Saints use many words and phrases familiar to traditional Christianity, the underlying world view of Mormonism is very different from historic, biblical Christian faith. This is seen most dramatically when comparing what the two groups believe about the nature of God and the nature of human beings.

Life Before Birth?

Latter-day Saints believe that all human beings are eternal spirits. We existed before this earthly life as God’s spirit children. In fact, they believe that human beings are uncreated and co-eternal with God. As the LDS scripture Doctrine and Covenants says, “Man was also in the beginning with God” (93:29). In this view, human beings are not dependent on God for their ultimate existence. As premortal spirits, humans are seen as literal sons and daughters of heavenly parents. In the Pearl of Great Price (Abraham 3:22) we read, “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones.” Apparently God provided these primordial “intelligences” with spirit bodies in the premortal life.

The Bible teaches, however, that human life and existence begins in this world. Genesis 2:7 states, “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” When God made Adam, he did not place an already existing personal spirit into a physical body. Instead, he animated that body with the breath of life. The man’s personal existence as a living being began at that moment.

Literal Offspring of God?

When Mormons say that human spirits were created by God, they mean that we actually became God’s spirit children in the spirit world, before our birth. The LDS instruction manual Gospel Principles says:

All men and women are literally the sons and daughters of God. ‘Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth…’”

To Latter-day Saints, we are related to God in a similar way that children are related to their earthly parents. Hence we were not simply created by God, but “begotten and born” by our heavenly parents (God the Father and his spouse) – although LDS scriptures and prophets have not made explicit exactly how this works.

By contrast, the Bible teaches that being a child of God is not a genetic relationship, but a spiritual one. Human beings become children of God by faith. John 1:12-13 says, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.” In other words, only those who trust in Jesus alone as Savior can join God’s eternal family and become children of God. Romans 8:14-16 puts it like this:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

Anyone can become a child of God by adoption, when we receive His Spirit at the point of spiritual conversion. That happens in this life, not in some premortal existence.

The Same Kind of Being as God?

If people are literal children of God, it follows that we are of the same species as God. The LDS Church website, in an article called “Becoming Like God,” states:

Latter-day Saints see all people as children of God in a full and complete sense; they consider every person divine in origin, nature, and potential. Each has an eternal core and is ‘a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.’

In Mormon thought, human beings are just as “divine in origin, nature, and potential” as God himself is.

The biblical view of humanity is vastly different. The Bible teaches that humans are finite creatures, not potential deities. Psalm 8:4-5 says, “What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.” It’s true that human beings are amazing creatures. Made in the image of God, we bear tremendous glory. We reflect God in important ways. But we are creatures – “mere mortals” who are, in fact, “lower than God.”

God is not an exalted man, and we do not have a divine nature or divine potential. God and humans are two completely different kinds of beings. God is infinite and self-existent. We are finite and dependent on God for our existence.

Can You Become a God?

As this entire article has implied, Mormons believe that humans can become powerful beings that create, populate, and rule worlds just as God did. Gospel Fundamentals, a manual for LDS high school students, describes it like this:

To live in the highest part of the celestial kingdom is called exaltation or eternal life. To be able to live in this part of the celestial kingdom, people must have been married in the temple and must have kept the sacred promises they made in the temple. They will receive everything our Father in Heaven has and will become like Him. They will even be able to have spirit children and make new worlds for them to live on, and do all the things our Father in Heaven has done.”

Sometimes LDS rhetoric softens the implications of this belief by saying that we can become “like” God. They clearly mean, however, that humans (if worthy) are capable of doing “all the things our Father in Heaven has done.” As Joseph Smith declared in the King Follett Discourse: “You have got to learn how to be a god yourself.”

Yet in the Bible’s view, human beings – although made in God’s image – are fallen and spiritually lost. Not only are we finite creatures, but we are sinners in desperate need of God’s mercy to save us. Romans 3:10-11 declares, “As the Scriptures say, ‘No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.’” Verse 23 adds, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” This more realistic view of human nature is hard to reconcile with the Latter-day Saint idea of divine potential.

One of the biggest questions religion seeks to answer is: “How can a person be right with God?” This is the question of salvation. As we consider what Mormonism teaches about salvation in comparison to historic, biblical Christianity, remember what is at stake: a person’s eternal destiny.

Two Kinds of Salvation?

In Mormonism, immortality means that every human being will be resurrected to life after death. LDS apostle Russell M. Nelson taught, “To be saved—or to gain salvation—means to be saved from physical and spiritual death. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, all people will be resurrected and saved from physical death.” This promise applies to all people regardless of what they believe or how they live. The LDS Gospel Principles manual says, “Because of His Atonement, everyone born on this earth will be resurrected…. This condition is called immortality.”

Exaltation, on the other hand, is limited to those who fulfill a rigorous set of requirements, who will thus attain the highest level of heaven. In his address, Russell Nelson continued:

People may also be saved from individual spiritual death through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, by their faith in Him, by living in obedience to the laws and ordinances of His gospel, and by serving Him. To be exalted—or to gain exaltation—refers to the highest state of happiness and glory in the celestial realm.

Only the most worthy Latter-day Saints – those who keep all their covenants and complete all the required ordinances – will qualify for exaltation. Thus Mormonism blends universalism and exclusivism. One on level, all people are saved. But only the elite are exalted.

By contrast to this, the Bible envisions only one salvation. This salvation has many elements: forgiveness of sins, regeneration to a new life, reconciliation with God, adoption into God’s family, a glorious future resurrection, and more. But the Bible never suggests different kinds of salvation, based on different requirements, for different kinds of people. Jesus said, in Matthew 7:13-14: 

You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

Only one gateway leads to salvation. As we will see, the few who find it are not those who work the hardest to be worthy.

Is God’s Grace Enough?

Latter-day Saints value God’s grace. But they believe people are saved – in the highest sense – by God’s grace plus their own good works. The Book of Mormon outlines this in 2 Nephi 25:23:

For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

According to this, people are saved by grace, but not by grace alone. Grace only takes effect “after all we can do.” The Pearl of Grace Price makes this clear (Articles of Faith 3): “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” In other words, Jesus’ atoning work is a necessary precondition for salvation, but it does not actually save anyone from their sins unless they live the right kind of life. Grace merely gives Mormons the opportunity to add the needed good works to obtain forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God.

However, the Bible teaches that grace is the unconditional gift of God to meet our needs. We can be right with God by his grace alone, not by the addition of any good works. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Because our sin renders us incapable of proving ourselves worthy, eternal life in God’s presence cannot be based on our good works. It can only be a free gift of God. The only basis for our salvation is Jesus’ death on the cross, where he paid the full penalty for our sin.

The very nature of grace makes it impossible for salvation to be a combination of grace and works. Romans 11:16 explains, “And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.” Grace and works are mutually exclusive. As soon as you add an element of good works to the equation, you lose grace. Think about the nature of gift. If you pay even a small amount for something, it is not a gift, but a purchase.

True salvation is a divine act that makes a person new. So while obedience cannot earn our salvation, it is the natural outcome of being saved, as Ephesians 2:8-10 explain:

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

This passage doesn’t fit with the LDS concepts of immortality or of exaltation, because salvation requires faith, but it is “not a reward.” Once we are saved by grace, through faith, we become new creations who begin to do good things – not as the reason for our salvation, but as the result of it.

A Second Chance After Death?

Finally, Latter-day Saints believe that a person can receive salvation after they have died. In a manual for LDS college students called Introduction to Family History, we read:

Between the death and the resurrection of the physical body, the spirit lives in the spirit world and has the opportunity to continue to progress toward perfection. Jesus Christ initiated the preaching of the gospel to those in spirit prison. Many in the spirit world anxiously await the blessings of gospel ordinances.

Certain ordinances are required for exaltation, including baptism, temple initiation, and temple marriage. Mormons perform these acts to secure their own exaltation. They also perform them by proxy for people who have died without the opportunity to do so, in hopes that those people will convert to Mormonism in the spirit world and accept the ordinances done on their behalf.

Yet the Bible teaches that this life is the appointed time to get right with God. Hebrews 9:27 says, “…each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment…” This means our eternal destiny is fixed at death. This is why biblical Christians are eager to help our friends and family understand the wonderful grace of God in Jesus Christ. Our sins can be forgiven and we can have eternal life with God based on what Jesus did for us, not because of any good or worthy deeds we do. But we only have this life to place our faith in him.

What happens after this life is over?  This topic builds on everything we have looked at in the first four lessons of this series to explore what Mormonism teaches about what happens after death, compared to traditional Christian beliefs.

Does Everyone Go to Heaven?

The LDS Church teaches that there are three levels of heaven, along with another place called “outer darkness.” As the LDS manual Gospel Fundamentals puts it:

Each of us will be assigned to one of four places, according to how faithful to Jesus Christ we were. We will go to the kingdom we have prepared for by the choices we have made. These four places are the celestial kingdom, the terrestrial kingdom, the telestial kingdom, and outer darkness.

The celestial kingdom is where God the Father lives. It is reserved for only the most worthy Latter-day Saints who lived up to all the laws and ordinances of the LDS gospel. The terrestrial kingdom is the eternal destination for honorable people who never joined Mormonism or for Latter-day Saints who did not fulfill all the requirements for exaltation. The telestial kingdom will be populated by those who followed the beliefs of the world instead of Jesus, including thieves, murderers, adulterers, and false prophets. Outer darkness is reserved for Satan and his demons. According to the Gospel Principles manual, only a very few people will be sent there – those who knew the truth and the power of God but denied him.

By contrast, the Bible talks about only two destinations after this life: heaven and hell. Jesus outlined these two alternatives  in John 3:36: “Anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment.” In John 5:24, he added, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” Thus every human being faces one of these two eternal futures: destruction or life; eternal punishment or eternal joy in God’s presence. 

Is Heaven About Becoming a God?

Mormons believe that the celestial kingdom has three degrees of glory within it. Those in the highest level can progress eternally toward godhood. Gospel Principles says, “Those who inherit the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, who become gods, must have been married for eternity in the temple…” One LDS definition of “damnation” is “cessation of progress.” In the lower levels of heaven, people are “damned” because only if they had made it to the celestial kingdom could they have progressed toward deity. 

As seen in a previous lesson, human beings cannot become gods. But consider also that according to the Bible, the focus in heaven is not on us and our progression, but on our relationship with God. The presence of God is what makes heaven amazing. Revelation 21:3-5 describes what heaven is like:

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” 

The hope of heaven is God’s presence with his people. Christians look forward to the healing of all sorrow and pain, and the renewal of all things. But this only occurs because “God himself will be with them.” Revelation 21:22-23 builds on this picture:

I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.

The surpassing glory of heaven is that God the Father and Jesus Christ are there. Everything revolves around them – not around us.

Do Families Last Forever?

One doctrine unique to Mormonism is the belief that “families are forever” – at least for those in the celestial kingdom. The LDS publication The Family: A Proclamation to the World explains:

The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”

Not only can families be united eternally, the family is the basic unit of exaltation. Without being united to a family for eternity, a person cannot achieve godhood or fulfill the prerogatives of deity. 

While forever families may seem appealing, the Bible presents an even better scenario. In Christ, we become part of God’s eternal family. The Bible often portrays Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus himself said (Mark 3:33-35), “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?… Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Revelation 19 shows God’s people together as a bride prepared for Jesus. In other words, earthly families will be superseded by a perfect, glorious relationship with God. 

For Christians, the focus of eternity is not on our families, our achievements, or our exaltation. The focus is on God, his family, and his exaltation.