Misconceptions Explained

4 of the Most Frequently Misunderstood Questions of the LDS Church

THE QUESTIONS

Do Mormons Believe they are “Saved by Works” instead of “Saved by Grace”?

Do Mormons have a main goal of trying to become Gods themselves?

Are the Mormons “Adding to the Word” as John the Revelator says not to?

The Book of Mormon must be fictional because it can’t be proved by archeology?

THE ANSWERS

SAVED BY WORKS?
This is about what you hear over and over that Mormons believe they are “saved by works” rather than “saved by grace”.  I’ve been to many other mainstream Christian churches and watched the congregation as the pastor says something like (and this is a real quote):

“Brothers and sisters a man came up to me last week and said ‘pastor the old devil almost got me this week’.  And I told him, well
brother you must be misunderstanding, because the old devil CAN’T get you because you are a believer.  It doesn’t matter what you do.“

As usual, I watched as most of the congregation had that look on their face like “I hear you, but I’m not buying that 100%”.  Let’s face it, most Christians in their heart do NOT believe that they can go kill someone in cold blood and still “go to heaven” because they are “saved“.

In essence, the pastor was reiterating the doctrine of “once saved, always saved”.  This is the doctrine most mainstream Christian churches teach that once you accept Jesus and “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” you are “saved“: end of story.

To put it bluntly – this has to be the most un-scriptural doctrine ever taught by man.  To really believe this, you must only look at about 5% of the scriptures that have anything to do with this topic, and you must COMPLETELY IGNORE the other 95%, because the scriptures teach exactly the opposite.  Let me explain.

The foundation of this whole doctrine comes from Paul’s 2 famous statements to the Romans and Ephesians:

Romans 10:9 – “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.“

Ephesians 2:8-9 - “(8) For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works lest any man should boast.“

Somehow we’ve taken all that God has taught, everything He has ever said, and whittled it down to 2 easy steps.  No more need for commandments, obeying doctrine, or doing anything else He taught us because these 2 steps take care of it all forever.  Many people will recognize the following.  It is called “the sinner’s prayer”.  According to mainstream Christian doctrine, say this prayer with conviction and believe, and you are saved forever, no matter what.

The Sinner’s Prayer
“Dear Father God in heaven, I come to you in the name of Jesus. I acknowledge to You that I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins and the life that I have lived; I need your forgiveness.
I believe that your only begotten Son Jesus Christ shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to turn from my sin.
You said in Your Holy Word, Romans 10:9 that if we confess the Lord our God and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved.
Right now I confess Jesus as the Lord of my soul. With my heart, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved.”

That’s it.  The doctrine says that no matter what happens from here you’re destined to be eternally happy with God in Heaven.

Let’s dig a little deeper.  First, since Paul’s writings are the foundation of this doctrine, what else did he say regarding this topic?  We could take up pages and pages (but we won’t here) just on this one topic, but I’ll just cover the most obvious ones.

Before we do that, we need to note something as a caution.  Paul’s writings are by far the largest foundation for this doctrine.  You don’t find other apostles teaching the things that Paul did on this as the scriptures noted above.  Let’s look at something Peter said.

2 Peter 3:16 – “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
Did you know that Paul wrote 53% of the books of the New Testament?  And Peter is saying that some of his writings are “hard to understand“.  No wonder there are so many doctrines by so many churches resulting from his writings.

What about those scriptures above by Paul? What if we read the entire verse in context rather than just the piece that suits us?

Paul
Ephesians 2:8-9 - “(8) For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works lest any man should boast. (10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”“  -  So in no way is this scripture removing “works” from the equation.  Paul is clarifying that we are “saved by grace”, but including good works that “we should walk in them”.

Galatians 5: 19-21 – Background: Paul is speaking to the members of Christ’s Church (the Galatians that had already joined).  Keep in mind, he’s speaking to the people that had already been “saved” according to Protestant Christian doctrine.

“(19) Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, (20) Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, (21) Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

So Paul is saying that IF the members of the Church (the saved ones) participated in these activities, “they shall not inherit the kingdom of God“.  But I thought they were already “saved“?

James
There is a reason Martin Luther called James the “Straw Epistle”.  It’s because it didn’t fit with his teachings.  This is because it went against his teaching about being “saved by grace without works”.

James 2:14 – “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?

James 2:17 - Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  (18) Yea, a man may say, thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

James 2:19 - Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.  (20) But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

James 2:24 – Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

James 2:26 – For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

If this isn’t the best example of an apostle (James) clarifying the “hard to understand” parts of Paul’s writings I don’t know what is.  By this we know that the “saved by faith only” doctrine had gotten out of hand in the early Church as well.

John
1 John 2:3-4 – “(3) And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. (4) He that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.“

Paul
1 Cor. 15:1-2 – And last but definitely not least (although there are MANY more), the clearest of them all.
Paul says in Corinthians that you can actually “believe in vain”, meaning to no avail. Here’s the scripture:
1) “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;”
2) “By which also ye are saved, IF ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”

Mormons believe that they ARE “saved by grace, after all we can do“.  Meaning that they MUST be “doers of the word, and not hearers only“.  Imagine that, actually doing what he taught instead of just talking about it.  Ask anyone that has really known Mormons, they will tell you that they are some of the most committed people to their religion of anyone they’ve ever met.  Studies even show this over and over.  It’s because they actually believe in following Him enough to do it.  Jesus said it best: “By their fruits ye shall know them“.

MORMONS BECOMING GODS?
OK let’s cut this one down to what it really is.  Does ANY other church have ANY doctrine around what we, as God’s children, will be doing forever and ever and ever for eternity after we die?  I mean beyond the usual “we will be with God and be happy forever“?  The answer I’ve always found is a resounding “NO”.  So, what’s happening is that all those churches with NO doctrine around this are complaining about what the Mormons may believe around it.  Of course it sounds foreign to them – that’s a doctrine about 1 billion light years beyond any doctrine they have ever come up with.  So it’s like arguing about the most advanced Spanish grammar with someone that doesn’t even speak Spanish.  What’s the use?  But let’s couch this doctrine for what it really is.  I call this an elaboratory doctrine.  This doctrine is not mainstream doctrine of the LDS Church.  It is a “resulting” doctrine of the basic principles.  Meaning that if A=5 and B=10, we can elaborate that A+B=15.  Look hard and you won’t find much surrounding this doctrine except the basic principle of “Eternal Progression”.  Whatever “Eternal Progression” means, everything around it is beyond what any church in the world teaches.

The answer is in the fact that in one religion there is no more revelation (stopped with the end of the New Testament writings), and the other religion has continuing revelation even today.  If revelation was supposed to stop with the bible, don’t you think that doctrine would be in the bible.  I can’t think of a more important topic for the world, can you?  Funny the apostles didn’t mention it.

ARE MORMONS “ADDING TO THE WORD” AS JOHN THE REVELATOR SAID NOT TO DO?
I believe there has not been a more self-serving, deceitful doctrine ever declared.  No minister, clergyman, televangelist, or Pope can declare this doctrine unless he is deceiving people, and knows it.  It is fact, proven, obvious, plain to see to ANYONE that John NEVER meant such a thing.  ANYONE who says otherwise is a liar.

John was NOT talking about the cannon of the bible when he wrote this.

PROOF:
Here’s the famous scripture:

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.“

1st – This was not the last book written in the New Testament.  John wrote other books after Revelations (i.e. 1 John).
2nd - This book was placed at the end of the cannon of New Testament scripture by the group that put the cannon together.  This was a group of bishops from the Roman Catholic Church.  Now if the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t even believe that it means the cannon of valid scripture is CLOSED, then how can anyone else (the Catholic Church added the apocryphal books to the list of valid scriptures in 1546)?  THEY’RE the ones that put Revelations at the end of the New Testament in the first place.
3rd – If you believe that this scripture really means the cannon is closed from there, you should read Deuteronomy 4:2.  If you do, you’ll have to throw away every Old Testament AND New Testament scripture that comes after that one, because it says the same thing.
4th - Last but definitely not least, do you really want to know what “Book” this scripture is talking about?  Well here it is from the mouth of the Lord Himself:

Revelations 1:11 “Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”

Now, I ask you, what book did John write and send to those churches?  The clear, undisputable answer is the Book of Revelations.  That is the “this book” the quote says not to add anything to.

Think about the impact of this doctrine.  Satan has essentially “shut God’s mouth” to the world.  Why?  Because even if God wanted to speak something to Protestant Christianity, He couldn’t.  Because almost 100% of Protestant Christian Churches will NOT accept ANYTHING that is not already in the Bible.  I believe this is one of Satan’s greatest achievements. He has made it so this doctrine ensures no one will listen to God anymore. Only what the apostles wrote down in a 70-year period counts until the end of the world.

Are There any Evidences of the Book of Mormon?
This question comes from those who say the Book of Mormon is not true because it can’t be proven by archeological evidence.  In fact, they say that since they can’t find any evidence that the cities or specific people cited in the Book of Mormon existed, it must be fictional.  I’ll explain why this is erroneous thinking.

First of all – let me ask a question: When has God EVER been interested in proving anything to the world.  In fact, does He not do the contrary?  Probably the clearest example of this is evolution.  Why would God allow so many things to fall into place to make it look so much like humans evolved from apes?  You can’t argue with the fact that there is much scientific evidence to support this.  This is why most of the scientific community believes in macro-evolution, even many religious scientists.  The data is there.  For example, why do we have evidence of people living long before Adam was supposedly on the earth?  Go the the scientific evidence and it is clear that human or human-like habitations existed before this.  It’s almost like God was putting these things in place to make it easy to believe in evolution.  If He didn’t want it to be this way, why did He put these things in place like He did?

What about Noah’s Ark?  Can we find ANY evidence that EVERYTHING on earth (except 8 people and a bunch of animals) died within a short period of time?  The answer is a resounding “no”.  Shouldn’t it be obvious scientifically if this happened?  AND, how did all of the millions of species grow in about 4,000 years from everything Noah could fit on 1 boat?  Talk to a scientist about the plausibility of that one.

THEN – there’s the exodus.  2 million Hebrews & others wandered in the desert for 40 years, not even covering that much territory.  We know where they wandered.  We know how they went.  BUT we cannot find 1 single shred of evidence that these 2 million people were there.  Don’t you think if that many people wandered this way we could find SOMETHING?  Well, we can’t.

And for those of you that speak of Joseph Smith and his Gold Plates being a cooky story?  OK, let’s talk about Moses and the Ark of the Covenant.  This was a gold plated chest that housed the broken tablets of the 10 Commandments.  It had special powers as to levitate itself and those around it.  It incinerated people who touched it.  It defeated the armies that tried to stand against Israel.  All of these wonderful things.  But why don’t we have it today?  Why is there not one shred of physical evidence that it ever existed except for what we read in the bible?  Sounds a little familiar to me.  This is the way God works.  Very many parallels between the way God dealt with Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel and the way he dealt with other prophets in history.

Now – the question – Does this mean that any of this is NOT true?  Of course it doesn’t.  God reveals things and brings “proof” to the world in His own time and in His own way.  You can’t live a double standard.  If you say the Book of Mormon is not true because you can’t prove it, then all other scripture goes down the toilet at the same time.

God is not in the “proving” business.  He is in the “Faith” business.  Proof = sure knowledge.  Belief without proof = Faith.  If you’re looking for scientific evidence to prove religion to yourself, you’re going to the wrong source.  Only God can manifest the truth of anything to you.