How Mormonism Denies the Gospel
Contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Bible
Introduction:
A few weeks ago, we analyzed the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult and provided a few potent arguments to help you refute them in your conversations. This week we’re shifting focus to another “Christian” cult officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka., Mormons). Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons use a lot of “Christianese” in their teachings and materials, so it is easy for someone not familiar with their teachings to mistake them for simply another denomination. However, as we will see throughout this post, the LDS “church”1 is far from any sort of orthodoxy.
Key Beliefs and Background:
Core Mormon doctrine, while just as erroneous as that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, is completely unique in its tenets and origin. The story begins in 1820, where 14 year old Joseph Smith Jr. was conflicted about which church to join in his community in New York as the present denominations opposed one another. Searching for an answer on which denomination was the true one, Smith traveled into the forest to find answers where two personages appeared, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They told Smith that none of the churches were true and “...that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt…” Instead, Smith was to create his own church, the “one true church” to restore the original church founded by Jesus, which was corrupted and lost. And so Smith did exactly that in 1830, officially starting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
A core error in Mormonism’s theology is their polytheism. While Mormons will tell you they only worship one god (which in reality are three gods), a little digging shows that Mormons mislead people into thinking they are monotheistic when in reality they are not. The founding “prophet” Joseph Smith said in his most famous sermon, the King Follett Discourse:
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...Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you…
So not only are they polytheistic, but they reject the eternality of God. The “god” Mormons worship is just one of many, a potentially infinite amount, and devout Mormon men can become gods of their own planets one day. There are plenty of other appalling beliefs Mormons hold, and I recommend exploring their resources and other outside resources to learn more.
The Book of Mormon:
Instead of meddling with the text of Scripture as the JWs do, Mormons simply add a book: the Book of Mormon.2 The Book of Mormon is essentially a third testament to the Bible and contains stories that take place during the Old Testament till after Christ’s resurrection. The LDS church considers the Book of Mormon to be Scripture, just as much as the Old and New Testaments. Mormons believe the Book of Mormon was translated from ancient Egyptian into English in 1829 when Joseph Smith translated the text under divine inspiration after he found the text written in buried golden tablets. There are many issues with this story, one of the main ones being that it would have been impossible for Smith to have translated the ancient text. Not only is it preposterous to suggest that ancient Israelites recorded their history in the language of their enemies, but it is important to note that ancient Egyptian had just been translated from the Rosetta Stone in 1822 in Britain, so it is highly unlikely that Smith had such knowledge to translate the golden tablets.
Mormons also have a fundamentally different view of salvation, a works-based system. There are two passages which clearly demonstrate Mormonism’s rejection of the biblical Gospel, and blatantly contradict Scripture. Keep in mind, though, that Mormons will always fall back to their preprogrammed response when confronted with these inconsistencies: that the Scriptures have been corrupted. While that is a convenient cop-out, Mormons give no standard as to what a correctly translated Bible contains when they say “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly…” (Articles of Faith 1:8). Furthermore, Jesus said quite plainly, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
2 Nephi 25/Ephesians 2:
The first passage to examine is found in 2 Nephi, which is the second book within the Book of Mormon. For context, 2 Nephi was supposedly written around 570 B.C. and continues the events in 1 Nephi, a story about Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem and journeying to the promised land, that being what is now known as the United States. In 2 Nephi 25, a presentation of the gospel is given in great detail. About “600 years” before the gospel is recorded in the New Testament, Nephi refers to Jesus by name and describes how the savior will be crucified, buried, and resurrected. The passage in verse 23 presents a blatant contradiction to the gospel message:
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. (2 Nephi 25:23; Book of Mormon)
If this passage sounds familiar somehow, it should. The apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Ephesus writes similarly in chapter 2:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9; ESV)
Many Christians use Ephesians 2:8-9 when teaching about justification through faith alone, and it explicitly excludes our works from being a contributing factor in salvation. However, as we see in 2 Nephi, the writer of the text (who Mormons claim to be the prophet Nephi) uses very similar language as Paul to completely contradict the apostle. According to Nephi, we are saved by grace only after all we can do. So our good works contribute to our salvation, and God’s grace will cover the rest. So then, the question presents itself: If Nephi and Paul are both inspired by God, is God lying/contradicting himself?
Moroni 10/Romans 3:
The second passage that starkly contradicts the teachings of the Bible is found in the book of Moroni. Moroni (according to Mormons) is the last of the Nephite prophets and wrote this book as a final teaching about the gospel and its call to come unto Christ and embrace his gifts. Again, this Christianese is very similar to the language used by Christians, but the Mormon usage of terms like Christ, gospel, and gifts, is completely different than how Protestants would use them. Moroni supposedly wrote this book about 400 years before Christ, and centuries later he would appear as an angel to Joseph Smith and reveal the location of the golden tablets with the contents of the Book of Mormon written on them. “Moroni” writes towards the very end of his book:
Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. (Moroni 10:32; Book of Mormon)
As you can see from this passage, Moroni describes salvation as conditional, and God’s grace can only be sufficient for those who deny themselves of all ungodliness and love God with all their might, mind, and strength. But of course, this standard is impossible to meet. So by Moroni’s logic, the grace of God is sufficient for no one.
Contra Moroni, Paul’s doctrine of justification is as follows:
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:28; ESV)
The greatest commandment, Jesus says, is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:28-31), but this is impossible to do without the grace of God through the gift of faith. And even then, prior to our glorification, we won’t be able to obey anywhere close to perfectly. Therefore, Moroni expects the impossible and contravenes the Biblical doctrine of salvation by grace alone.
Conclusion:
Hopefully by now it is apparent that Mormonism, despite being a polytheistic religion which rejects every core doctrine of Christianity, wears the camouflage of Christian lingo and thereby deceives naïve folks into thinking they’re just another Christian denomination. Young Christians and those who have not developed their discernment can be easily duped by a smooth-talking missionary. And unfortunately, Mormons are far more active than most Christians, not only in evangelism, but also in developing strong, cohesive communities. This is all the more reason for us to “be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope which is within us,” (1 Peter 3:15).3 Tuck these points away then for the next time a Mormon missionary approaches your doorstep, because their souls are at stake. God bless.
The Mormon “church” is not a true church due to their heresies. However, most people refer to them as the Mormon church, so we’ll do likewise for ease of reference. Note also that “LDS” and “Mormon” are used interchangeably.
There does exist the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), but Mormons typically use a King James Bible as the JST is fragmentary. Some Mormon missionaries I’ve talked to have even described the JST as unreliable.