Topic
Latter-day Saint Teaching
What the Church teaches, compared with the Bible you already accept as a Latter-day Saint.
Claims
- “A great apostasy made restoration necessary”The New Testament warns of apostasy but promises the gospel will endure, and the apostles' message was preached without a break from the first century on.Read the answer
- “Families can be together forever through temple sealing”The Bible shares the hope of reunion with those we love, grounds it in Christ by grace, and records Jesus saying resurrection life goes beyond marriage.Read the answer
- “God was once a man”The Bible and the Book of Mormon both describe God as God from all eternity. The Bible promises likeness to God, not a God who was once a man.Read the answer
- “Priesthood authority was restored”Hebrews says Christ holds his Melchizedek priesthood forever, without successors, and the Aaronic priesthood was set aside, so access to God rests on him.Read the answer
- “The Bible lost plain and precious truths”The manuscripts show small, documented copying changes, not an early removal of doctrine, and the Bible already teaches what the Book of Mormon calls plain and precious.Read the answer
- “The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ”An inward witness cannot settle whether a book is scripture. The Bible's test is whether a message matches the apostles' gospel, even when an angel brings it.Read the answer
Reasons
- Biblical monotheismIsaiah denies that any god was formed before or after the LORD. That rules out a family of gods and gods who were once creatures, and it sets the test for every later claim.
- Public revelation and prophetic testsThe Torah and the apostles give public tests for anyone who claims to speak for God: agreement with earlier revelation, loyalty to the one God, and predictions that come true.
- The apostolic gospel is finalPaul and Jude describe the apostles' message as a trust to guard. So any later revelation can be tested by one question: does it preach the same gospel?
- The reliability of the BibleVariants in the manuscripts are real and openly catalogued. They show a text copied many times in many places, which is why its earliest wording can be recovered.