Ten doctrines

Where Latter-day Saint teaching departs from the Bible

Each reason states the teaching in the Church's own words, quoted from its scriptures and publications and checked against the source, then sets the Bible beside it, word for word. Where Latter-day Saints have an answer, we give it fairly.

Illustration

Illustration1

God was never a man

Latter-day Saint teaching says the Father has a body of flesh and bones and that, as man now is, God once was. The Bible says God is spirit, is not a man, and has been God from everlasting.

Illustration2

There is one God, not many

The Doctrine and Covenants promises the exalted that they shall be gods, and the Book of Abraham speaks of the Gods organizing the earth. Through Isaiah, God says he knows of no other god, before him or after him.

Illustration3

Jesus is the eternal Creator, not our older brother

The Church teaches that every person lived before birth as a spirit child of heavenly parents, Jesus among them as the firstborn. The Bible says everything that was made was made through Jesus: he is the Creator, not one of the created.

Illustration4

Saved by grace, not after all we can do

The Book of Mormon says it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do, and calls people to deny themselves of all ungodliness. The Bible says salvation is the free gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.

Illustration5

The Bible was not corrupted

The eighth Article of Faith accepts the Bible only as far as it is translated correctly, and the Book of Mormon says plain and precious parts were taken from it. The manuscripts show the Bible we read is the Bible the apostles wrote.

Illustration6

The church never vanished

Joseph Smith said he was told every church was wrong and every creed an abomination, because the true church had fallen away. Jesus promised that the gates of Hades would not prevail against his church and that he would be with it always.

Illustration7

Test the messenger by the message

Joseph Smith said an angel named Moroni led him to the gold plates. The Bible says that if even an angel from heaven brings a different gospel, it must be rejected, and it tells us to test the message by Scripture, not by a feeling.

Illustration8

The Book of Abraham does not match its papyri

Joseph Smith presented the Book of Abraham as a translation of Egyptian papyri. Fragments of those papyri were found in 1966, and the Church's own essay says they do not mention Abraham and do not match the translation.

Illustration9

Exaltation through temple marriage is not the gospel

The Doctrine and Covenants says the highest degree of the celestial glory requires the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Jesus said that in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage.

Illustration10

Now is the day of salvation

Latter-day Saints perform baptisms for the dead so that people who have died can accept the gospel in the spirit world. The Bible says it is appointed to die once and after that the judgment, and even the Book of Mormon says this life is the time to prepare to meet God.

Swipe all ten Questions Latter-day Saints ask