The Gospel According to Jeffrey

I just came across another Answerbag post that I’m pretty pleased with. The question was as follows: Mormons: This statement from Joseph Smith has always puzzled me, "A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge…" ( History of the Church , 5:588) What does it mean? Here’s my response: First of all, let’s put this in a little more context: As far as we degenerate from God, we descend to the devil and lose knowledge, and without knowledge we cannot be saved…. A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God (HC 5:588). So let’s establish first what President Smith is not saying. I think we need to recognize that he is certainly not talking about salvation from physical death—which i...

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve started wandering back to Answerbag again. In so doing, I have once again gotten sucked into some interesting Gospel discussions. I thought I’d share my response to a particular question, posed by a friend of mine that’s somewhat antagonistic toward the Church of Jesus Christ. His question: Matt 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Heb 10:14: “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Doesn’t that mean that Heavenly Father sees us as perfect despite our flaws & sins? My response was as follows: Not at all. Each of these passages must be looked at in context. Matthew 5:48 is the last verse of the paragraph begun in v.43 , which is itself the last paragraph of the entire chapter. Throughout this section, the Lord is comparing the Mosaic priests and their teachings to the Christian disciples and His own, greater teachings. Thus we find v.13 referring to Christ’s d...