“May I Never Boast Except in the Cross of Jesus Christ…” Gal. 6:14

The gospel of Jesus Christ — His death and resurrection — is without doubt the central focus of the Old and New Testament. The Biblical account of the gospel began in the Garden of Eden when sin entered the world through Adam’s willful disobedience, resulting in physical and spiritual death for all mankind. “…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” (Rom. 5:12).

Because of Adam and Eve’s fall, the fellowship they enjoyed with God in the Garden was destroyed and man was separated from His creator. Adam and Eve planned to deal with their sin by clothing themselves with fig leaves, typifying man’s attempt to cover sins by his own effort. However, the sinner’s shame could not be covered by their own efforts so God rejected their plan and declared the death penalty as the only payment for sin that would satisfy His divine justice, “The wages of sin is death…” (Rom. 6:23). He instead provided them with the skins of dead animals as a covering, signifying a blood sacrifice as the only remedy for the forgiveness of sins, “…and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Heb. 9:22)

Commencing in the Garden, the Old Testament records thousands of animal sacrifices, all pointing to the last and final sacrifice where Jesus, as the perfect Lamb of God, became our substitute and shed His own blood as payment for our sins. “But, He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him…and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:5, 6). From Genesis to Revelation the Bible makes it clear that there is no work a sinner can do to pay the penalty for sin required by God’s justice. “…He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy (Titus: 3:5). It is Jesus’ blood alone that redeems us and provides for our salvation, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins….” (Eph. 1:7)

Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross is the very essence of Christianity, and God raised Him from the dead to demonstrate the full acceptance of His sacrifice. Jesus not only took our sin upon Himself, but in exchange imputed His righteousness to all who would believe and receive Him as Savior and Lord, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). To the Colossian Saints Paul wrote, “…but now He [God] has reconciled [saved] you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation….” (Col. 1:22)

The ultimate good news of the gospel is that those who believe and accept Jesus’ finished work on the cross are given the guarantee of eternal life. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life (John 5:24). The Apostle John concurred with Jesus’ promise, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). These scriptures do not advocate easy believism but instead reveal the awful price Jesus paid to extend to us the free gift of God’s grace — a gift that cannot be earned but only received. We were bought with a price!

As we see God’s plan of redemption unfold in the Bible, it becomes clear that the essential component of that redemption is Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. It is no wonder that the apostle Paul declared, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2)

In stark contrast to the Biblical Gospel where the cross is the central focus and salvation a free gift, is the works oriented Restoration Gospel where the preaching of the cross is conspicuously missing. Although it may be alluded to occasionally, the fact that Christ’s shed blood is the only remedy for man’s sin problem is not emphasized nor explained, simply because it is not understood.

The RLDS/CoC Basic Beliefs Committee states that Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden did not result in man’s separation from God; “These teachers [protestant ministers] say that man’s separation from God’s spiritual house…came about when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden…. For those who may be laboring under this belief…let this point be extremely clear: such notions are the result of a twisted and distorted theology.” (Exploring the Faith, p. 109)

The RLDS/CoC view sin as isolated acts, or mistakes, not the result of our inherent sin nature common to all mankind. They reject the idea of original sin – that Adam’s sin was passed on to all mankind, “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression” (Epitome of Faith). Both the Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon exclude little children as sinners, “But behold, I say unto you, that little children…can not sin…” (D&C Sec. 28:13a) (LDS Sec. 29:46-48) “…wherefore little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin….” (Moroni 8:9) (LDS Moroni 8:8)

It is because of this critical error regarding the doctrine of sin, that RLDS/CoC have substituted water baptism and good works as the means of salvation in place of the cross. The Doctrine and Covenants makes this clear; “…inasmuch as they keep my commandments they shall be saved.” and “…but thou shalt declare repentance and faith…and remission of sins by baptism…” (D&C Sec. 97:4b and D&C Sec. 18:4) (LDS Sec. 100:14, Sec. 20:28-31). This aberrant theology by-passes the need for Jesus’ death on the cross and presents a different gospel that Apostle Paul calls “…no gospel at all” (Gal.1-6), and it essentially reduces the cross to nothing but a symbol.

The very heart of the Christian faith is Jesus’ atonement on the cross where He exchanged our sin for His Righteousness and restored man’s broken relationship with God. Yet, many RLDS/CoC view the cross only as a means of empowering man to become Christ like and perform righteous deeds. The following statement by a former RLDS apostle reflects this view; “The atonement did not do it all. All it did was to release to us the power to become godlike…. The work of atonement is not yet complete.” (Arthur Oakman, Belief in Christ pp. 141-147). Jesus emphatically contradicted this notion when, speaking of His atonement, He triumphantly declared, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) Substituting human works for Jesus’ finished work on the cross is the unbridgeable gap that separates the RLDS/CoC Church from genuine Christianity. The Bible clearly teaches that the requirements for eternal life are not based on what we can do but on what Jesus has done for us.

Sharing the essential truths of the Christian faith with RLDS/CoC can be very challenging since they do not believe in the infallibility or the inspiration of the Bible. Joseph Smith III stated, “We do not consider…the Bible infallible. We do not consider anything that passes through human hands to be infallible. We do not believe in the plenary (full) inspiration of the Bible” (Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible, p. 20). Without the Bible as a standard of truth, the RLDS/CoC are left to their own subjective “spiritual experiences” and truth becomes whatever they want to believe.

Another challenge in witnessing to RLDS/CoC is the fact that they freely use biblical terms such as born-again, heaven, hell, salvation, sin, grace, gospel, etc., but inject unbiblical meanings into the terms. For instance, heaven to them includes three different levels, the highest level reserved only for worthy RLDS/CoC (D&C Sec. 76) (LDS Sec. 76). Nevertheless, Christians should make every effort to scale this language barrier and share the true gospel with them as they are souls for whom Christ died. The Bible tells us; “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20) and it encourages us with these words, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal. 6:9)

Contrary to Joseph Smith’s boast that he would take his followers to heaven as his backload, (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 193), is Jesus’ declaration; “…I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) It is this profound truth that should cause us, with the Apostle Paul, to exclaim, “May I never boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ….” (Gal. 6:14)