The Inevitable Apostasy and the Promised Restoration by Tad R. Callister

Author:Tad R. Callister [Callister, Tad R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, General, Restoration, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Christianity, Apostasy
ISBN: 9781590385494
Google: hbWdAAAACAAJ
Publisher: Deseret Book
Published: 2006-11-15T23:43:34.452700+00:00

Conclusion

During the period of the apostasy "many plain and precious things" were deleted from the Bible. Nephi described the consequence of such spiritual omissions: "An exceedingly great many do stumble" (1 Nephi 13:28–29).380 Fortunately, Nephi was promised that during the last days a restoration would take place, including the restoration of the original word of God: "And the angel spake unto me, saying: These last records which thou hast seen among the Gentiles, shall establish the truth of the first [the Bible], which are the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them" (1 Nephi 13:40). The Book of Mormon is the principal record to restore such lost doctrines. Elder Bruce R. McConkie offered this significant test to those who may question that assertion:

Here . . . is a suggested personal study program that will open the eyes of the spiritually blind and unstop the ears of the spiritually deaf. Choose the one hundred most basic doctrines of the gospel, and under each doctrine make two parallel columns, one headed Bible and the other Book of Mormon. Then place in these columns what each book of scripture says about each doctrine. The end result will show, without question, that in ninety-five of the one hundred cases, the Book of Mormon teaching is clearer, plainer, more expansive, and better than the biblical word. If there is any question in anyone's mind about this, let him take the test—a personal test.381

I have taken the foregoing test with respect to the central doctrine of all Christianity—the atonement of Jesus Christ. Suffice it to say that without the Book of Mormon, the rest of the Christian world is left with many misconceptions concerning this keystone doctrine.382

President Ezra Taft Benson explained the need for a restoration of God's word:

Much of the Christian world today rejects the divinity of the Savior. They question His miraculous birth, His perfect life, and the reality of His glorious resurrection. The Book of Mormon teaches in plain and unmistakable terms about the truth of all of these. It also provides the most complete explanation of the doctrine of the Atonement. Truly, this divinely inspired book is a keystone in bearing witness to the world that Jesus is the Christ.383

Absent such a restoration there was no hope for a recovery from the apostasy. Thomas Jefferson observed the terrible state of confusion in which Christianity was mired:

The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable as to shock reasonable thinkers. . . . Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity, I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the mythologists of the middle and modern ages.384

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969), a well-known Baptist minister and author, must have felt similarly when he lamented:

A religious reformation

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