In essence, we declare that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church and the central figure in our theology. We believe that our discipleship ought to be evident in the way we live our lives. We believe that while human works are necessary- including exercising faith in Christ, repenting of our sins, receiving the sacraments or ordinances of salvation and rendering Christian service to our neighbors - they are not sufficient for salvation (2 Nephi 25:23 Moroni 10:32). We must work to our limit and then rely upon the merits, mercy and grace of the Holy One of Israel to see us through the struggles of life and into life eternal (2 Nephi 31:19 Moroni 6:4).
We do not believe that we can either overcome the flesh or gain eternal reward through our own unaided efforts.“As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (Corinthians 15:22). We believe that the effects of His rise from the tomb pass upon all men and women. Further, we believe that He died, was buried and rose from the dead and that His resurrection was a physical reality. We know it is true because we have experienced it personally.
While no one of us can comprehend how and in what manner one person can take upon himself the effects of the sins of another - or, even more mysteriously, the sins of all men and women - we accept and glory in the transcendent reality that Christ remits our sins through His suffering. That offering is made efficacious as we exercise faith and trust in Him repent of our sins are baptized by immersion as a symbol of our acceptance of His death, burial and rise to newness of life and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:37–38 3 Nephi 27:19–20).
We believe Jesus suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and that He submitted to a cruel death on the cross of Calvary, all as a willing sacrifice, a substitutionary atonement for our sins. We believe that Jesus’ teachings and His own matchless and perfect life provide a pattern for men and women to live by and that we must emulate that pattern as best we can to find true happiness and fulfillment in this life. We maintain that the Church of Jesus Christ was established, as the Apostle Paul later wrote, for the perfection and unity of the saints (Ephesians 4:11–14). We believe Jesus selected leaders, invested them with authority and organized a church. We believe Jesus taught His gospel - the glad tidings or good news that salvation had come to earth through Him - in order that people might more clearly understand both their relationship to God the Father and their responsibility to each other. We believe the New Testament accounts of healings and nature miracles and the cleansing of human souls to be authentic and real. We believe Jesus performed miracles, including granting sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to some who had died and forgiveness to those steeped in sin. While He walked the dusty roads of Palestine as a man, He possessed the powers of a God and ministered as one having authority, including power over the elements and even power over life and death. We believe Jesus is the Son of God the Father and as such inherited powers of godhood and divinity from His Father, including immortality, the capacity to live forever. We believe that Jesus was fully human in that He was subject to sickness, to pain and to temptation. From His mother, Mary, Jesus inherited mortality, the capacity to feel the frustrations and ills of this world, including the capacity to die. We believe that He was born of a virgin, Mary, in Bethlehem of Judea in what has come to be known as the meridian of time, the central point in salvation history. While we do not believe the Bible to be inerrant, complete or the final word of God, we accept the essential details of the Gospels and more particularly the divine witness of those men who walked and talked with Him or were mentored by His chosen apostles. For us the Jesus of history is indeed the Christ of faith. We believe the accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament to be historical and truthful. We believe that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the fulfillment of those prophecies. We accept the prophetic declarations in the Old Testament that refer directly and powerfully to the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of all humankind. We believe Jesus is the Son of God, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh (John 3:16). Latter-day Saints are Christians on the basis of our doctrine, our defined relationship to Christ, our patterns of worship and our way of life. Millet, former dean of religious education at Brigham Young University. The following excerpts are taken from an address to the Harvard Divinity School in March 2001 by Robert L.
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