Salvation and atonement
The Mormon doctrine of salvation
Salvation is eternal life. For Mormons the ideal of salvation is to live forever as a family in the highest heaven of the celestial kingdom.
Mormons believe that human beings get salvation both through the grace of God and their own actions.
Part of the work of salvation has been done by the atonement of Jesus Christ, in that all human beings are guaranteed resurrection, but to attain the full quality of eternal life, human beings also have work to do.
Mormons believe that people arrive in this world without sin, but that they soon misbehave and need to be saved from the consequences of their own actions.
To live close to God, a person must have dealt with all the sins in their life. People have a choice of what sins they commit, and they have a free choice of what to do to put things right.
For a Mormon to achieve salvation they must do the following:
- Believe in Jesus Christ.
- Be baptised into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Receive the gift of the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands by a person with priesthood authority.
- Endure the tests of their life on earth.
- Follow the teachings of Christ and his Apostles.
- Keep God's commandments.
- Repent of their sins.
- Undo any wrongs they may commit.
- Treat other people in the way they would want to be treated.
To reach the highest level of glory, a person must also have been sealed in an eternal marriage in a Mormon temple.
The third of the Mormon Articles of Faith contains the core of the Mormon doctrine of Salvation:
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.Article 3 of the Articles of Faith
The Fall of Man
The Fall of Man is the term used to describe the misbehaviour of Adam and Eve, and their eviction from the Garden of Eden.
Mormons do not believe in the idea of original sin - that all human beings are tarnished with sin from birth because Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.
Mormons believe that eating the forbidden fruit was not wrong in itself but was a transgression of God's instructions.
We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.Article 2 of the Articles of Faith
However Mormons also believe that the Fall was a necessary part of God's plan, that it was necessary for human beings to achieve exaltation.
This is because human beings have to go through bodily life on earth as part of their spiritual development, and if Adam and Eve had not "fallen" this would not happen.
The Lord never intended that we should partake of the tree of life and thereby gain full access to perfecting grace before we had stumbled and groped to learn all we can from the disappointments and surprises of this vale of tears.Elder Bruce C. Hafen2
That's why Mormons hold Adam and Eve in high regard, unlike other Christians, because if they had not fallen the whole plan of salvation would have been frustrated.