The Christ We Revere

I am posting an excerpt from this artikcle as it explains that Latter-day Saints are Christians ansd that Jesus does have the same standing as God the Father.

The Christ we Revere

Jeffrey R. Holland

 We are eager not to be misunderstood, not to be accused of beliefs we do not hold, and not to have our commitment to Christ and His gospel dismissed out of hand, to say nothing of being demonised in the process.

Desirous that we not disagree where we don’t need to disagree, I wish to testify to you, our friends, of the Christ we revere and adore in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in the historical Jesus who walked the dusty paths of the Holy Land and declare that He is one and the same God as the divine Jehovah of the Old Testament. We declare Him to be both fully God in His divinity and fully human in His mortal experience, the Son who was a God and the God who was a Son; that He is, in the language of the Book of Mormon, “the Eternal God” (title page of the Book of Mormon).

We testify that He is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the Three being One: one in spirit, one in strength, one in purpose, one in voice, one in glory, one in will, one in goodness, and one in grace—one in every conceivable form and facet of unity except that of Their separate physical embodiment (see 3 Nephi 11:36). We testify that Christ was born of His divine Father and a virgin mother, that from the age of 12 onward, He was about His true Father’s business, that in doing so, He lived a perfect, sinless life and thus provided a pattern for all who come unto Him for salvation.

We bear witness of every sermon He ever gave, every prayer He ever uttered, every miracle He ever called down from heaven, and every redeeming act He ever performed. In this latter regard we testify that in fulfilling the divine plan for our salvation, He took upon Himself all the sins, sorrows, and sicknesses of the world, bleeding at every pore in the anguish of it all, beginning in Gethsemane and dying upon the cross of Calvary as a vicarious offering for those sins and sinners, including each of us.

Early in the Book of Mormon a Nephite prophet “saw that [Jesus] was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world” (1 Nephi 11:33). Later that same Lord affirmed: “Behold I have given unto you my gospel and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross” (3 Nephi 27:13–14; see also D&C 76:40–42). Indeed, it is a gift of the Spirit “to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world” (D&C 46:13).

We declare that three days after the Crucifixion, He rose from the tomb in glorious immortality, the firstfruits of the Resurrection, thereby breaking the physical bands of death and the spiritual bonds of hell, providing an immortal future for both the body and the spirit, a future that can be realized in its full glory and grandeur only by accepting Him and His name as the only “name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Neither is there, nor can there ever be, “salvation in any other” (Acts 4:12).

We declare that He will come again to earth, this time in might, majesty, and glory, to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the Christ, whom we praise, in whose grace we trust implicitly and explicitly, and who is “the Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

Joseph Smith was once asked the question, “What are the fundamental principles of your religion?” He replied, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”³

As a rule, Latter-day Saints are known as an industrious people, a works-conscious people. For us, the works of righteousness, what we might call “dedicated discipleship,” are an unerring measure of the reality of our faith. We believe with James, the brother of Jesus, that true faith always manifests itself in faithfulness (see James 2). We teach that those Puritans were closer to the truth than they realized when they expected a “godly walk” (D&C 20:69) from those under covenant.

Salvation and eternal life are free (see 2 Nephi 2:4); indeed, they are the greatest of all the gifts of God (see D&C 6:13; 14:7). Nevertheless, we teach that one must prepare to receive those gifts by declaring and demonstrating “faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Articles of Faith 1:4)—by trusting in and relying upon “the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8; see also 2 Nephi 31:19; Moroni 6:4). For us, the fruits of that faith include repentance, the receipt of gospel covenants and ordinances (including baptism), and a heart of gratitude that motivates us to deny ourselves of all ungodliness, to “take up [our] cross daily” (Luke 9:23), and to keep His commandments—all of His commandments (see John 14:15). We rejoice with the Apostle Paul: “Thanks be to God, [who] giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). In that spirit, as one Book of Mormon prophet wrote, “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins … [and] may look forward unto that life which is in Christ” (2 Nephi 25:26, 27).

 

I hope this witness I bear to you and to the world helps you understand something of the inexpressible love we feel for the Saviour of the world in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.