DOCTRINES PERTINENT TO THE PLAN OF SALVATION AS UNDERSTOOD BY THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

(x) = Largely understood and accepted by other churches

1. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct individuals.
2. The Father and the Son possess physical bodies, but the Holy Ghost does not.
3. God is the father of our spirits. We were created in His likeness and image.
4. We lived with Heavenly Father in a pre-earth existence before being born in mortality.
5. We possessed agency, or the right to choose, before we came to earth.
6. In the pre-earth existence two plans were presented for us to choose between which would govern our existence on earth and our eventual return to the Father's presence.
7. One-third of our spirit brothers and sisters chose in the pre-earth existence to follow Lucifer's plan rather than that of God and Jesus Christ.
8. Lucifer and his followers were cast down to the earth where they attempt to divert men from God's plan and make them miserable.
9. Birth into mortality gives us physical bodies, and is a necessary step toward our ultimate goal of becoming like our Father in heaven.
10. Mortal existence is a test wherein we prove to God and to ourselves that we will be obedient and do all that the Lord commands.
11. The earth was created by Jesus Christ under the direction of the Father for the purpose of providing a place for our spirits to come to mortality.
12. For all who are able, marriage and parenthood are essential steps toward our goal of becoming like our Father in heaven.
13. Marriage is intended to be eternal, as also are our ties to our children.
14. The Book of Mormon is scripture, and a second witness of Christ.
15. The Lord's true Church was restored to earth.
16. The Priesthood, the authority to act in the name of God, was restored to earth.
17. The sealing power wherein families may be made eternal was restored to earth.
18. Every worthy male member of the Church can hold and exercise the priesthood of God.
19. The Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price are additional scriptures with the Bible and Book of Mormon.
20. The Church is led by living apostles and prophets. The words they speak, when acting in their official capacity, are scripture—the word of God.
21. The gift of the Holy Ghost is available to all.
22. Men and women are equal before the Lord. Their roles differ, but each is to help the other.
23. Fathers are to preside, provide and protect.
24. Woman's foremost responsibilities are motherhood and nurturing.
25. Death and sin came into the world because of Adam's transgression.
26. Adam's transgression was a willful choice. Without it he and Eve could have had no children.
27. Without a way to redeem men from the Fall and from sin, all mankind would be lost.
28. Jesus condescended to come to earth to save and redeem all men.
29. Jesus inherited mortality and the ability to die from His mother. From His Father he inherited the ability to overcome death and be resurrected.
30. Justice demands that all sins must be paid for.
31. The atonement was wrought by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and upon the cross, wherein he took upon Himself, and paid for, the collective sins of the world.
32. Jesus' atonement is activated in each of our lives by our repentance and a covenant to follow Him.
33. Those who refuse to repent and accept Jesus' atonement will have to pay for their own sins.
34. Death is the separation of the spirit from the body.
35. Jesus Christ was the first being to be resurrected. Because He was God, and lived a sinless life, he had power over death.
36. Resurrection is the reuniting of the spirit with the same body we possessed in mortality. It is a free gift to all mankind, whether righteous or wicked.
37. Baptism by immersion, by one holding priesthood authority, is a necessary covenant each person must make.
38. Death takes a person to the spirit world where his learning continues while he awaits the resurrection.
39. The spirit world is divided into two parts: paradise for those who have made and kept sacred covenants, and the spirit prison for all others.
40. Those in paradise continue to learn, progress and serve. One of their assignments is to teach those in the spirit prison.
41. Inhabitants of the spirit prison are still subject to the buffetings of Satan. They are also capable of repentance and change, but their progression is stopped until their release.
42. Release from spirit prison is subject to one's repentance, willingness to make covenants, and the vicarious performance of those covenants by someone still in mortality.
43. Jesus will come again on the earth in a Second Coming.
44. Prior to the Lord's Second Coming, the earth will be cleansed, and the wicked destroyed. The Second Coming will usher in the Millennium, a 1000-year period of righteousness during which temple work and vicarious covenants will be made for all in the spirit world who merit them.
45. Heaven is composed of three places or degrees. Each is a place of glory, the lowest being an infinitely better place than this earth life.
46. We can never fully merit either salvation or forgiveness of sins. It is by grace that we are saved after all that we can do.
47. Hell is a real place. It is a place of darkness and misery. Satan and his angels will reside there for eternity along with those few who made sacred covenants in earth life, and then altogether turned therefrom.
48. The Resurrection will take place in stages, depending upon to which degree of glory one is resurrected.
49. Judgment will occur following the Resurrection.
50. Those inheriting the Celestial, or highest degree of glory, will become like their Father in heaven, and be gods, having eternal increase, bearing spirit children, and will create new worlds for their children to inhabit.
51. The Celestial Kingdom will be this earth in its glorified, resurrected state.
52. Joseph Smith is the prophet of the Restoration through whom all of these truths were brought back to earth. He was prophesied of in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

The need for a restoration:  Protestants and Catholics understand and accept approximately 13 of the 52 doctrines presented here, or 25%.  These are all truths which have been upon earth in other ages, but many have been lost through apostasy and the wickedness of men.  Most of these truths are still in the Bible but cannot be understood without the light of the Restoration.

"Take heed therefore how ye hear:  for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."  (Luke 8:18).

"For whosoever receiveth, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever continueth not to receive, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."  (JST Matt. 13:12).

By James E. Kerns