What do Mormons Believe About the Second Coming of Christ?

When I learn that a Sunday School lesson is going to be on the Second Coming of Christ, I know that two things are going to happen. First, someone who has made the issue an obsession is going to hijack the class. Second, that same person is going to say something exceeding all expectations of weird. Amd if you say anything in response, they will lead you down a rabbit hole of crazy, from whence there is no return.

Once when bored out of my mind in a hotel room, I was flipping through the channels and stopped at a program with some kind of biblical scholar was hip-deep in Revelation, pontificating with a high degree of confidence what John meant and, in detail, what was going to happen as the Rapture approaches. He even named names of the people that were going to be featured in the key events. Some of the folks he identified are dead now. But I digress.

Anyway, he was writing all of his predictions on a giant chalkboard (ask your parents what that is, kids), and there wasn’t an inch of open space among the names, diagrams, and Bible verses scrawled on there. Seriously, that much chalk hasn’t been used since they outlined King Kong’s corpse. By the end of it, he had succeeded in the impossible: He had made Revelation even harder to understand, although it was clear that Jews and Muslims were in for a world of hurt.

It’s interesting that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is fairly circumspect in its discussions about the Second Coming. The event is mentioned frequently, but the particulars, not so much. I suspect some of that comes from our belief in living prophets and our confidence that when the Lord needs to reveal things, He will. Also, we are reasonably comfortable with the idea that a prophecy’s meaning only becomes clear when it is fulfilled. That’s kind of the way that God operates. Christ did that all the time, revealing that certain prophecies had been fulfilled by Him, although not in the way people expected. Matthew spends essentially his entire Gospel showing how Christ’s actions fulfilled this or that Old Testament prophecy.

That doesn’t mean that Latte-day Saints don’t know or believe anything about the Second Coming. We just don’t know everything, and I’m good with that. As Dad used to say, “If knowing it doesn’t affect my salvation, leave me alone.” A lot of Dad’s sayings ended with “leave me alone.”

The Church teaches that there are several “returns” or appearances of the resurrected Christ. First, He came back to Earth just three days after He was crucified to provide evidence of His resurrection and to give further instruction to his apostles.

He next visited and taught some of the inhabitants of the Americas, as recounted in the Book of Mormon. (If you are curious, I can mail you a copy). Whether He visited anyone else at or near that time is unknown, but certainly possible.

We believe that He appeared to a 14-year-old boy, Joseph Smith, to usher in the restoration of His gospel.

We believe that He appeared to Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon at the dedication of the first LDS temple in Kirtland, Ohio.

In the Doctrine and Covenants (a compilation of revelations given to Joseph Smith) at least three visits by Christ are anticipated as ushering in the Millennium:

One will be at the Mount of Olives to reveal Himself and rescue the Jews in the midst of a war, the nature of, and participants in, remaining very unclear. (Chalk guy said it would involve the USSR, which seems unlikely now).

Another will be at the temple that will be built in the New Jerusalem at Independence, Missouri (we get a lot of teasing over that, but He has to show up someplace. More of that in a future post). That’s the one that people of other Christian traditions see as “the” Second Coming. The Big One, with all of the trumpets. We believe at that time the righteous, living and dead, will be called up to meet Him. Incidentally, we do not believe that all of those people will be Latter-day Saints, something that our critics gently step over while arguing that we think that we will be the only ones left around. Making casseroles and Jell-o.

The third will be to a resurrected Adam and his immediate progeny (again, another post).

We also believe that the latter-day coming(s) of Christ will include the destruction of the wicked and will initiate a thousand-year period during which Satan will be bound, and people will live peacefully and righteously. At the end of the Millenium, Satan will be released for a season, stir up more trouble and wars, and then bound again for good. This will be followed by the final judgment. That’s the part that worries me.

Those are the broad points of what we believe. There are other details, but they share some of the same ambiguity as Revelation. Most of what will happen at the Second Coming remains on a need-to-know basis, and we don’t need to know. We don’t claim to have any top-secret knowledge about the date that Christ will return, nor do we understand all of the plethora of imagery used in Revelation. Our chalkboard still has plenty of room for a mean game of hangman.

But this we do know: Our focus should not be on some distant day when the Lord appears again. Rather, we have to develop our discipleship in the here and now. The Church teaches that we should live as if Christ will return tomorrow. That’s pretty decent advice.

One last story. It might be apocryphal, but I like it. My mission president’s wife shared a discussion she had years before with one of our General Authorities, a member of the Seventies, in his home. She said that during the visit she noticed a beautiful chair in one of the rooms and complemented him on it. He thanked her and then said that no one was allowed to sit in it. When she asked why, he responded, “That chair is reserved for the Savior when He returns.”

Latter-day Saints don’t know everything about the Second Coming of Christ, but one hopes that we have reserved a place for Him when it does.

Why Aren’t Mormons More Bothered by Their History?

I’ll admit that the title up there is misleading. Plenty of members of the Church of Jesus Christ are bothered either by actual events in our history of which they were unaware or distorted portrayals of “facts.” Or stuff that is made up entirely. And there are people leaving the Church because of things they have encountered. That trend has even affected friends and youth that I know well, so the issue has some personal interest for me.

Because of this, the question if better framed as why I am not abandoning my testimony? There are several reasons that I can point to: The lack of context or historical training for those raising these issues. The Church’s years-long effort to publish every single word Joseph Smith ever wrote or dictated (suggesting that there isn’t much that we want to hide). The clear prevarications by knuckleheads who seem to have nothing better to do than trying to convince other people to leave the Church. And former members of the Church who have an axe to grind.

While all of those defenses are valid, my take on the issue is a little different. In my view, you cannot criticize Mormonism without rejecting Christianity as a whole. Why? Because every criticism of the Church can be leveled against God’s servants as revealed in the Bible or in the subsequent history of Christianity.

Let’s start with admitted bad behavior by some of the presidents and other leaders of the Church. Stuff that sends critics of the Church into (oftern fair) apoplexy. Racism. Resistance to federal law. Sexism. Hiding or engaging in child abuse. None of those is remotely acceptable, but you don’t have to look too far to level the same charges against prominent figures in the Bible.

Noah got drunk. Moses committed (at the least) manslaughter. David had problems with lust and conspired in murder. Judah knocking up his daughter in law. Even in Christ’s own time, He chose an apostle who betrayed Him. Paul was complicit in the murder of Stephen and was as sexist a dude as you can find based on modern standard.

Then you have the history of Christianity since the events in the Bible. The papacy has a documented history of murder and lechery. Martin Luther made some profane woodcuttings involving various interactions between the pope and poop. And even recently we have seen Martin Luther King, Jr. make the world a better place despite serous sexual weaknesses. And don’t get me started on some modern evangelistic preachers who commit adultery only to later be embraced by the same followers that they betrayed.

If misconduct is a disqualification for the truth of Mormonism, then Christianity has to be tossed out the window. Those guys mentioned above make Brigham Young look woke.

If miracles performed by Joseph Smith are just old wives’ tales, then what do you do with the guy who talked to a bush and turned a staff into a snake? Or God dwelling among us as a man? Or the miracles performed by His disciples (like raising the dead)? Or that talking donkey in the Old Testament? (One of my favorite stories, even if my discussion of “talking asses” as a Gospel Doctrine teacher was not very well received). If miracles are presumptive nonsense, then the Bible is something akin to Aesop’s fables.

If the Lord would not choose a young boy as a prophet, then Samual and David were frauds. And what do we do with Christ teaching in the synagogue in His tweens?

Other examples are legion. But the simple fact is that if you embrace the criticisms leveled against Mormonism, you have to reject Christianity as well.

I’m not prepared to do that. So how do we reconcile the disturbing (or worse, in my view) acts of people revered by Christianity?

I can think of two answers. The first is to accept that God is able to accomplish His agenda through the “weak things” of the world. Aside from Christ, all of us are sinners, but God works with us even as we work through our issues. One of the great pieces of evidence of the redemptive power of Christ is His patience with His servants, and His ability to transform us into something better. It is only His grace that allows us to claim discipleship.

David slayed Goliath with mere stones, and the Lord works with us despite our obvious inadequacies. We are His pebbles, not swords.

The second reconciliation is simply the exercise of faith. We choose to believe that Moses, Noah, and Peter were servants of God and partakers of His spirit. We choose to believe that Son of God walked out of a hovel in Nazareth to redeem us from sin. We choose to believe that He was raised from the dead and announced that miracle with a single word to a nearly anonymous friend: “Mary.”

For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we choose to believe that Christ Himself called upon an unremarkable farm boy to restore His gospel and reestablish His priesthood. We choose to accept the authority of the prophets to followed him. We make those choices even when the evidence gives us pause.

That is faith.

We choose to embrace it.

Are Jesus and Satan Brothers?

Jesus and Satan are brothers?  Talk about your dysfunctional families.

One criticism frequently leveled against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is: “They believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers!”  There’s usually no follow up to this zinger.  The doctrine is so offensive that it doesn’t need to be discussed.  It establishes on its own that Mormons aren’t Christians, the Church is a cult, and Joseph Smith’s mama wore Army boots. 

Yeah, but if you really want to know, you need to let us give you some context.  It helps if you understand some of our foundational doctrines and then you can see how those principles impact other doctrines.

At the core of our faith is the belief that all of us are children of God.  We understand that to be a literal truth, not just a bit of feel-good hyperbole.  We believe that before coming to Earth, we all lived as spirits in the presence of God, with the greatest of those spirits being Jehovah, who would become Jesus in mortality.  We believe God sent us to Earth as part of a divine plan to help us become more like Him.

All of us started out innocent, but some of our sibling spirits wasted no time in rebelling against God and His Plan.  We believe that a third of God’s children were rebellious and were kicked out of the house, with Satan being the chief instigator.  This, we believe, is what those references in the Bible to a bright angel falling from Heaven are about.  Those spirits would never receive bodies and would be consigned to come to Earth to tempt us to rebel against God as well.  We don’t see them but I assume they are in Detroit.

Our doctrine is that all of God’s spirits are His children.  It follows, then, that only are we God’s children, but that we were all siblings before coming to Earth.   

As a result, Jesus and Satan are, in the broadest sense, brothers.  But that doesn’t mean they were on the same bowling team or anything.   Keep in mind that we are all related to everyone who ever lived on Earth.  That includes the first person who put pineapple on pizza.  So let’s not get all huffy about family ties.  The Church does not teach that Jesus and Satan share any common traits.  One is our Savior.  The other our darkest enemy.

I think that the reservation our fellow believers have with this doctrine derives from a philosophical question: “If God embodies all the goodness in the universe, and is perfect like Jesus Christ, then how could anything imperfect or evil emanate from Him?”  There must be another source.  The nature of chocolate is chocolate, and you can’t pull a grape out of it, no matter how hard you try.

Not sure if Plato used that analogy, but I haven’t read all his stuff.

That philosophical poser doesn’t work very well in LDS doctrine.  Our belief is that when God created us, we were perfect, or better said, innocent.  What taints us with sin is our own rebellion.  Just like when a baby is born here on Earth, he or she is completely innocent.  That changes as we make bad decisions that soil our souls and require the Atonement of Jesus Christ to be washed clean.

I understand that many Christians cannot accept that there ever was a connection between Jesus and Satan.  Ultimate good in the same house with ultimate evil? I believe that while they might both have been spirit children of our Father in Heaven, the Christ in no way was sullied or diminished because of Satan’s existence. 

Just like my sins, or yours, can never compromise His perfection.    There is no shadow that can darken His glory.

Do Mormons Have Something Against the Bible?

I can’t tell you the number of times I have been told that I don’t believe in the Bible. Never mind that I have read all of it at least three times, skipping the Song of Solomon (which is a little risqué) but always including the talking donkey. (I just can’t mention the talking donkey enough. It’s my favorite story, but of questionable value). I love the Bible, and I’m grateful that we have it and the truths it shares.

Some of our friends from other Christian traditions consider the Bible to be the unerring word of God, sealed against any additions or deletions. They believe the Bible to be the sole guide to faith and devotion. I understand that. It is a witness of God that we can feel, touch, and read. For centuries, it has been the sum total of God’s word.

Latter-day Saints treasure the Bible as containing the word of God and a history of His dealings with mankind. It stands as a powerful witness of the reality and divinity of Christ. It is an invaluable guide to how to live a Godly life. So, what’s the problem?

In our eighth Article of Faith, we affirm that “We believe that the Bible is the word of God, so far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God.” It’s everything after that first comma that other Christians find fault with. Let’s take it piece by piece.

First, “so far as it is translated correctly.” With respect to those who believe that the Bible is unerring truth, there is a smorgasbord of translations to choose from, with some significant differences between them. Almost all scholars of faith recognize that we don’t have original versions of any of the books, that we aren’t sure who wrote them, that they were selected arbitrarily, and that changes have been made to the text over the centuries, some of them intentionally. This isn’t just an LDS argument. All of these conclusions have been reached by other scholars outside of my faith.

So, the caveat that the Bible should be “translated correctly” isn’t unreasonable. There is more than a little wiggle room in its various translations. We use the King James Version as our standard, but we understand that isn’t perfect. My study of the Bible involves laying out three translations on the table and figuring things out as best I can. (There is a Joseph Smith translation, and I promise to get to that another day).

Second, “we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” Let’s get a couple of things straight from the outset. The Book of Mormon is not the “Mormon Bible,” an incorrect moniker that people have been giving it for a couple of centuries. Nor is it a replacement for the Bible, although it is considerably shorter and therefore easier to carry. We usually lug around both, to which I attribute my bad back.

What we do believe is that the canon of scripture is not closed. That is one of our fundamental beliefs, and it makes us unique from other Christians. We get that. We believe that the Book of Mormon contains the history and holy writings of some of the people who lived in the Americas at during a time that roughly overlaps the New Testament and the early Christian Church. It includes the appearance of the resurrected Jesus and His teachings to these people. We neither worship it nor contend that it is inerrant (in fact, there are several passages in which the authors express concern that there might be “errors of men”). It is called the Book of Mormon, because we believe that it was abridged by a prophet named Mormon. We also believe that it stands as a witness of the grace of God, as Christ is the Savior of all the world, not just the people discussed in the Bible.

For us, the Book of Mormon is a companion to the Bible in the sense that both stand as witnesses to the most important truth ever taught: Jesus Christ is the resurrected Son of God. While we believe that the Book of Mormon helps us to understand the teachings of the Bible, it isn’t a replacement (which my grandfather, who never read the Book of Mormon, insisted.) Given that the Gospels primarily focus on the last weeks of Jesus’s life, we don’t find the notion that He spoke additional truths during His ministry, and that it would valuable to know what he said.

We do not see the Bible and Book of Mormon to be combatants in understanding the doctrine of Christ. We view them as companions: Different scriptures with the same sacred purpose: To establish God’s doctrine and testify of the living Christ.