Just wondering what exactly are the beliefs of Mormons? I have cousins who are devout Mormons and I have always found they have some weird beliefs (such as the ‘book of Mormon’ & prophets and what not).
However, they all seem to be good Christians – from what I understand, they still believe that Jesus is our Savior, despite their other ideas, (I’m not sure though). Would that mean that they are still saved or not? I’m just asking because in your answers to some other questions it sounds like they aren’t saved unless they are below the age of accountability.
Salvation is the free gift of God, made available through the death of His Son, our Lord Jesus, irrespective of merit. Without it we’re hopelessly lost. We can only attain salvation by believing that Jesus died for us personally, paying the full price for each and every one of the sins of our life by Himself, finishing the work of our salvation forever. No matter what it says on the door of the building we occupy on Sunday, that’s what salvation requires. If we meet the requirement, we’re saved.
A careful study of official Mormon Doctrine will disclose that although the terms and names in their religion may sound the same as those in the Bible, the acts and people they’re describing are often very different. Jesus is an example of this. The Jesus of Mormonism is the brother of Lucifer and the son of someone they call Elohim (Hebrew for God) but who was once human just like us. Furthermore, he’s just one of many gods in Mormon doctrine. In other words their Jesus is not the one and only God incarnate, and is not the Creator of the Universe.
According to them, He made atonement by sweating blood in the Garden of Gesthemane, and it will only help pay for our sins after it’s been determined that we’ve done all we possibly could have to save ourselves through our good works.
Mormons believe that if they’re good enough they can even become gods themselves and achieve a position on some other planet comparable to the one our God has here. As former Mormon Church President Lorenzo Snow said, “As man is God once was; as God is man can become.” While they often sound compatible on the surface, underneath nearly every important doctrine in Mormonism departs from Biblical Christianity in some major way.