Recovery to Mormonism

Do Mormons Believe they can save themselves?

Mormons don’t believe in salvation by grace?  No.  Mormons don’t believe in salvation by grace alone.  This is an important distinction.  Nor is there anything in the New Testament that says “If you make any attempt to keep the commandments of the Lord and to follow Christ’s teachings, if you think it a good idea that Christians should strive not to sin, for the sake of their souls, you are in grave error and surely will not be saved.”

We are saved by the grace of Christ, but works are necessary.  This isn’t just a Mormon doctrine—many Christian denominations believe this.  And this is not surprising.  The New Testament tells us that faith without works is dead.  If you believe in something, but don’t live by it, how much do you really believe it?

This doesn’t mean that we “work ourselves to heaven.”  We can’t.  No one can.  Christ’s Atonement made repentance possible—without it, we cannot be cleansed at all.  Everyone sins.  No one gets to a point where they are free from all sin in this life.  Even if we somehow could, this would not save us.  Christ saves us, not our own righteousness, to whatever degree we have it.  There is no forgiveness without Him.

But why are works important, then?  Doesn’t Christ just forgive everything of the believer?  First, Christ’s injunction to the woman caught in adultery was “Go thy way and sin no more,” not “Go thy way, sin if you like.”  Christ forgave the woman, but He told her to cease the behavior which had brought judgment upon her in the first place.  Mercy does not mean that anything we do is all right and we can do it as much and as long as we like.  Second, Christ said “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  So we can love him and ignore his commandments?  The New Testament is full of the teachings of Christ, but it’s all right to disregard all those as long as we believe in Him?

Christianity requires some obedience!  Christ required people to leave their present occupations and follow Him.  He required them to give their substance to the poor.  He required people not to so much as commit adultery in their hearts.  Did He teach what He taught and somehow mean it metaphorically?  Did “by their fruits, you shall know them” not mean that good people would do good things?  While interpretations may differ, I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss Mormons as unchristian for believing that Christ requires obedience as well as faith, when the scriptures say as much.

This doesn’t mean that no Mormon is overconfident about their abilities to personally avoid sin and thus avoid repentance, but Mormon doctrine would count him or her wrong.  We all need Christ and we all need to repent. 

And contrary to what some anti and ex-Mormons claim, repentance is not just a verbal confession, but a change.  No, trying to stop beating your spouse, or telling someone that you have beaten your spouse in the past and will try not to do so in the future—this is not repentance.  Repentance is about turning away from that sin.  And Mormons do believe that if you keep going back to a discarded sin over and over, true repentance (for that sin), actually changing, is going to get tougher and tougher.  Habits grow tougher to break.

But none of us are going to be perfect in this lifetime, no matter how we live.  This is the doctrine of the Mormon Church.  We can’t perfect ourselves, we can’t save ourselves, we are saved by the grace of Christ—but faith requires works to be faith.  If we believe Christ, we follow Him.