Pure Christianity

What is a Christian?  Christians are believers in Christ’s divine Son ship with God, his virgin birth, his miracles, atonement, and his resurrection from the dead.  Christians believe in who Christ was and what he did.

But suppose there were a higher form of Christianity.  Not just believing in Christ, but believing him.  Not mere Christianity, but pure Christianity.  You may think I’m grasping at straws and that believing in Christ and believing him are one and the same.  I assure you they are not.  In Matthew 7:21 Christ tells us, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” and in James 2:19 we read: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.  Apparently, believing in Christ is not enough.  The scriptures indicate that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Christ, but not everyone will go to heaven.  Therefore, we must not only confess Christ’s holy name, we must also embrace his ideology.

So what is his ideology, and how do we participate in it?  Christians have a variety of theories on the subject, ranging from this life being a test, to our sole purpose being to worship and glorify God.  However, the boldest declaration of Christ’s ideology comes from Mormonism, which claims we all lived together with God as spirits before being born.  In this pre-mortal realm two plans were presented for how life would be lived on earth: Christ’s plan and Lucifer’s plan.  

Lucifer, an angel in authority at the time, proposed that the choice to sin should not be available on earth, which would automatically guarantee everyone a return to heaven.  Christ’s plan was for all men and women to go to earth with freedom of choice.  A divine law would be in force, the breaking of which would result in sin.  Since mankind would possess agency, everyone would inevitably sin and be subject to God’s justice, that is, every soul would be disqualified for heaven.  But there was an upside: Christ would take upon himself a body and die a sinless sacrifice to satisfy the demands of divine justice and allow sinners the opportunity to be redeemed through his blood if they repented.  The Father chose Christ’s plan, but one third of the hosts of heaven followed Lucifer and war ensued in heaven, resulting in the eventual defeat and banishment of Lucifer and his angels.

            This may sound like a wildly fictional story, conveniently placed on the other side of a veil of forgetfulness through which we passed at birth.  However, the Bible, together with The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price testify that Christ’s plan is indeed a plan of freedom while the devil’s is a plan of bondage.