I balance my deep respect for these men, and profound awareness that no-one is really equal to the burden which WE impose upon them, with the knowledge that I alone am responsible for confirming through revelation all truth. Now, I say “the burden which WE impose upon them” to distinguish between what the Lord and scriptures says are their duties on the one hand, and the mythological duties which we have put upon them. The scriptures and the Lord do NOT make them omniscient. As a group the Saints do. That is the first great error, and it is not the leader’s error but the saints’.
It is not an institution which will be saved. Indeed, the institution is doomed to be confined to this world, and not pass into the next. But, it is the individual who will be saved. Individuals, however, must receive what the institution offers to obtain salvation. Therefore respect for the church is necessary. It’s role is essential. It’s authority from the Lord.
Part II:
Though the people, and the official hierarchy of the formerly “true” church maintained their belief in their chosen status, the Lord nevertheless had a different idea of whose church was His. The people were following Noah’s lead, assuming the church he was leading was the Lord’s church, but the Lord sends an astounding statement in Mosiah 27:13. At this point Alma the Younger was railing against his father’s upstart church, the renegade “apostate” religion which was an offshoot of the official, “recognized” church. Alma the Younger was risking his own personal salvation doing his personal preachings, but likely did so because he, too, was convinced that Noah’s church was the “true” one and his father’s an “apostate.” This verse reads, “Nevertheless [the angel] cried again, saying: Alma, arise … for why persecutest thou the church of God? For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people.”
So, very long story cut very short, Alma the Younger learns his father’s upstart religion was Christ’s church, the “church of God.” It had the recognized, by heaven, authority. Though we have no official declaration of when it happened, this angel confirms what we already knew in reading the account in Mosiah. What we typically gloss over, though, is that somehow Noah’s church had lost that authority years before. We’re not told when, how, or what the straw was that broke the back of the spiritually thirsty camel, but this account makes it official. The renegade, offshoot, “apostate” religion was the “church of God,” while the church that everyone viewed as the “official,” recognized hierarchy was merely a shell, an impostor.
So my question is: at what point does the authority become lost? At what point is it removed? At what point does another church, likely viewed as an “apostate” religion by the main body of the formerly “true” church, receive that authority to be “Christ’s”? Though we, today, have that recognized status from decades previous when the authority was present, here we have a stark example in the scriptures of a “true” church losing its status and authority to administer. Where there is a lack of a connection with heaven, the power to administer the ordinances thereof is missing. It was this renegade, apostate religion of Alma the Elder’s which had that power, while the official, recognized institution lacked it.
Perhaps, though, I’m wrong in the above assessments. If that’s the case, I welcome the correction and would implore it, given the nature of the discussion.