The first revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants says that the Savior called and empowered Joseph Smith to “lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). If you are anything like me, you wonder what it means every time you or someone else says, “I know this church is true.”
Learn more about the historical context for “the only true and living church” (D&C 1:30) in “Wrestling with the Restoration: Why This Church Matters,” by Steven C. Harper.
You find yourself asking questions like:
- What does it mean to know?
- What do I know?
- How do I know?
- What is the church?
- What does it mean that it is true?
- In what ways is it true?
- What does the Savior mean by and in Doctrine and Covenants 1:30?
- Does He want me to understand that His is the only true church and the only living church? Or does He mean that it is the only church that is both true and living at the same time? Or is it both? Or does He mean something else?
Seeking answers to these kinds of questions by study of the best sources while exercising faith in Jesus Christ is a great way to spend a lifetime.
The Church Is True
Here is what it means to me to say, as I delightedly do, “I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true.”
It means that the Restoration is real. Christianity is being restored as we speak. Jesus is the Redeemer and the Restorer. He calls and qualifies flawed people to be prophets and apostles, Primary presidents and bishops, ministers and missionaries.
It is a verifiable fact—regardless of one’s point of view—that some prophets and apostles taught things that all of the Lord’s living prophets and apostles now disavow. I have the power to interpret that fact however I want to, and I want to interpret it in a way that accounts best for all the verifiable facts, not isolated ones.
Having considered other options, I have concluded that the best principles I can follow to guide my interpretation are faith, hope, and charity.
The Church Isn’t Perfect
That leads me to these conclusions. My conviction that the Savior’s church is true does not mean that I assume it is perfect.
Elder J. Devn Cornish taught:
Neither the Church nor its leaders are perfect, nor have they claimed to be! It is noteworthy that nowhere in the scriptures or the teachings of Church leaders is it stated that the purpose of the Lord was to perfect the Church. Rather, the Apostle Paul wrote:
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–13; emphasis added).
So the purpose of the Lord is the perfecting of the Saints, not the perfecting of the Church. We can take real comfort from that principle because it implies that there is room in the Lord’s Church for all of us imperfect people!
Elder J. Devn Cornish, “What Do We Mean When We Say the Church is True,” Liahona, June 2024.
I do not interpret the word perfecting in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians as flawless or mistake-free. The Greek word translated as perfecting conveys the idea of equipping or preparing, not flawlessness. The Savior’s church prepares Saints for the work of His ministry so we can all become finished—the meaning of the word translated as perfect in Ephesians 4:13.
The Role of Covenants
The restored scriptures tell us that we become perfect, finished, or completely created in God’s image by being just and true—meaning obedient to God’s law (including repentance) and faithful to our covenants with God.
People who are faithful to their covenants to obey God’s laws are “made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new [or restored] covenant” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:69). I know that is true.
One way I know it is that everything changed for the better for me when I began believing it. I stopped believing the falsehood that I should be perfect so God could love me. I started to live the actual gospel, loving God because He sent His Beloved Son to perfect me—even me.
Having made that mental shift—that conversion— covenants became the most important determinant of my daily life. That is because making and keeping covenants means getting in and staying in (or returning to) the healing and healthy relationship with God whereby He promises to perfect me through Christ.
Faith in Jesus Christ came to life. I discovered the joy of daily repentance.
Renewing covenants regularly renewed me.
Two Important Truths
Along the way, I learned some scriptural math that runs counter to popular psychology and current cultural trends but represents the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
1. I Am Nothing
The first truth, expressed in an equation is I = 0, meaning that I am nothing. Strange as it may seem, that is a comforting truth for those of us who struggle with assuming that we are supposed to be perfect. We are not.
We are nothing, as the scriptures clarify. The Book of Moses says that Moses talked with God and experienced His glory.
Then Moses:
was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth. And he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.
Moses 1:9–10
That is not all. King Benjamin hoped his sermon would awaken his people “to a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state,” and he used that word nothingness twice (Mosiah 4:5, 11).
Mormon piled on, saying, “O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth” (Helaman 12:7). Ammon declared, “I know that I am nothing” (Alma 26:12).
So do I.
I = 0.
I equal nothing.
2. Jesus Is the Way
The good news is expressed in this equation: I + ???? = ∞. The fish symbol at the heart of the equation represents Jesus Christ. In Greek, the word ichthys, or fish, is also an acronym that many Christians use to stand for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. So the fish symbolizes the Savior. The plus sign in the equation represents covenants. The infinity symbol at the end of the equation expresses what we are when we are in Christ: infinite.
So I + ???? = ∞ expresses beautiful truths, including the power of the covenant by which we take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ.
Without that covenant, that plus sign, that cross of Christ, we are on our own. And on our own we are nothing. God made us free to go our “own way” if that is what we choose (Doctrine and Covenants 1:16). But the gospel is “a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). Jesus is that way (see Ether 12:11).
Choosing to covenant with God to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ—to become His, to add ourselves to Him—is the best possible way, the only way, to return to our heavenly parents and become like them.
This is because, as the scriptures explain, it requires “an infinite and eternal sacrifice” to redeem a single soul—to take it from nothing to everything.
Jacob said, “it must needs be an infinite atonement” (2 Nephi 9:7). Alma taught that “there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world” (Alma 34:12).
Jesus Christ is the only one willing and able to make an infinite atonement. Nephi prophesied that Israelites would be scattered until they were persuaded “to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all mankind” (2 Nephi 25:16).
Alma taught that the “great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal. And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; . . . [or in other words, all who] have faith unto repentance . . . for he is mighty to save (Alma 34:14–15, 18).
The Church Matters
Why did Jesus perform the infinite Atonement? Professor Truman Madsen explained:
If souls are of value in direct proportion to the concern and sacrifice of our Redeemer, then we know that in the eyes of the Father and the Son, your soul—even yours—and mine—even mine is of infinite worth.
Truman G. Madsen, “The Savior, the Sacrament, and Self-Worth.”
This all means that though I = 0, I + Jesus Christ = infinity. Our nothingness plus His infinity equals infinity, and Jesus is infinite in every way.
The scriptures say that He is infinitely glorious, powerful, truthful, just, and merciful. They say, in fact, that He has “an infinity of fulness, from everlasting to everlasting” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:77; emphasis added).
When the Savior says, as He repeatedly does, “My grace is sufficient,” He is making a radical understatement. We can choose to believe Him when He says his “grace is sufficient for all” (Ether 12:27; emphasis added), and when He says, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9; emphasis added).
When we covenant—when we choose to add Jesus Christ to our nothingness—then we can do all things through Christ. The instant we sincerely make the covenant to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, we become perfect in Christ (Moroni 10:32-33).
The Church of Jesus Christ matters because it is where we “come unto Christ, and be[come] perfected in Him” (Moroni 10:32). It is His Church. He established it. He restored it. He commissioned it to tell the good news equation to all people everywhere. He empowered and authorized it to perform the ordinances in which people can covenant to add their nothingness to His infinite power to repent, His infinite forgiveness, and His infinite grace, giving us infinite opportunities to be redeemed, rescued, healed, helped, loved, and saved (see 2 Corinthians 12:7–10).
We cannot exhaust the Savior’s infinity of fulness. There is enough for all of us to have all of Him. His grace is indeed sufficient.
What the Church Is Meant to Do
But here’s the thing: That plus sign is up to each of us. And there is only one church in which we can add ourselves to Christ in the way and by the power He provided. If, like Joseph Smith, you want to be right “in matters that involve eternal consequences,” then the Savior’s church matters to you.
Depending on your tastes, there are churches with more exciting worship services, more skillful preaching, and other aspects worthy of holy envy. But only The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the Savior’s power (priesthood) and the Savior’s commission (keys) to perform the ordinances and make the covenants that endow us with God’s power and seal us to Him and each other.
Those covenants restore the relationship we once had. They empower us to regain God’s presence. Moreover, they ensure that our most cherished relationships will transcend death and endure forever. No other church promises that. No other church has been empowered or commissioned to.
Even so, church can be hard. It is painful for many people, and not just because they wish, as I do, that they could express their joy in Jesus accompanied by an electric guitar and a drum set on the Sabbath.
So much more seriously than that, some saints have been abused by parents, leaders, or others in ways that make it extremely difficult to dissociate the Savior’s Church from their awful experiences at the hands of people who were supposed to be the Savior’s disciples. It is common for saints to struggle with mixed messages and conflicting signals about how much they belong and are valued.
All of that is verifiably true. So how might we choose to act upon that truth? We can do what the Savior’s Church is meant to do.
We can minster to the body of Christ until we all come together. We can invite everyone to “join themselves to the Lord” by taking hold of His covenant. We can help “the Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel” (Isaiah 56:8).
We can follow the Lord’s prophet. He knows The Way. He calls us to love rather than judge. He prescribed Jesus Christ as the answer to our problems and the love of Christ as the antidote to our ills, saying it “propels us ‘to bear one another’s burdens’ rather than heap burdens upon each other” (Russell M. Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” April 2023 General Conference).
With all of our wounds and worries, we can choose to let the Savior’s imperfect Church, led by flawed but actual, authorized apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, point our fallen and flawed souls to Him.
His restored gospel is the greatest good news there is. His Church is empowered and commissioned to add us to Him in covenants that make us infinitely at one.
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About the Author
Steven C. Harper is author of numerous books and articles about the Doctrine and Covenants and early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His latest book, Wrestling with the Restoration, examines common assumptions about Latter-day Saint scripture and helps readers make sense of primary sources. Harper is the Editor-in-Chief of BYU Studies and holds a PhD in Early American History from Lehigh University. A sample of his publications on the Doctrine and Covenants includes Saints, Volume 1, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, and Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations: Manuscript Revelation Books.
Further Reading
- Come Follow Me 2025 Study Resources
- What Is the Law of Consecration?
- What Does President Nelson Teach About Repentance?
- What Lessons Does the First Vision Teach?
- How Is ‘Saints’ Different Than Earlier Histories of the Church?
The Only True and Living Church Resources
- Wrestling with the Restoration: Why This Church Matters (Deseret Book)
- What Is the Historical Context of Doctrine and Covenants 1? (Steven Craig Harper)
- Does D&C 1:30 Make Troubling Claims? (Faith Matters)
- Joseph Smith and “The Only True and Living Church” (BYU Religious Studies Center)
- Do Latter-day Saints Have a Monopoly on Truth? (Ben Spackman)
- What Is the Lord’s Preface? (BYU Religious Studies Center)