September 24, 2026
The Gospel from the Beginning
Christ defined His gospel in His own words. Joseph Smith restored it through the Book of Mormon, the Joseph Smith Translation, and his revelations, and showed that it was the same gospel preached from the beginning.
On the evening of September 21, 1823, a messenger from the presence of God1 stood at Joseph Smith’s bedside and told him of a record hidden in the earth. Joseph’s history remembers the words:
He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from where they sprang. He also said that the fullness of the everlasting gospel was contained in it as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants;
The fullness of the everlasting gospel, as delivered by the Savior. The book would not merely contain truths about the gospel. It would contain the gospel itself, in the form the Lord gave it.
Centuries before, an angel had shown Nephi the same thing from the other end of history. After the plain and precious parts of the gospel had been taken away and the gentiles stumbled for the lack of them, the Lamb promised:
I will be merciful unto the gentiles in that day, insomuch that I will bring forth unto them in mine own power much of my gospel which shall be plain and precious, saith the Lamb. For behold, saith the Lamb, I will manifest myself unto thy seed, that they shall write many things which I shall minister unto them, which shall be plain and precious. And after thy seed shall be destroyed and dwindle in unbelief, and also the seed of thy brethren, behold, these things shall be hid up to come forth unto the gentiles by the gift and power of the Lamb. And in them shall be written my gospel, saith the Lamb, and my rock and my salvation.
In them shall be written my gospel. So the gospel is something specific. It is contained in the Book of Mormon as the Lord delivered it to the remnant at Bountiful, and there He defined it Himself:
Behold, I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you: that I came into the world to do the will of my Father because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross. And after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men, even so should men be lifted up by the Father to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil. And for this cause have I been lifted up. Therefore, according to the power of the Father, I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works. And it shall come to pass that whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled, and if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world. And he that endureth not unto the end, the same is he that is also hewn down and cast into the fire from whence they can no more return, because of the justice of the Father. And this is the word which he hath given unto the children of men, and for this cause he fulfilleth the words which he hath given; and he lieth not, but fulfilleth all his words. And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom, therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end. Now this is the commandment: Repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the holy ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day. Verily, verily I say unto you, this is my gospel, and ye know the things that ye must do in my church, for the works which ye have seen me do, that shall ye also do. For that which ye have seen me do, even that shall ye do.
He opens with “this is the gospel” and closes with “this is my gospel.” Between the two He defines it: the Son sent to do the Father’s will, lifted up on the cross to draw all men to Him and to judgment; repentance, baptism in His name, the reception of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ, in His own words.
How the gospel gets redefined
Too often we have tried to redefine the gospel. Too often I hear other things called the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are good things, but they are not what He said it was.
Here is one example. It is taken not to fault a sincere man, but because it shows how easily the definition drifts. In a 2025 conversation with Pastor Jeff, a Christian pastor who hosts the Hello Saints channel, a mission president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Jonathan Ord of the Texas Dallas West Mission, described what he proclaims this way:
The truth that we espouse in the gospel of Jesus Christ that we proclaim is that there’s a prophet of God on the face of the earth today and 12 apostles and the same church that existed in Christ’s day on the earth with all the same authority, all the same ordinances and covenants…
“Pastor & LDS Mission President’s HONEST Conversation,” Hello Saints, August 24, 2025, at 6:18
A prophet and twelve apostles, the same church that existed in Christ’s day: members often call this “the Restoration.” But none of it is what Christ named when He said “this is my gospel.” A church restored as it was in His day is not the restoration of the gospel.
The gospel before Christ came
Joseph was tasked with restoring that gospel, and we should look for its restoration through his works: the Book of Mormon, the Joseph Smith Translation, and his revelations and teachings. One of the first things he restored was its age, in his translation of Genesis in 1830. More than three years later, in an 1834 letter to the Church, the elders at Kirtland pressed the point with a question about Abel:
It is said by Paul in his letter to his Hebrew brethren, that Abel obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. To whom did God testify of the gifts of Abel, was it to Paul? We have very little on this important subject in the fore part of the bible. But it is said, that Abel himself obtained witness that he was righteous. Then certainly God spoke to him: indeed, it is said that God talked with him; and if he did, would he not, seeing he was righteous, deliver to him the whole plan of the gospel? And is not the gospel the news of redemtion? How could Abel offer a sacrifice and look forward with faith on the Son of God for a remission of his sins, and not understand the gospel?
And of Abraham:
It will be noticed that according to Paul, -[see Gal. iii 8.]- the gospel was preached to Abraham. We would like to be informed in what name the gospel was then preached, whether it was in the name of Christ or some other name? If in any other name, was it the gospel? And if it was the gospel, and that preached in the name of Christ, had it any ordinances? If not, was it the gospel? And if it had, what were they?
The Book of Mormon had already answered. Jacob, writing of the prophets before him, said:
Behold, they believed in Christ and worshipped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him. And for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which was a similitude of God and his only begotten Son.
In what name was the gospel preached to Abraham? In the name of Christ: “they believed in Christ and worshipped the Father in his name.” And his offering of Isaac was “a similitude of God and his only begotten Son.”
Joseph’s translation of Genesis carries the same answer back to the beginning. Sacrifice was given to Adam, and its meaning was Christ. When Adam offered sacrifice without knowing why, an angel told him:
And after many days, an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying, Why do you offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him, I know not but the Lord commanded me. And then the angel spoke, saying, This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father who is full of grace and truth. Wherefore, you shall do all that you do in the name of the Son. And you shall repent and call upon God in the name of the Son for ever more.
JST Genesis; Moses 5:6–8 in the LDS edition (CCE Genesis 3:3)
A similitude of the Only Begotten; worship in the name of the Son: what the angel told Adam is what Jacob says of Abraham, in nearly the same words.
The same chapter says that what Adam received was the gospel itself:
…nor believe on his Only Begotten Son, even him who he declared should come in the meridian of time, who was prepared from before the foundation of the world. And thus the gospel began to be preached from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the holy ghost. And thus all things were confirmed unto Adam by a holy ordinance, and the gospel preached, and a decree sent forth that it should be in the world until the end thereof.
JST Genesis; Moses 5:57–59 in the LDS edition (CCE Genesis 3:13)
This answers the letter’s questions, and Joseph had written it down in 1830, more than three years before they were asked. Abel’s father had the gospel, preached by angels and by the Holy Ghost, in the name of the Only Begotten. And it was decreed to stay in the world until the end.
For Abraham, the Joseph Smith Translation adds what the King James Genesis 15 lacks. Before Abram offers the heifer, the goat, and the ram, he is shown the Son of Man:
And Abram said, Lord God, how will you give me this land for an everlasting inheritance? And the Lord said, Though you were dead, yet am I not able to give it to you? And if you shall die, yet you shall possess it. For the day comes that the Son of Man shall live. But how can he live if he be not dead? He must first be quickened. And it came to pass that Abram looked forth and saw the days of the Son of Man, and was glad. And his soul found rest, and he believed in the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness.
“Abram looked forth and saw the days of the Son of Man, and was glad.” The Book of Mormon knew this scene long before Joseph restored it to Genesis. Nephi, the son of Helaman, reminding his people of what Moses and the prophets had testified of Christ, said:
Yea, and behold, Abraham saw of his coming, and was filled with gladness and did rejoice.
Nephi was the keeper of the sacred records, the plates of brass among them (3 Nephi 1:2 (CCE 3 Nephi 1:1)), and the plates of brass held “the five books of Moses” (1 Nephi 5:11 (CCE 1 Nephi 1:22)). His words match Genesis as Joseph restored it, not Genesis as the Bible has it. The plates of brass, it seems, carried a fuller Genesis, one that still told of Abraham seeing the Son of Man.
Jesus knew that account. When He told the Jews, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad,” they did not know what He was referring to: “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” (John 8:56–57). The passage He was pointing to was gone from their scriptures. Joseph restored it to Genesis 15. The 1834 letter quotes the same verse and draws the conclusion:
But we will recollect, that Abraham offered sacrifice, and notwithstanding this, had the gospel preached to him. That the offering of sacrifice was only to point the mind forward to Christ, we infer from these remarkable words of his to the Jews, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad. -[See John viii 56.]- So, then, because the ancients offered sacrifice it did not hinder their hearing the gospel; but served, as we said before, to open their eyes, and enabled them to look forward to the time of the coming of the Savior, and to rejoice in his redemption.
The sacrifice the gospel still asks
Someone might object that Christ never mentions sacrifice when He defines His gospel. But He does. “My Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross” is the sacrifice. Enoch saw it:
And behold, Enoch saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man, even in the flesh, and his soul rejoiced, saying, The Righteous is lifted up and the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world.
To be lifted up is to be the Lamb slain. When Enoch asked to see more, he “beheld the Son of Man lifted upon the cross after the manner of men” (Moses 7:55 (CCE Genesis 4:21)). Lehi said it plainly: “he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (2 Nephi 2:7 (CCE 2 Nephi 1:6)). And Amulek taught that every sacrifice under the law of Moses looked to that one: “this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice. And that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal” (Alma 34:14 (CCE Alma 16:34)).
Lehi’s words, “a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” name the sacrifice He asks of us in return, and He asked it Himself. Before He appeared at Bountiful, before He gave them His gospel, His voice came to the people in the darkness:
And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood, yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings; and ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the holy ghost…
While the altar was taken away, the offering was not. The blood of beasts gave way to a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and whoever brings that offering receives the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost, the very promise of His gospel. “For such,” He said, “I have laid down my life” (3 Nephi 9:22).
This is how we do His will as He did the Father’s. He began His gospel there: “I came into the world to do the will of my Father.” Abinadi had seen what that would cost:
Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father.
And He ended His gospel with the same pattern for us: “the works which ye have seen me do, that shall ye also do.” He offered Himself to the will of the Father, and we are to offer ourselves to His. That is what it means to be His children. When King Benjamin’s people covenanted “to do his will” (Mosiah 5:5 (CCE Mosiah 3:1)), he told them:
And now, because of the covenant which ye have made, ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you. For ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name, therefore ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.
If Christ is our Father, then we do the will of our Father, as He did the will of His. It is the answer the Beloved Son gave before the world was: “Father, your will be done” (JST Genesis 3:3 (CCE Genesis 2:15)). Joseph taught how far that offering must go:
Let us here observe that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation. For from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things: it was through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life, and it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God.
“From the first existence of man.” Adam’s altar, Abel’s firstlings, Abraham’s heifer and his son, and the sacrifice of all things asked of a disciple now are one requirement, pointing to one Sacrifice.
The fullness of the scriptures
The Joseph Smith Translation is not an optional commentary laid alongside the gospel. The Lord tied it to the restoration of the gospel from the start. In April 1829, while the Book of Mormon was still being translated, He told Oliver Cowdery:
Truly, truly I say unto you that there are records which contain much of my gospel, which have been kept back because of the wickedness of the people. And now I command you that if you have good desires, a desire to lay up treasures for yourself in Heaven, then shall you assist in bringing to light, with your gift, those parts of my scriptures which have been hidden because of iniquity.
Much of my gospel: the same words the Lamb spoke to Nephi. On December 7, 1830, while Joseph was translating the opening chapters of Genesis, the Lord told Sidney Rigdon, who would write for him:
And I have sent forth the fullness of my gospel by the hand of my servant Joseph, and in weakness have I blessed him. … And a commandment I give unto you that you shall write for him, and the scriptures shall be given, even as they are in my own bosom, to the salvation of my own elect,
Two months later, the law of the Church named the Bible and the Book of Mormon as the fullness of the gospel, and in the same breath said more was coming:
And again, the elders, priests, and teachers of this church shall teach the scriptures which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in the which is the fullness of the gospel. … And all this you shall observe to do as I have commanded concerning your teaching, until the fullness of my scriptures are given.
The Lord kept calling the new translation by that name. In 1834 He commanded the Church “to print my word, the fullness of my scriptures” (D&C 104:58 (CCE T&C 105:13)), and in 1841, “publish the new translation of my holy word unto the inhabitants of the earth” (D&C 124:89 (CCE T&C 141:31)). If we want the fullness of the gospel as the Lord restored it, the Joseph Smith Translation is part of where He put it.
The same gospel
Joseph restored Christ into the view of the prophets and patriarchs from the beginning. Adam was told to do all he did in the name of the Son. Abel offered in faith on the Son of God. Abraham saw the Son of Man and rejoiced, and offered Isaac in similitude of the Father and His Only Begotten. Israel had the gospel preached to them in the wilderness, and the law of Moses was added to it. The letter’s own conclusion states what all of this adds up to:
We may conclude, that though there were different dispensations, yet all things which God communicated to his people, were calculated to draw their minds to the great object, and to teach them to rely upon him alone as the Author of their salvation, as contained in his law.
The gospel is the same from the beginning. It is not a new program for each age, and it is not ours to redefine. The Lord said He would restore “much of my gospel” for our day, and He did: in the Book of Mormon, where He defined it; in Joseph’s translation of the Bible, where He put it back into the mouths of Adam and Abraham; and in the revelations and teachings He gave through Joseph. If we want the gospel of Jesus Christ, we need not look for it anywhere else, or call anything else by its name. He has already told us what it is, and ended by saying so twice:
Verily, verily I say unto you, this is my gospel…
Footnotes
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The Covenant Christian Edition, following Joseph’s 1838–39 history, gives the messenger’s name as Nephi (Joseph Smith History 1:33 (CCE JS History 3:3)); later LDS editions read Moroni. If the messenger was Nephi, he brought Joseph the same news an angel had once given him: that the Lamb’s gospel would be written by his seed, hidden up, and brought forth to the gentiles (1 Nephi 13:34–36 (CCE 1 Nephi 3:23)). ↩