Mormons and the Restoration of the Gospel
Next we are going to take a look at the Mormon understanding of the Restoration of the Gospel. This article is correct that it was a time of great religious excitement at the time Joseph Smith lived. But it is strange that he would say that every minister and every church had a different claim to the Gospel and truth. If you were to ask a Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and most other denominations, they would tell you about the atonement of Jesus on the cross and the coming of the Kingdom of God. That is the Gospel and the Gospel does not change from denomination to denomination, even if there are differences of style and polity.
I will not go into the Father having a body but I will comment on Jesus restoring the priestly authority that the church had lost. What priestly authority? This theme does not appear in the New Testament. How could Jesus restore the priestly authority when he never taught it during his earthly ministry? How could the church lose it if it was never taught?
Regarding Peter’s prophecy in Acts 3:19-21 and the restoration, that is a complete misinterpretation. Peter is not talking about an apostasy in the church and a restoration to the church. Peter says that this is about what the prophets foretold. Read Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the eschatological restoration that they looked to. This is something that will happen with the return of Jesus and the establishment of the kingdom in fullness on the new earth.
