What Should Christians Think About Moroni?

If you ever visited the LDS temple in Salt Lake City, you likely observed a golden figure posing grandly at the top. He’s over twelve feet tall and historically held a trumpet to his lips to announce the spread of the restored gospel (the statue is undergoing repair after an earthquake shook the trumpet from his hand in 2020).¹ Surely, such a prominent statue represents a significant Latter-Day Saint figure. Indeed, it does.

Reader, meet Moroni.

According to LDS teaching, Moroni lived a mortal life as the final ancient and authoritative American prophet. Many years later (in 1823), Moroni appeared as an angelic messenger in answer to Joseph Smith’s prayer that he might know the fullness of God’s will. Moroni arrived in radiant light, declaring to him that it was time for the fullness of the gospel to be preached in the world. He proceeded to reveal in a vision the location of the golden plates, which, after several years of instruction from Moroni, Joseph received, translated into English as the Book of Mormon and then returned to Moroni.²

The Book of Mormon is claimed to contain not only “an account of the former inhabitants of this continent” but also “the fullness of the everlasting Gospel … as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants.”³

What should a Christian make of Moroni and the gospel he delivered to Joseph Smith? Two brief passages of Scripture make our way clear:

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2a, New King James Version).

The idea that an angel might bring a message from the Lord harmonizes with the Scripture, which describes angels as creatures who do God’s will and deliver God’s Word. The name “angel” even means “messenger.” But the New Testament book of Hebrews shows the divine movement from revelation by prophets (and angels and visions) to revelation by Christ. This passage points our attention in these latter days to the sufficiency of the divine Word as delivered by the Son Himself. Christian, we ought not return to the old forms for new revelation; rejoice in the full and final revelation of Jesus, the Son.

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:6–9)

After marveling that the fledgling church in Galatia veered from the faith by means of an alternate gospel, Paul offers this stalwart defense of the historic gospel of Jesus Christ. Though other systems of belief will rise that are called a “gospel,” they are neither synonymous nor superior to the gospel preached by the apostles. Alternately, the Spirit of God identifies these gospel alterations as perversions of the gospel of Christ and pronounces a curse upon the heralds of such messages. Christian, walk with surety in the ancient gospel of Christ, to which you were called in His grace.

With these verses illuminating our way, we see that Moroni and the “fullness of the everlasting Gospel” that he delivered to Joseph Smith are at odds with God’s method of revelation and gospel message in these latter days. May the grace of Christ enable us to wisely and winsomely communicate these truths in gospel conversations with Latter-day Saints.