The Path to the Kingdom of Zion

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Kingdom of Zion is not established as a beginning place for those who are only starting to learn who Jesus Christ is. Its work is directed toward disciples who already love Him, trust Him, follow Him, and desire to give their whole lives to Him. The purpose of this work is to lead mature disciples into deeper covenant relationship with Jesus Christ and into the path of exaltation, preparing them to live the laws of Zion and eventually receive the fulness of the eternal order He has appointed.

This chapter explains that progression. It establishes the foundation a disciple must already possess, the ordinances and covenant laws that must be received, the personal relationship with Christ that must be developed, the proving and maturity required before higher covenant responsibility, the ordinary preparation found in marriage and family stewardship, and the consecration required of those who would enter Zion.

Foundational Discipleship Comes First

The gospel of exaltation is not introductory Christianity. Those who are called into this work should already know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. They should have learned to pray, repent, trust Him, obey His commandments, recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost, and follow Him when He requires them to change. A person who has not yet learned to follow Christ cannot successfully undertake a law requiring greater surrender to Christ.

Membership in a particular denomination is not the principal qualification. The Lord gathers His elect from wherever He has prepared them. Some will come from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while others may come from different Christian traditions. What matters first is whether the individual has actually developed a living relationship with Jesus Christ rather than merely learning facts about Him from scripture, doctrine, ordinances, churches, teachers, or prophets. All of these are intended to lead the soul to Christ Himself and are not substitutes for knowing Him.

Foundational discipleship is learned through experience. The disciple must discover that Jesus Christ is trustworthy by hearing His word, acting upon it, repenting when corrected, keeping covenants, and seeing His faithfulness over time. Faith becomes stronger through obedience in smaller things before the Lord entrusts greater things. Those who are only beginning their relationship with Christ should first learn His doctrine, practice repentance, receive the foundational ordinances, keep their covenants, recognize the Holy Ghost, serve others, and establish a life of consistent discipleship.

The purpose of requiring a foundation is not to keep people from greater light. It is to prepare them to remain faithful when greater light requires more of them. The higher law requires a disciple who has already begun learning to give Christ the heart rather than one who has only begun deciding whether Christ should be followed at all.

Foundational Education and Higher Instruction

The relationship between Christ's Latter-day Saints Church and Christ's Kingdom of Zion Church may be understood as a progression in covenant education. As established more fully under Authority, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received a genuine stewardship from Jesus Christ to teach the gospel of salvation, administer saving ordinances, build testimony, teach covenant obedience, and prepare a people to hear and follow Him. That foundational work remains sacred and should not be belittled when Christ calls a disciple into greater covenant responsibility.

Those who are only beginning to know Jesus Christ should ordinarily begin with that foundational work. They should learn the gospel, receive the saving ordinances, develop testimony, practice repentance and service, and build the covenant foundation upon which greater discipleship can later rest. Higher instruction does not make foundational education worthless; it depends upon what was learned before.

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Kingdom of Zion builds upon that foundation. Its work assumes greater personal accountability, revelation, sacrifice, consecration, family stewardship, and obedience to the celestial laws required for Zion and exaltation. The disciple is no longer merely learning what faithful discipleship looks like but is being prepared to live it at greater cost. The Lord therefore does not invite His children to skip necessary preparation, even when He may prepare individual disciples through different histories and circumstances.

The Covenant Path From Salvation to Exaltation

The covenant path has an order. Baptism and confirmation begin the foundational covenant work of salvation. Through baptism, the disciple enters the covenant path through Jesus Christ, and through confirmation receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The disciple must then learn to live according to that gift through repentance, obedience, revelation, and sanctification.

The endowment completes the foundational covenant preparation by placing the disciple under the governing laws of Obedience, Sacrifice, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Chastity, and Consecration. These laws prepare the disciple to surrender the whole life to Christ and provide the covenant foundation upon which the higher family order is built.

Exaltation then proceeds through the establishment and enlargement of family order. A man and woman ordinarily enter lawful marriage and learn to become one in Christ through covenant fidelity, household stewardship, sacrifice, forgiveness, parenthood, and enduring love. When they receive the eternal sealing covenant, they are sealed together as husband and wife, placing that marriage within the eternal order Christ has appointed. This covenant union is the beginning of the family order of exaltation, because exaltation is not an isolated individual achievement but a work of becoming one in Christ through covenant relationship.

Those whom Christ later calls into the higher family order are joined to the larger marital order within their generation and become part of the covenant family of Zion, learning to live celestial law together in unity, consecration, service, and holy love.

The final completion of this covenant order comes with Jesus Christ and the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7–9). As established more fully in Resurrection, the Millennium, and Eternal Marriage, each faithful generational head is sealed directly to Jesus Christ, and through that appointed welding link the worthy marital generation is joined upward into Him. The purpose of the gospel of exaltation is therefore not additional religious information, but the preparation of disciples to progress through the covenant order until the family of Zion is brought into the eternal union Christ has appointed.

Jesus Christ Calls, Prepares, and Determines Readiness

No person decides for himself or herself that he or she has graduated into the higher covenant order. Jesus Christ alone determines readiness. He knows the heart perfectly, including motives hidden from public view, attachments that still govern the soul, sins that have been surrendered, sins that are still protected, and whether obedience remains real when no one else is watching.

Readiness is not established merely by age, intelligence, religious knowledge, confidence, spiritual experiences, interest in the doctrine, or personal desire to enter the covenant. Christ prepares His disciples gradually. He teaches them to hear Him, confronts selfishness, disciplines desire, tests obedience, requires increasing consecration, and knows when a disciple is ready for greater responsibility.

As established under Authority, the gathering belongs to the Lord. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Kingdom of Zion does not search the world deciding who belongs among the elect or recruit people into the higher law by its own effort. Jesus Christ identifies, prepares, calls, and brings His people, and the Church receives and teaches those whom He sends.

The Lord's call to enter this work is nevertheless not the same as readiness to make the higher covenants. Those whom Christ calls are still disciples. They may have weaknesses to overcome, traditions to examine, assumptions to surrender, habits to correct, and parts of their lives that must be brought into harmony with His law. The call opens the door to instruction and preparation; it does not certify that the work of preparation is already complete.

This does not require perfection before teaching begins. It requires humility and teachability. The Lord calls people because He intends to transform them. Those who come must be willing to allow that transformation. Being called to learn is therefore different from being ready to make the higher covenants: the call opens the door to instruction, while faithful preparation determines when the covenant may be entered.

Christ illustrated this principle in the parable of the wedding garment. A man entered the wedding but had not prepared himself in the manner required for the feast (Matthew 22:11–14). The invitation itself was not the completion of preparation. In the same way, a person called into this work must remain humble, teachable, willing to repent, and willing to be changed until Christ determines that the covenant may be entered.

The Covenant Foundation Must Be Received

Before a disciple enters the higher covenant order, the foundational ordinances and covenant laws must be received and lived. The ordinances are not merely formal requirements to be checked off. They establish covenant responsibilities that must become part of the disciple's life.

Baptism and Confirmation

Baptism and confirmation establish the beginning of the covenant foundation. Through baptism, the disciple enters the covenant path through Jesus Christ, takes His name upon them, and begins a life of repentance and covenant obedience. Through confirmation, the disciple receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost and begins learning to live through continuing revelation and sanctification.

The foundation is not complete merely because the ordinances were performed. The disciple must learn to repent, obey Christ, recognize and follow the Holy Ghost, and remain faithful to the covenant made. An ordinance received without a life increasingly ordered by that covenant does not provide the preparation required for greater responsibility.

The Endowment

The endowment completes the foundational covenant preparation by placing the disciple under five governing laws: the Law of Obedience, the Law of Sacrifice, the Law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Law of Chastity, and the Law of Consecration. These laws prepare the heart for greater covenant responsibility and teach the disciple to bring the whole life under Jesus Christ.

Zion cannot be built except according to celestial law (Doctrine and Covenants 105:5), and the Lord has repeatedly required His people to be endowed with power before moving forward into greater work (Doctrine and Covenants 95:8–9; 105:11). The endowment must therefore be lived rather than merely received ceremonially. The disciple must demonstrate faithfulness in the laws to which he or she has covenanted.

The Foundation Is Required, Not Prior Institutional Membership

Those beginning their journey with Christ should ordinarily receive this preparation through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to the foundational stewardship the Lord has given that Church. Prior membership in that Church, however, is not itself a universal prerequisite to entering Christ's Kingdom of Zion Church.

A mature Christian may already have been deeply prepared by Jesus Christ through another history or tradition. If Christ personally calls that person into this work and the foundational ordinances are still lacking, those ordinances may be administered through authority Christ has given His Kingdom of Zion Church. This includes baptism, confirmation, and the endowment.

The requirement is not a particular institutional history but the covenant foundation itself. The foundational ordinances must be received through authority given by Jesus Christ, their covenants must be understood, and the disciple must begin living them faithfully. Christ determines through which authorized stewardship that preparation is administered.

The Disciple Must Learn to Hear Christ

The higher law cannot be lived through external supervision alone. The disciple must progress from merely believing in Jesus Christ to knowing Him personally, learning His voice, recognizing His correction, and following His direction within the stewardship God has given.

Christ declared, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Hearing is therefore inseparable from following. The mature disciple learns to seek Christ daily, discern His voice from fear, desire, tradition, deception, social pressure, and personal opinion, test revelation by the Spirit and truth, obey correction, and act when Christ gives direction. This capacity develops through repeated experience and obedience.

The goal is a people who do not speak of revelation merely as something that happened to prophets in ancient scripture. They live by revelation. They learn to hear Christ, speak with Him, draw near to Him, receive His correction and instruction, and allow that relationship to become increasingly direct as they prove faithful.

The purpose is not merely to become skilled at recognizing spiritual impressions. The disciple must eventually be able to say more than, “I know what others have taught about Him.” As the relationship deepens through revelation, obedience, and proving, the disciple is being prepared to know Jesus Christ personally and, according to His will and timing, to know Him with a sure witness. The covenant path leads the soul toward Christ Himself, not merely toward greater knowledge about Him.

Prophets, teachers, scripture, doctrine, ordinances, and priesthood stewardships remain necessary. Personal revelation does not create governing jurisdiction over another person's stewardship; that distinction is established under Authority. The requirement here is personal discipleship: no human leader can replace the disciple's responsibility to know Jesus Christ and follow Him personally.

A person who continually requires another human being to tell him or her every step to take has not yet developed the personal discipleship required for the higher order. Christ is preparing a people who can receive righteous government and priesthood order while also knowing the voice of the King for themselves.

The Disciple Must Take Root and Be Proven

Receiving a witness is not the same as being proven. A person may receive a powerful testimony, experience an unmistakable revelation, feel the Holy Ghost confirm truth, or receive a new doctrine with great joy, yet still lack the depth necessary to remain faithful when obedience becomes difficult.

Christ described this danger in the parable of the sower. Seed falling on stony ground was received with joy, but because it had no deep root, tribulation and persecution caused it to wither (Matthew 13:20–21; Mark 4:16–17). Other seed was choked by the cares of the world, riches, desires, and competing loyalties, while good ground received the word, retained it, and brought forth enduring fruit (Matthew 13:3–23; Mark 4:3–20; Luke 8:5–15). Those prepared for Zion must become good ground.

The rich young ruler shows how a disciple may obey much and still fail when Christ reaches an attachment that remains above Him. The man had kept many commandments, but when Jesus required the surrender of what still possessed his heart, he went away sorrowful (Mark 10:17–22). His previous obedience was real, yet the test exposed the place where his loyalty remained divided.

Abraham provides the opposite pattern. When the Lord tested him concerning Isaac, Abraham demonstrated that nothing had been placed above God (Genesis 22:1–18). This is the proving of the faithful. The heat may come through loss, rejection, persecution, financial hardship, family opposition, uncertainty, delayed promises, unwanted correction, or revelation that contradicts cherished assumptions, but the question remains whether the disciple will continue to trust and obey Jesus Christ.

The question is therefore not merely whether the disciple once received a witness. It is whether that witness has taken root deeply enough that the disciple remains faithful when obedience becomes difficult and the natural man has something real to lose.

Accountability, Maturity, and Voluntary Covenant

The higher covenant may be entered only by accountable adults capable of understanding and choosing the obligations they are accepting. A person must be at least eighteen years of age and possess sufficient maturity to make a binding covenant knowingly, soberly, and voluntarily.

No one may enter through coercion, manipulation, emotional pressure, dependency, fear, confusion, or impulse. The Lord requires willing covenant. The disciple must understand what is being promised, have sufficient opportunity to learn the law and its responsibilities, and enter because he or she freely chooses to follow Jesus Christ.

Voluntary covenant does not mean the disciple may redefine the covenant according to personal preference after entering it. Agency governs the choice to enter. Once the covenant is knowingly made, the person becomes accountable before God for the promises given and must either remain faithful or repent when he or she fails.

Marriage and Family Are the Normal Proving Ground

Marriage is ordained of God and is the Lord's normal preparation for the higher family order. It is not merely a social arrangement, a temporary companionship, or a convenient way to organize mortal life. God established marriage from the beginning with purposes that reach beyond the immediate desires of the husband and wife, forming a household in which covenant loyalty, stewardship, sacrifice, fidelity, parenthood, forgiveness, and enduring love can be learned and proven.

Marriage Establishes a New Household

The Lord declared that “a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24; see also Matthew 19:5–6; Mark 10:7–9). This establishes more than physical union. A husband and wife form a new household before God. Their parents remain parents and continue to be loved and honored, but the married couple no longer remains under the former household order as though marriage merely added another person to it. They now bear responsibility before Christ for the home, children, resources, covenants, and life He places within their stewardship.

For this reason, the spousal bond becomes the primary human relationship within the mortal household. Parents, children, friends, extended family, traditions, and former loyalties must not be permitted to divide what husband and wife are responsible to build together. This does not diminish love for parents or children; it establishes order. A married couple must learn to counsel together, protect one another, keep confidence with one another, make decisions in righteousness, and remain united when outside pressure would pull the household in competing directions.

Marriage is also to be treated as a real covenant rather than a relationship that lasts only while feelings remain easy. The Savior rejected the idea that marriage should be casually put away and pointed His hearers back to the order God established “from the beginning” (Matthew 19:3–8). Feelings may change, disappointments may come, and serious trials may expose weakness, but marriage is not to be treated as disposable because it becomes difficult. Covenant loyalty requires repentance, forgiveness, repair, patience, and continued effort wherever righteousness makes reconciliation possible.

Civil law, safety, and serious wrongdoing remain relevant. Abuse, abandonment, persistent unfaithfulness, serious covenant breaking, or other grave circumstances may require separation, civil action, or the protection of a spouse and children. Civil marriage also carries real legal rights and responsibilities, and a lawful civil marriage is strongly preferred because those protections matter. Civil action, however, does not make the history of a covenant meaningless before God. Every spouse remains accountable to Christ for how that marriage was entered, honored, injured, preserved, or forsaken.

Parenthood Enlarges the Capacity to Love

Parenthood is also an important part of the Lord's ordinary preparation for greater family stewardship. Marriage teaches a husband and wife to cleave to one another, while children begin teaching them how love can enlarge beyond one relationship without diminishing the love already present. A father does not need to love his first child less when a second child is born, and a mother does not divide one fixed amount of love into increasingly smaller portions as more children are given to her. As parents faithfully care for each child, their capacity to love, sacrifice, nurture, protect, forgive, and give of themselves is enlarged.

This is one reason family life can prepare the heart for the higher covenant order. Parents with several children must learn to know different personalities, respond to different needs, carry several burdens at once, and remain faithful to each individual without treating one child as though another has replaced them. They learn that love is not merely an intense attachment to one preferred person. Righteous love makes room, remembers, serves, and accepts additional stewardship while continuing to care faithfully for those already entrusted to it.

The principle is not that having children automatically makes a person prepared for celestial marriage. A parent may still be selfish, partial, neglectful, jealous, controlling, or unwilling to love as Christ requires. Neither is a faithful person who has been unable to have children condemned or made incapable of receiving greater blessings. Jesus Christ knows the circumstances and preparation of every soul. The principle is that faithful parenthood provides a powerful school in which the heart can learn the expanding love required by greater family stewardship.

Those who have never learned to give themselves deeply to another person may find this expansion especially difficult at first. Love requires vulnerability, patience, sacrifice, and the willingness to carry another person's welfare in the heart. Marriage begins that education, and parenthood can enlarge it considerably. As more children come, faithful parents repeatedly practice receiving another person into the family, loving that person as fully as those who came before, and accepting additional responsibility without abandoning existing responsibility.

This pattern points toward the celestial law. Additional covenant relationships are not meant to teach a person to discard one love for another but to enlarge the heart until more people can be received faithfully within it. The parent who has learned to rejoice in each child, care for each according to individual need, and love a growing family without allowing one child's arrival to displace another has already practiced an important principle of Zion: increase should enlarge love rather than relocate it.

Marriage and family life are therefore more than preliminary requirements before a higher covenant. They are part of the Lord's preparation of the heart. Through faithful marriage and parenthood, selfish love can become sacrificial love, exclusive concern can become enlarged stewardship, and the disciple can begin learning how to love many people personally without loving any of them less.

Marriage and Sealing Are Not the Same Covenant

A lawful marriage and an eternal sealing are related, but they are not identical. Lawful marriage establishes the mortal union and household and creates real duties of fidelity, care, provision, loyalty, and stewardship in this life. The marriage is not made insignificant merely because the spouses have not yet received an eternal sealing.

A sealing adds something further. Through authority given by Jesus Christ, the sealing covenant authorizes the marital relationship to continue in the eternal order God has appointed. It does not merely recognize that two people love one another. It places the relationship under the sealing power and joins it to the greater covenant order of Christ. The fuller doctrine concerning generations, eternal households, parent-child relationships, the Millennium, and the welding of the exalted family into Christ is established in Resurrection, the Millennium, and Eternal Marriage.

This distinction matters because the higher family order does not bypass ordinary marriage. A person is not prepared for greater covenant relationship merely by learning additional doctrine. Marriage requires two people to live covenant faithfulness under ordinary mortal pressure. Promises must be kept when emotions fluctuate, selfishness must be confronted, sexual desire must be governed, trust must be built and repaired, resources must be managed, children must be served, and pride must yield to patience, sacrifice, unity, and enduring love.

The higher family order enlarges these lessons rather than replacing them. A person who has not learned to cleave faithfully, govern a household in righteousness, forgive, sacrifice, communicate, and remain loyal within marriage has not learned foundational capacities that become even more necessary in the covenant family of Zion. Marriage is therefore the Lord's normal proving ground before greater family stewardship is given.

Marriage Is the Standard, Not an Absolute Barrier

Marriage is not an absolute requirement that prevents Christ from calling a faithful person whose circumstances did not permit the normal preparation. Some earnestly seek righteous marriage but never find a suitable spouse. Others enter marriage faithfully and later suffer abandonment, betrayal, abuse of covenant, or another serious failure caused by the spouse. Faithful disciples are not condemned for another person's unfaithfulness or for circumstances beyond their righteous control.

Exceptions cannot be claimed by preference. Only Jesus Christ may determine that the normal requirement should be waived. When He makes such an exception, He will reveal it personally to the individual and also confirm it through the prophet who governs the stewardship of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Kingdom of Zion. Personal revelation and governing revelation will therefore stand together in establishing the exception.

Those whom Christ calls while unmarried are not being called into permanent isolation. As other single disciples are gathered and the Lord appoints relationships within His order, they may receive a civilly married spouse and establish the lawful household foundation. The normal pattern nevertheless remains that marriage and family life should be sought and faithfully lived before greater family stewardship is given when the Lord makes that preparation available.

Sacrifice and Consecration Prepare the Soul for Zion

The laws of sacrifice and consecration prepare the disciple to give the whole life to Christ, but they accomplish different parts of that preparation. Sacrifice gives up what cannot remain, while consecration takes what is good and places it wholly in the service of Jesus Christ and His work.

Sin, pride, selfish desire, corrupt habits, false traditions, unlawful attachments, and anything else the Lord commands to be relinquished must be placed upon the altar and left behind. Time, talents, strength, relationships, possessions, opportunities, learning, labor, and every good blessing the Lord gives can then become instruments for His purposes rather than possessions held independently from Him.

Repentance therefore does not merely empty the life of evil. What is removed must be replaced with holiness. Christ warned that a house left empty after an unclean spirit departs may become worse than before if nothing righteous fills it (Matthew 12:43–45; Luke 11:24–26). The disciple sacrifices what cannot remain and consecrates what can be made holy.

The offering must also be willing. God loveth a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7), and a gift offered grudgingly is not the same as a heart freely surrendered to Christ. Sacrifice and consecration therefore prepare more than possessions or outward behavior; they prepare the will itself to become an offering to God.

Zion Requires the Whole Person

Zion cannot be built by partial consecration. The disciple cannot reserve a private portion of life and declare it permanently beyond Christ's reach while claiming to have given the whole self to Him. The higher covenant requires a person who is willing for Jesus Christ to govern every part of life according to His wisdom and stewardship.

Jesus Christ must stand above family approval, social acceptance, career, reputation, possessions, security, ambitions, traditions, and personal plans. The Savior taught that anyone who loves father or mother more than Him is not worthy of Him and that the disciple must take up the cross and follow Him (Matthew 10:37–38). This does not command cruelty toward family or neglect of righteous responsibilities; it establishes the order of loyalty.

Christ comes first, and every other love is governed by love for Him. Because He is first, spouses should be loved more faithfully, children more tenderly, stewardships more honestly, work more diligently, and other people more charitably rather than being neglected in the name of religious devotion. Consecration places every righteous relationship beneath Christ so that He may teach the disciple how to fulfill it properly.

This is why Zion requires more than enthusiasm for higher doctrine. The Lord is preparing people He can trust with greater covenant responsibility because they have learned to give Him the entire heart. A person may admire Zion, believe its doctrine, or desire its blessings and still remain unprepared if a portion of the life is knowingly withheld from the King.

Formal Prerequisites to Enter the Higher Covenant

The preceding sections explain why the preparation is required. The following requirements gather that doctrine into one authoritative summary for determining readiness to enter the higher covenant. Being called to learn does not automatically authorize entrance; the disciple must satisfy the preparation Christ requires.

Personal Readiness

The individual must:

• have received a personal calling from Jesus Christ into this work and have that calling confirmed through the prophet according to the order Christ has established;
• be over eighteen years of age and fully accountable for his or her choices;
• understand the covenant and enter it freely and without coercion;
• be receiving and acting upon personal revelation;
• demonstrate sustained obedience to Jesus Christ;
• be willing to repent, change, receive instruction, and accept correction; and
• have been proven faithful through trial rather than relying only upon an initial spiritual witness.

Foundational Covenants and Ordinances

The individual must:

• have received baptism and confirmation through authority given by Jesus Christ;
• have received the endowment;
• understand the five governing laws of Obedience, Sacrifice, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Chastity, and Consecration; and
• demonstrate faithfulness in those laws over time.

Marriage and Stewardship Preparation

Under the Lord's normal order, the individual should:

• have entered a faithful and lawful marriage;
• have demonstrated covenant loyalty within that marriage; and
• have learned the responsibilities of household, family, sacrifice, service, and care for those placed within his or her stewardship.

Where this normal preparation was not possible through no unrighteous choice of the individual, Jesus Christ alone may make an exception. Such an exception is not claimed by preference and must be established through the personal and governing revelation described above.

Complete Consecration

The individual must:

• place Jesus Christ above every competing loyalty;
• be willing to surrender whatever He requires;
• read and understand the higher law before covenanting to obey it;
• accept the responsibilities Christ places within that law; and
• enter with real intent to obey all that the Lord has revealed and all that He may yet require within the stewardship.

These prerequisites do not mean the disciple is perfect. They mean the foundation is established, the heart is willing, the word has taken root, the disciple has shown a pattern of faithful obedience, and Christ has determined that the person is ready to proceed.

Membership in Christ's Latter-day Saints Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot recognize the higher covenants and order administered by The Church of Jesus Christ of the Kingdom of Zion within its present stewardship. A person who enters these higher covenants must therefore understand that the two institutional orders are distinct and cannot be treated as though they presently administer the same covenant order.

Membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may consequently be removed, or the individual may voluntarily withdraw from membership when required by the circumstances of openly entering and living the higher order. That institutional separation does not establish that Christ's Latter-day Saints Church is false or that its Restoration, priesthood, saving ordinances, prophets, and appointed work have become invalid.

The continuing sacredness of that Restoration and the relationship between the two stewardships are established under Authority. Those called forward should therefore make any institutional transition without contempt, remembering with gratitude what Christ gave through the foundational stewardship while faithfully obeying the greater responsibility He now places before them.

The path into Zion is thus not a claim of superior knowledge or spiritual status. The Lord calls, the disciple follows, the disciple is taught and proven, and Christ opens the next stewardship according to His wisdom.