# Gospel

Explore how the Mormon Transhumanist Association envisions the Gospel through the lens of faith, technology, and humanity’s divine potential.

[Image: John the Revelator beheld an angel “having the everlasting gospel to preach … to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Revelation 14:6).]

In the grand prophetic vision of Isaiah, the gospel is announced by a herald whose feet are “beautiful upon the mountains,” bearing the triumphant declaration to Zion: “Thy God reigneth!” (Isaiah 52:7). The Hebrew root *basar* underlying this errand conveys the bearing of joyful tidings, while the Greek equivalent, *euangelion*—derived from *eu* (“well”) and *angelos* (“messenger”)—identifies the nature of what is carried. Through the Old English *gōdspel*, which eventually coalesced into the familiar “God-spell,” English readers inherited the concept of a story about God. Although contemporary Latter-day Saints frequently employ the term to encompass the entirety of restored doctrine, its earliest scriptural usage points directly to an active, localized event: a divine victory and a literal release from captivity.

## Good Tidings to the Poor

During His mortal ministry at Nazareth, Jesus deliberately appropriated Isaiah’s pronouncement. Reading in the synagogue, He declared His anointing by the Spirit “to preach the gospel to the poor,” “to heal the brokenhearted,” and to grant “recovering of sight to the blind,” concluding with the authoritative assertion: “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:18, 21). Latter-day Saints rightly recognize the Nephite prophet Abinadi’s profound exegesis, which identifies the runner upon the mountains as both the collective prophets and the Lord Himself. Of equal scholarly interest is the Dead Sea Scroll text 11QMelchizedek, which refers to the messenger on the mountains as “the anointed of the spirit”—a remarkable ancient parallel that linguistically binds the prophetic runner to the anointed preacher of Luke 4.

Crucially, the tidings announced at Nazareth are not solely concerned with the ethereal soul; they are inextricably linked to physical bodies and mortal circumstances. The poor, the brokenhearted, and the blind are identified by their tangible afflictions, and the subsequent healings recorded by Luke fulfill this prophetic announcement in deeply literal ways. The theology of the Restoration underscores this reality, maintaining that the spirit and the body comprise the soul of man and that the resurrection is a physical imperative. Viewed through this lens, the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation’s inclusion of “relief, consolation and healing” within the scope of discipleship is theologically consistent. By such a reading, the efforts of the eye surgeon and the administration of a vaccine clinic participate in the very same restorative errand.

## “This Is My Gospel”

Within the corpus of Restoration scripture, the gospel is explicitly defined in two primary texts, both of which center entirely on the condescension and atoning work of Jesus Christ. To the Nephites, the resurrected Lord declared, “this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father,” explaining that just as He was lifted up by men, “even so should men be lifted up by the Father” (3 Nephi 27:13-14). Similarly, the sweeping vision given to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in 1832 defines the gospel as “the glad tidings” that Jesus came “to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness” (D&C 76:40-41). The fundamental message is one of universal resurrection and cosmic sanctification.

This covenantal framework is systematized in the fourth Article of Faith, which delineates faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost as the primary principles and ordinances. The designation of these as “first” principles inherently suggests a continuing trajectory, one that Latter-day Saints understand to culminate in the ordinances of the holy temple and ultimate exaltation. The Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation echoes this progression through the verbs to “trust in, change toward, and fully immerse our bodies and minds in the role of Christ.” This tripartite framework functionally mirrors faith, repentance, and baptism, expanding the concept of immersion beyond the baptismal font to encompass the sanctification of the entire human organism.

## Every Nation, Kindred, and Tongue

The scriptural mandate demands the dissemination of the gospel to all peoples, an obligation the Restoration radically extends into the post-mortal realm. John the Revelator beheld an angel “having the everlasting gospel to preach … to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Revelation 14:6). Correspondingly, Peter spoke of “the gospel preached also to them that are dead” (1 Peter 4:6), a doctrine magnified in President Joseph F. Smith’s 1918 vision, wherein Christ mobilized messengers to “carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men” (D&C 138:30). The prophetic runner, the apocalyptic angel, and the spirit-world messengers constitute a unified typological pattern, expanding outward from Zion to encompass both the living earth and the domain of the dead.

In our current dispensation, technological tools facilitate this linguistic and geographic crossing at a magnitude far surpassing traditional missionary capacities. Meta’s NLLB-200 model accelerates translation across hundreds of languages, while FamilySearch leverages artificial intelligence to transcribe billions of archival images, systematically extracting the names required to perform vicarious temple ordinances. Yet, we must recognize that *euangelion* was historically appropriated by secular powers. In 9 BC, the province of Asia issued a decree stating that the birth of “the god Augustus” marked “the beginning of the good tidings for the world.” Modern technological amplification carries similar risks of distortion; a 2018 study in *Science* demonstrated that false narratives propagate on digital platforms at a significantly higher velocity than truth, driven primarily by human agency rather than automated bots.

When Lincoln Cannon frames the gospel as a divine injunction to immerse ourselves “in the role of Christ, to become gods and saviors, to console, to heal, and to raise each other up together,” he correctly interprets this as a mandate to embrace technologies of healing and elevation. Such aspirations align harmoniously with the scriptural pattern wherein messengers bear news of physical and spiritual deliverance, initially to the poor and marginalized. However, this same pattern demands profound discernment. Just as the “good tidings” of Augustus were a political counterfeit, modern technological evangelism can be corrupted. The Affirmation’s charge to “identify and prepare for risks” is essential, requiring us to rigorously ensure that the news we amplify across the globe remains eternally true when it reaches the hands of the vulnerable.

*See also*: [Atonement](/topical-guide/atonement), [Christ](/topical-guide/christ), [Fall](/topical-guide/fall), Gospel, [Kingdom](/topical-guide/kingdom), [Revelation](/topical-guide/revelation), [Salvation](/topical-guide/salvation)