Millennial LDS BIBLE DICTIONARY definition of the Latter Day Church (as if we were reading the bible dictionary during the Millennium looking back considering the Latter Day Church of our time - today):
The name assigned to the whole collection of written laws and policies given through Brigham Young to the Saints in the Latter Days, as a replacement of the higher law that they had failed to obey while Joseph was alive. The LDS Church consisted of many temple ceremonies, rituals, and symbols, to remind the people frequently of their duties and responsibilities. It included a law of carnal commandments and performances as taught in manuals, media, meetings, and curriculum materials, added to the basic laws of the gospel. Faith, repentance, baptism in water, and remission of sins were part of the LDS church, as were also the Ten Commandments. Although inferior to the fulness of the gospel lost to the saints after Joseph, there were many provisions in the LDS church of high ethical and moral value that were equal to the divine laws of any dispensation. The LDS church functioned under the Aaronic Priesthood and was a preparatory church to bring its adherents to Christ and his true gospel only by the Holy Spirit. (see 1 Millennial 20:14)
One of the major questions the "wise virgin" Latter Day Saint members in the world had to decide was about the obligation of Saints to the ceremonial laws of the Church. The matter was partially solved by the conferences held by the power of the Holy Spirit within families of Zion by the Lord's strange act. The majority of the Latter Day Saint Christians in particular had difficulty giving up the rituals of the LDS Church. The saints who took the spirit as their guide, on the other hand, seemed to have had much less of a problem doing so (see 1 Millennial 20:15, also 3 Ne. 15:1–5).
The law as given through the LDS church was a good law, although adapted to a lower spiritual capacity than is required for obedience to the gospel in its fulness. However, over the years, the LDS church leaders had added many unauthorized provisions, ceremonies, and prohibitions to the original law, until it became extremely burdensome to those saints who were heeding the spirit as their only guide. These innovations were known as the “traditions of the brethren.” By pre-Millennial times among the latter day saints the LDS Church had become so altered it had lost much of its spiritual meaning. It is this form of the LDS church that is so harshly spoken against by Jesus and by David (see Millennial David - one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power 20:18). There is no evidence that the LDS church had become as altered among the Nephites or jews as among the Latter Day Saints, and this may partially explain why the awoken saints and even the awoken jews and christians had less trouble in giving it up when the Savior began to gather his people by his spirit before the ushering in of the 2nd coming.
Adapted from the current bible dictionary under the Law of Moses.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/law-of-moses
