“Adam fell that men might be;” (2 Nephi 2:25)
B. H. Roberts wrote the following about this scripture and the doctrine of the Fall that springs from it:
“The effect of this doctrine upon the ideas of men concerning the great Patriarch of our race will be revolutionary. It seems to be the fashion of those assuming to teach the Christian religion to denounce Adam in unmeasured terms; as if the fall of man had surprised, if indeed, it did not altogether thwart, the original plan of God respecting the existence of man in the earth … it logically follows that the fall no less than the Atonement or redemption must have been part of God’s plan respecting the earth probation of men. The Fall, undoubtedly, was a fact as much present to the foreknowledge of God as was the Atonement, and the act which encompassed it must be regarded as more praiseworthy than blameworthy, since it was essential to the accomplishment of the divine purpose.”
Elder Brigham Henry Roberts
The Seventy’s Course in Theology, Fourth Year, p. 37
Alma speaking to his son, Corianton:
6 But behold, it was appointed unto man to die—therefore, as they were cut off from the tree of life they should be cut off from the face of the earth—and man became lost forever, yea, they became fallen man.
7 And now, ye see by this that our first parents were cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord; and thus we see they became subjects to follow after their own will.
8 Now behold, it was not expedient that man should be reclaimed from this temporal death, for that would destroy the great plan of happiness.
9 Therefore, as the soul could never die, and the fall had brought upon all mankind a spiritual death as well as a temporal, that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord, it was expedient that mankind should be reclaimed from this spiritual death.
10 Therefore, as they had become carnal, sensual, and devilish, by nature, this probationary state became a state for them to prepare; it became a preparatory state.
11 And now remember, my son, if it were not for the plan of redemption, (laying it aside) as soon as they were dead their souls were miserable, being cut off from the presence of the Lord.
12 And now, there was no means to reclaim men from this fallen state, which man had brought upon himself because of his own disobedience;
13 Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.
14 And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence.
15 And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.
Thus, we further the Savior’s work of atonement when we live together in a state of at-one-ment. We do atonement work when we marry and work at that marriage. Without the commitment to marriage, the Lord’s atoning work could not go forward on the earth. The purposes of creation would have been wasted.
Eternal marriage, after all, is both a type and a function of at-one-ment. It is a type in that it constitutes two separate, fallen beings-a man and a woman-brought into oneness with each other and with God through the grace and power of Jesus Christ. It is a function of atonement in that, through the divine enabling power of the Atonement, a man and woman make their marriage eternal.
The Savior said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:4-6; emphasis added.)
The word cleave is an atonement word that means “to cling to closely, tightly.” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, countering currents of asceticism already gaining momentum in the Church: “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all . . . [are] of God.” (1 Corinthians 11:11-12.) Conversely, when we put relationships asunder, we violate this spirit of at-one-ment.
M. Catherine Thomas
The Restoration of the Doctrines of Marriage and Atonement
Women and Christ: Living the Abundant Life: Talks Selected from the 1992 Women’s Conference
Sponsored by Brigham Young University and the Relief Society
Edited by Dawn Hall Anderson, Susette Fletcher Green, and Marie Cornwall
Deseret Book Company (1993)
(paragraph breaks added to enhance online readibility)
The story of Adam and Eve teaches us that the Atonement is for all of life, each day of our lives. The Savior’s gracious power not only heals and comforts but is also a source of personal growth and development, leading to an understanding of life and a fullness of joy. The Atonement is thus developmental and practical, not static and abstract.
According to Lehi, “If Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden.” He and Eve “would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.” (2 Nephi 2:22-23.) This passage seems to say what many parents have long suspected-if they had no children, they would have no misery. Yet without children and without misery, they would also have no joy. But, taught Lehi, the Fall-with its misery, its sorrow, and even its sin-was not a mistake or an accident. The Fall was consciously designed, misery and all, to bring us joy and freedom: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time . . . that they . . . become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves.” (2 Nephi 2:25-26.)
The Lord taught Adam this same understanding of life. He said Adam’s children would experience the bitterness of mortality, but “they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good.” (Moses 6:55.) Indeed, “If they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet.” (D&C 29:39) And the role of the Atonement in that process is to compensate for-to heal us from-the effects of the bitter, after we do all we can do by ourselves: “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23.)
Thus does the grace of Christ, unlocked by his atoning sacrifice, heal us from the wounds of our sins and all our other infirmities. As we repent of our conscious sins, accept the gospel, and do all else we can do, we enter into a holy relationship with our Savior based on the two-way covenants made possible by his atonement. Through our covenant relationship with him, celebrated each week by the sacrament, he heals us in at least four distinct ways.
First, he satisfies the eternal law of justice, relieving us of the burden of paying for our sins, so long as we repent of them.
Second, his influence interacts with our righteous yearnings and our repentance to change our hearts until we desire goodness continually.
Third, he bridges any chasm that separates and estranges us from God. Many things can create this sense of alienation-unintentional mistakes or undeserved discouragement and confusion, as well as sin. Regardless of whether his sheep run away or lose their way or are stolen away, the Good Shepherd will search for them when they are lost, pick them up, and carry them home, making them “at one” with him and his Father. That is the work of the great “at-one-ment.”
And, fourth, once we have done all we can do to make restitution, the Savior will help to compensate for the harm we may have done or the harms done to us, repairing and restoring our spiritual and psychic losses, whether caused by sin or other factors.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen
“Eve Heard All These Things and Was Glad”: Grace and Learning By Experience
published in Women in the Covenant of Grace, Edited by Dawn Hall Anderson
and Susette Fletcher Green
Talks Selected from the 1993 Women’s Conference Sponsored by
Brigham Young University and the Relief Society
Deseret Book Company, 1994
Not just any person may invoke mercy on behalf of another: “Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another…therefore there can be nothing which is short of an infinite Atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world” (Alma 34:11-12). Jesus Christ alone can achieve such an infinite Atonement “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10) because of his nature as the actual son of God in the flesh and because he was himself without sin (see Atonement of Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ: Only Begotten in the Flesh).
Mercy is not extended arbitrarily. To protect individuals from the undeserved effects of sins for which they are not responsible, the Atonement unconditionally paid the penalty for the transgression of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It pays similarly for sins committed in ignorance (Mosiah 3:11; see also Moses 6:54). However, the Atonement removes the penalty for personal sins for which one is accountable only on the condition of individual repentance.
In this way, the concepts of justice, mercy, and the Atonement retain both a specific integrity and a logically consistent relationship: “The plan of mercy could not be brought about except an Atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and merciful God also…. But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature…. For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved” (Alma 42:13, 15, 22, 24).
Mercy is thus rehabilitative, not retributive or arbitrary. The Lord asks repentance from a transgressor, not to compensate the Savior for paying the debt of justice, but to induce the transgressor to undertake a meaningful process of personal development toward a Christlike nature.
At the same time, mercy depends ultimately on the Lord’s extension of unmerited grace. Even though conditioned on repentance for personal sins, mercy is never fully “earned” by its recipients. Repentance is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of salvation and exaltation. “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25:23). The unearned nature of mercy is demonstrated by the Atonement’s having unconditionally compensated for the disabilities imposed on mankind by the Fall of Adam. Adam and Eve and their posterity were utterly powerless to overcome the physical and spiritual deaths that were introduced by the Fall. Moreover, transgressors do not “pay” fully for their sins through the process of repentance. Even though repentance requires restitution to the extent of one’s ability, most forms of restitution are beyond any person’s ability to achieve. No matter how complete our repentance, it would all be to no avail without a mediator willing and able to pay our debt to justice, on condition of our repentance. Thus, even with sincere and complete repentance, all are utterly dependent on Jesus Christ.
Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, justice and mercy are interdependent and interactive, demonstrating that God cannot be just without being merciful, nor merciful without being just.
Topic: Justice and Mercy
Encyclopedia of Mormonism
Edited by Daniel H. Ludlow
The History, Scripture, Doctrine, and Procedure of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Macmillan Publishing Company (1992)
In LDS teachings, the Fall of Adam made Christ’s redemption necessary, but not because the Fall by itself made man evil. Because of transgression, Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden into a world that was subject to death and evil influences. However, the Lord revealed to Adam upon his entry into mortality that “the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt”; therefore, Adam’s children were not evil, but were “whole from the foundation of the world” (Moses 6:54). Thus, “every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God” (D&C 93:38).
As the descendants of Adam and Eve then become accountable for their own sins at age eight, all of them taste sin as the result of their own free choice. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). One whose cumulative experience leads her or him to love “Satan more than God” (Moses 5:28) will eventually become “carnal, sensual, and devilish” (Moses 5:13;6:49) by nature. On the other hand, one who consciously accepts Christ’s grace through the Atonement by faith, repentance, and baptism yields to “the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord” (Mosiah 3:19). In this way, the individual takes the initiative to accept the grace made available by the Atonement, exercising faith through a willing “desire to believe” (Alma 32:27). That desire is often kindled by hearing others bear testimony of Christ. When this word of Christ is planted and then nourished through obedience interacting with grace, as summarized below, the individual may “become a saint” by nature, thereby enjoying eternal (meaning godlike) life.
Grace is thus the source of three categories of blessings related to mankind’s salvation. First, many blessings of grace are unconditional -free and unmerited gifts requiring no individual action. God’s grace in this sense is a factor in the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement, and the Plan of Salvation. Specifically regarding the Fall, and despite death and other conditions resulting from Adam’s transgression, Christ’s grace has atoned for original sin and has assured the resurrection of all humankind: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression” (A of F 2).
Second, the Savior has also atoned conditionally for personal sins. The application of grace to personal sins is conditional because it is available only when an individual repents, which can be a demanding form of works. Because of this condition, mercy is able to satisfy the demands of justice with neither mercy nor justice robbing the other. Personal repentance is therefore a necessary condition of salvation, but it is not by itself sufficient to assure salvation (see Justice and Mercy). In addition, one must accept the ordinances of baptism and the laying-on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, by which one is born again as the spirit child of Christ and may eventually become sanctified (cf. D&C 76:51-52; see also Gospel of Jesus Christ).
Third, after one has received Christ’s gospel of faith, repentance, and baptism unto forgiveness of sin, relying “wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save,” one has only “entered in by the gate” to the “strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life” (2 Ne. 31:17-20). In this postbaptism stage of spiritual development, one’s best efforts-further works-are required to “endure to the end” (2 Ne. 31:20). These efforts include obeying the Lord’s commandments and receiving the higher ordinances performed in the temples, and continuing a repentance process as needed “to retain a remission of your sins” (Mosiah 4:12).
Grace, Encyclopedia of Mormonism
I’m going to create a series of posts that center on Grace. As used in the New Testament, Grace is often another word for Atonement. Elder Bednar has begun with Grace in his ground-breaking talks (discussed here and here) about the enabling power of the Atonement.
Let’s begin with the Bible Dictionary’s definition of Grace:
A word that occurs frequently in the New Testament, especially in the writings of Paul. The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ.
It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus, made possible by his atoning sacrifice, that mankind will be raised in immortality, every person receiving his body from the grave in a condition of everlasting life. It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.
Divine grace is needed by every soul in consequence of the fall of Adam and also because of man’s weaknesses and shortcomings. However, grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation, “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25: 23). It is truly the grace of Jesus Christ that makes salvation possible. This principle is expressed in Jesus’ parable of the vine and the branches (John 15: 1-11). See also John 1: 12-17; Eph. 2: 8-9; Philip. 4: 13; D&C 93: 11-14.
“Grace,” Bible Dictionary
In following days, we’ll look at what some of our prophets, apostles and religious thinkers have said about Grace.
I wish now to summarize the elements of doctrine that apply the holy Atonement and its enabling grace to our lives. In this way I hope to illustrate how fully each of us needs the Lord’s power and how earnestly he seeks to turn our mourning to joy, our blindness to sight, and our ashes to beauty.
When I think of the Savior all alone that night in Gethsemane, a solitary light shining in the vast darkness of cosmic evil, I think of the millions of people for whom he alone paid the full ransom. Then I recall Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s phrase about “the awful arithmetic of the Atonement.” The wonder of that event is clearly beyond our comprehension. As Elder Packer said, “How the Atonement was wrought, we do not know. No mortal watched as evil turned away and hid in shame before the light of that pure being.”
The first and most familiar elements of the Atonement relate to the transgression of Adam and Eve and to our personal sins. Because of the Fall, Adam and his children became subject to death, sin, and other characteristics of mortality that separated them from God. To allow mankind again to be “at one” with God, the eternal law of justice required compensation for these consequences of the Fall. The eternal law of mercy allowed the Savior to make that compensation fully through the great “at-one-ment,” relieving Adam and his children of their unbearable burdens.
Somehow, through his sinless life, his genetic nature as the Only Begotten of the Father, and his willingness to drink the bitter cup of justice, the Lord Jesus Christ was able to atone unconditionally for the original sin of Adam and Eve and for the physical death, and to atone conditionally for the personal sins of all mankind.
The unconditional parts of the Atonement, those that assure our resurrection from physical death and that pay for Adam’s transgression, require no further action on our part. They are the free gifts of unmerited divine grace. The conditional part, however, requires our repentance-part of “all we can do”-as the condition of applying mercy to our personal sins. We have been told that if we do not repent, we must suffer even as the Savior did to satisfy the demands of justice. (See D&C 19:15-17.)
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, Deseret Book, 1989
12 Behold, he created Adam, and by Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.
13 And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the presence of the Lord; yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed, because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection, which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep, from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound; and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar, being redeemed and loosed from this eternal band of death, which death is a temporal death.
The atonement of the Master is the central point of world history. Without it, the whole purpose for the creation of the earth and our living upon it would fail. . . .
[W]ithout it, no man or woman would ever be resurrected. . . . And so all the world, believers and nonbelievers, are indebted to the Redeemer for their certain resurrection, because the resurrection will be as wide as was the fall, which brought death to every man.
Elder Marion G. Romney
Conference Report, 1953, October:34-35