There was only one way of redemption, one way in which reparation could be made and the body restored again to the spirit; that was by an infinite atonement, and it had to be made by an infinite being, someone not subject to death and yet someone who had the power to die and who also had power over death. And so our Father in heaven sent us his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world with life in himself. And because he had a mother who had blood in her veins he had the power to die. He could yield up his body to death and then take it again. Let me read his own words: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10:17-18.)
He had power to lay down his life, and on the cross he paid the price for our sins and at the same time for Adam’s transgression. His infinite atonement resulted in two things: (l) restoration of the body to the spirit, and (2) the redemption of those who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and who will be loyal in the keeping of his commandments-freedom from their sins.
Now, in conclusion, what are we going to do? Are we going to love him? Are we going to realize the great work he did for us and are we going to be grateful, or are we going to violate his commandments? I would like to read something by Sydney Harris, taken from the Deseret News in 1964, entitled “Would We Believe and Follow?”
“If there should be a second coming, would there not be soon a second crucifixion? And this time, not by the Romans or the Jews, but by those who proudly call themselves Christians? I wonder! I wonder how we today would regard and treat this man with his strange and frightening and ‘impractical’ doctrines of human behavior and relationships. Would we believe and follow, any more than the masses of people in his day believed and followed?
“Would not the militarists among us assail him as a cowardly pacifist because he urges us not to resist evil?
“Would not the nationalists among us attack him as a dangerous internationalist because he tells us we are all of one flesh?
“Would not the wealthy among us castigate him as a trouble-making radical because he bars the rich from entering the kingdom of heaven?
“Would not the liberals among us dismiss him as a dreamy vagabond because he advises us to take no thought for the morrow, to lay up no treasures on earth?
“Would not the ecclesiastics among us denounce him as a ranting heretic because he cuts through the core of ritual and commands us only to love God and our neighbors?
“Would not the sentimentalist among us deride him as a cynic because he warns us that the way to salvation is narrow and difficult?
“Would not the puritans among us despise and reject him because he eats and drinks with the publicans and sinners, preferring the company of winebibbers and harlots to that of ‘respectable’ church members?
“Would not the sensual among us scorn him because he fasts for forty days in the desert, neglecting the needs of the body?
“Would not the proud and important among us laugh at him when he instructs the twelve disciples that he who would be ‘first’ should be the one to take the role of the least and serve all?
“Would not the worldly wise and educated among us be aghast to hear that we cannot be saved except we become as children, and that a little child shall lead us?
“Would not each of us-in his own way-find some part of this man’s saying and doing to be so threatening to our ways of life, so much at odds with our rooted beliefs, that we could not tolerate him for long?
“I wonder, I wonder if we are any more prepared for the second coming than we would have been for the first.”
President Joseph Fielding Smith
Conference Report,April 1967,Afternoon Meeting
I’m preparing a talk for an adult singles conference tomorrow and just re-read one of Elder McConkie’s most powerful statements about the Atonement. I have posted it before, but I don’t think we can be reminded of this too often:
If there had been no atonement of Christ, there would be no resurrection, no breaking of the bands of death, no coming forth from the grave.
If there had been no atonement, there would be no remission of sins; no return to the presence of God; no salvation of any sort, kind, or nature; no eternal life; no exaltation; no continuation of the family unit in eternity.
If there were no atonement of Christ, all men would be subject to “that awful monster the devil, and death, and hell, and that lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment” (2 Nephi 9:19).
If there were no atonement of Christ, “our spirits” would have become “like unto” Lucifer’s, “and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself” (2 Nephi 9:9).
If there were no atonement of Christ, all men would be damned everlastingly, all would be sons of perdition, and the whole purpose of God and his eternal plan of salvation would utterly fail.
All things center in, revolve around, are anchored to, and are built upon the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no language given to men or angels to proclaim these truths with the power and verity and dignity that should attend them. Let it be blazoned in burning fire through all the sidereal heavens that salvation is in Christ and comes because of his atoning sacrifice.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
The Three Pillars of Eternity, devotional address at Brigham Young University on 17 February 1981
[W]hy not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?
Amulek, Alma’s missionary companion, said,
“Now, there is a death which is called a temporal death; and the death of Christ shall loose the bands of this temporal death, that all shall be raised from this temporal death. The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time; and we shall be brought to stand before God, knowing even as we know now, and have a bright recollection of all our guilt. Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body . . .”
Alma 11:42–44 (emphasis added)
If there had been no atonement of Christ, there would be no resurrection, no breaking of the bands of death, no coming forth from the grave.
If there had been no atonement, there would be no remission of sins; no return to the presence of God; no salvation of any sort, kind, or nature; no eternal life; no exaltation; no continuation of the family unit in eternity.
If there were no atonement of Christ, all men would be subject to “that awful monster the devil, and death, and hell, and that lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment” (2 Nephi 9:19).
If there were no atonement of Christ, “our spirits” would have become “like unto” Lucifer’s, “and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself” (2 Nephi 9:9).
If there were no atonement of Christ, all men would be damned everlastingly, all would be sons of perdition, and the whole purpose of God and his eternal plan of salvation would utterly fail.
All things center in, revolve around, are anchored to, and are built upon the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no language given to men or angels to proclaim these truths with the power and verity and dignity that should attend them. Let it be blazoned in burning fire through all the sidereal heavens that salvation is in Christ and comes because of his atoning sacrifice.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
The Three Pillars of Eternity, devotional address at Brigham Young University on 17 February 1981
“One night I dreamed … that I was in the Garden of Gethsemane, a witness of the Savior’s agony. … I stood behind a tree in the foreground. … Jesus, with Peter, James, and John, came through a little wicket gate at my right. Leaving the three Apostles there, after telling them to kneel and pray, He passed over to the other side, where He also knelt and prayed … : ‘Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt.’
“As He prayed the tears streamed down His face, which was [turned] toward me. I was so moved at the sight that I wept also, out of pure sympathy with His great sorrow. My whole heart went out to Him. I loved Him with all my soul and longed to be with Him as I longed for nothing else.
“Presently He arose and walked to where those Apostles were kneeling—fast asleep! He shook them gently, awoke them, and in a tone of tender reproach, untinctured by the least show of anger or scolding, asked them if they could not watch with Him one hour. …
“Returning to His place, He prayed again and then went back and found them again sleeping. Again He awoke them, admonished them, and returned and prayed as before. Three times this happened, until I was perfectly familiar with His appearance—face, form, and movements. He was of noble stature and of majestic mien … the very God that He was and is, yet as meek and lowly as a little child.
“All at once the circumstance seemed to change. … Instead of before, it was after the Crucifixion, and the Savior, with those three Apostles, now stood together in a group at my left. They were about to depart and ascend into heaven. I could endure it no longer. I ran from behind the tree, fell at His feet, clasped Him around the knees, and begged Him to take me with Him.
“I shall never forget the kind and gentle manner in which He stooped and raised me up and embraced me. It was so vivid, so real that I felt the very warmth of His bosom against which I rested. Then He said: ‘No, my son; these have finished their work, and they may go with me; but you must stay and finish yours.’ Still I clung to Him. Gazing up into His face—for He was taller than I—I besought Him most earnestly: ‘Well, promise me that I will come to You at the last.’ He smiled sweetly and tenderly and replied: ‘That will depend entirely upon yourself.’ I awoke with a sob in my throat, and it was morning.”
Elder Orson F. Whitney
“The Divinity of Jesus Christ,” Improvement Era, Jan. 1926, 224–25
There is another temptation to be resisted. It is to yield to the despairing thought that it is too hard and too late to repent. I knew a man once who could have thought that and given up. When he was 12 he was ordained a deacon. Some of his friends tempted him to begin to smoke. He began to feel uncomfortable in church. He left his little town, not finishing high school, to begin a life following construction jobs across the United States. He was a heavy-equipment operator. He married. They had children. The marriage ended in a bitter divorce. He lost his children. He lost an eye in an accident. He lived alone in boardinghouses. He lost everything he owned except what he could carry in a trunk.
One night, as he prepared to move yet again, he decided to lighten the load of that trunk. Beneath the junk of years, he found a book. He never knew how it got there. It was the Book of Mormon. He read it through, and the Spirit told him it was true. He knew then that all those years ago he had walked away from the true Church of Jesus Christ and from the happiness which could have been his.
Later, he was my more-than-70-year-old district missionary companion. I asked the people we were teaching, as I testified of the power of the Savior’s Atonement, to look at him. He had been washed clean and given a new heart, and I knew they would see that in his face. I told the people that what they saw was evidence that the Atonement of Jesus Christ could wash away all the corrosive effects of sin.
That was the only time he ever rebuked me. He told me in the darkness outside the trailer where we had been teaching that I should have told the people that while God was able to give him a new heart, He had not been able to give him back his wife and his children and what he might have done for them. But he had not looked back in sorrow and regret for what might have been. He moved forward, lifted by faith, to what yet might be.
One day he told me that in a dream the night before, the sight in his blind eye was restored. He realized that the dream was a glimpse of a future day, walking among loving people in the light of a glorious resurrection. Tears of joy ran down the deeply lined face of that towering, raw-boned man. He spoke to me quietly, with a radiant smile. I don’t remember what he said he saw, but I remember that his face shone with happy anticipation as he described the view. With the Lord’s help and the miracle of that book in the bottom of a trunk, it had not for him been too late nor the way too hard.
Elder Henry B. Eyring
“Do Not Delay,” Ensign, Nov 1999, 33
What we must remember about the Savior is that He and He alone had the power to lay down His life and take it up again. He had the ability to die from His mortal mother, Mary, and the ability to overcome death from His immortal Father. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, went willingly and deliberately to His death, having told His followers that this would happen. Why? one might ask. The answer: to give immortality to all mankind and the promise of eternal life to those who believed in Him (see John 3:15), to give His own life for a ransom for others (see Matt. 20:28), to overcome Satan’s power, and to make it possible for sins to be forgiven. Without Jesus’ Atonement, there would be an impassable barrier between God and mortal men and women. When we comprehend the Atonement, we remember Him with awe and gratitude.
. . . .
As we remember the Savior, we remember an empty tomb, a symbol that the Lord has risen and a promise to all of the Resurrection and life after death.
Because of our Savior’s Atonement, in death’s darkness there is no sting, in death’s depression there is no victory. His resurrected light dispels the darkness, defeating the prince of darkness, with a brightness of eternal hope.
. . . .
When the time for the Atonement was near, the disciples were concerned how long Jesus would remain with them. He told them that He would not tarry with them for long but that He would leave a Comforter with them, the Holy Ghost (see John 14:26). For you and me, we have to understand the loving nature of our Savior. We are not left alone. He has given us this day, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, a restoration of the gospel in these latter days. He has provided another testament of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon. He has restored the priesthood and the keys that He gave to Peter, James, and John when He was with them and they were His Apostles. They came to Joseph Smith and restored those same keys in 1829. Additional priesthood keys were brought by Elijah, Moses, and Elias after the appearance of the Savior in the Kirtland Temple on April 3rd of 1836. These keys have been given for the ordinances of the temple (see D&C 110).
We have not been left alone. We have the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost to lead and guide us in an otherwise very dark and dreary world. The keys of the priesthood have been restored to make available all of the ordinances that are necessary, that we may return to His presence.
Elder Robert D. Hales
“In Remembrance of Jesus,” Ensign, Nov 1997, 24
My wife and I attended a special performance of the BYU Ballroom Dance Company celebrating the Company’s 50th year yesterday. This is one of the premier dance companies in the world and it has won major national and world competitions many times.
I arrived at the concert expecting a wonderful artistic and musical experience, but I did not expect a spiritual experience. As I watched these talented dancers, I was especially impressed by what careful control they displayed over their bodies. The arms, feet, legs, torso and head moved with great precision, tracking the music and the movements of the other dancers.
When men and women danced in pairs, each dancer displayed a grace and beauty that included something unique to their gender. Each partner moved in a way that enhanced and enlarged the elegance of the other. While each dancer individually was very appealing, the impression presented by combination of the two exceeded the sum of their talents. Again, control of each body was manifested in myriad ways.
While Elder David A. Bednar was President of Ricks College, he made the following statement:
“The precise nature of the test of mortality, then, can be summarized in the following questions: Will my body rule over my spirit, or will my spirit rule over my body? Will I yield to the enticings of the natural man or to the eternal man? That, brothers and sisters, is the test.” ( Bednar, “Ye are the Temple of God” Ricks College Devotional, January 11, 2000)
Elder Bednar was speaking in terms of obeying the law of chastity and, until yesterday, I had always thought of his described test of mortality primarily in terms of the spirit keeping the body in line. However, I now understand that the test is not only to have our spirit direct our body to avoid evil, but also to have our spirit direct our body to perform good and uplifting acts. Of course, this involves service to others, but I believe it also involves creating beauty and expressing truth, whether our instrument is our body alone as with the dancers or our body in combination with a musical instrument, a word processor, a blank canvas, a sewing machine or a collection of kitchen utensils and ingredients.
While the dancers performed, I realized that their spirits were it perfect control of their bodies. Without that control, the performance would not have been nearly so moving and I would not have felt the Holy Ghost as I watched them.
I also realized what a great tragedy it would be if these marvelous bodies were to age and die and lay buried in the ground forever. What a splendid and vital gift it is that our bodies will be resurrected. Christ died so the bodies I watched will be resurrected and come once again under the control of the spirits of the dancers.
In the words of Amulek,
“Now, there is a death which is called a temporal death; and the death of Christ shall loose the bands of this temporal death, that all shall be raised from this temporal death. The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time . . . .
“Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body . . . .
“Now, behold, I have spoken unto you concerning the death of the mortal body, and also concerning the resurrection of the mortal body. I say unto you that this mortal body is raised to an immortal body, that is from death, even from the first death unto life, that they can die no more; their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal, that they can no more see corruption.” (Alma 11:42-45)
Alma also spoke of this resurrection,
“The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.
“And now, my son, this is the restoration of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets and then shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of God.” (Alma 40:23-25)
One of the apostate doctrines brought into the early Christian church by Greek philosophers was the idea that the body was inherently evil and only when the spirit left the body behind could it be truly pure. Modern revelation has corrected this erroneous belief.
“The spirit and the body are the soul of man. And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul.” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15-16)
Christ lead the way in this marvelous resurrection. When He rose from the dead on the morning of the third day after His crucifixion, his magnificent and eternal spirit resided in an equally magnificent and eternal body. Because of His Atonement, all of us will be resurrected, our spirits, which never die, rejoining with a body that never dies thereafter.
An even greater potential gift of the Atonement relates to the type of body we will receive upon our resurrection. If we are obedient to the commands of our Savior, His Atonement will give us a resurrected body which is like His body and like that of His Father. Celestial bodies will be filled with light, brighter than the sun.
Celestial bodies will, of course, have arms, feet, legs, torsos and heads and will be capable of dancing. What spectacular and inspiring performances we will then witness as we watch dancers whose bodies perfectly match their spirits, bodies no longer constituted of the elements of a fallen world, bodies overflowing with light, bodies not limited by space or time, bodies saved and exalted by Jesus Christ.
David P. Vandagriff