Author: Chauncey Riddle

Be in tune with the Savior:

• Repent of every sin. (Checklist: Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount)
• Get rid of every unrighteous desire.
• Be strong and steady of mind.
• Search the Spirit daily, to do the Savior’s will.

Think out:

• Find the correct goal (by the Spirit)
• Plan backward from the goal each necessary step, until you arrive at the present.
• Search out each thing that can go wrong; plan prevention or adequate remedy.
• Plan a criterion by which you will know when the goal is obtained.
• Obtain necessary approvals on plans.

Work out:

• Assemble tools and materials.
• Concentrate resources, attack goal with full strength.
• Pay special attention to your people; they are your greatest resource.
• Polish and finish the job, 100%.
• Conserve tools and materials.
• Pay bills.

Evaluate:

• Test for completion of goal.
• Evaluate planning.
• Evaluate performance.
• Estimate value of project.

Our Savior has said that we should be holy, for He is holy. Holy is a form of the word, “wholly.” What can we do to be holy? Be wholly focused on Him.

1. Have your mind constantly on the Savior, discerning whether you are pleasing Him or not.
2. Look with compassion, kindness and forgiveness toward every other human being you encounter during the day. Let your constant prayer be: How can I serve this person?
3. Own what is necessary and keep it in good order and repair, ready to present it to the Savior.
4. Dress, look, and act like the living prophet.
5. Never overeat nor consume anything that is not good for you.
6. Be out of debt, and be current and generous in tithes and offerings.
7. Search the scriptures, the conference reports, and the Holy Spirit daily.
8. Pray constantly. Let your day be a long conversation with the Lord.

1. There is no “English language.”
2. Reason produces no truth.
3. Man is not a rational animal.
4. Objectivity is impossible.
5. No man can demonstrate self-righteousness.
6. Rule of law is impossible.
7. There is no equality short of identity. (Individuality crisis)
8. Every man is a success (Quality wise)
9. There are “natural” laws of morality.
10. Empiricism is impossible. (Pure)
11. Induction is always guesswork.
12. Every person has a religion. (But some are more religious than others.)
13. Theory governs our lives. (Adduction)
14. Imagination is the key.
15. Abstraction simplifies the world.
16. Every person has a God.

The most important event in the total history of this world is the event known as the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is possible to construe what the atonement is narrowly or broadly. To see it in narrow focus is to emphasize the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the last day of his mortal life and ministry, culminating in his death on the cross. To see the atonement in broad focus is to emphasize the total mission of our Savior from the time of the grand council in heaven until the last judgment is over and every person once mortal has entered into his or her eternal future. Let us explore the broad perspective and note how it also includes the narrow focus.

The English word “atonement” is made up of three words conjoined: “at-one-ment.” This word signifies the labor of bringing two sides or parties together, to make two into one. It is our Savior’s task, as assigned in the council in heaven, to assist every human being who ever has or will live on this earth to become one with our Father in Heaven. To be one with Father means to share all that He is and has: His perfection, power, knowledge, priesthood, and opportunities. Our Savior is one with our Father and it is His desire, attempt and mission to bring all of us humans to be one with Father, even as He is. This is the “at-one-ment.” He can do this, of course, only for those who will trust Him and cooperate.

Let us now recount the steps and stages of this attempt to help us become one with Father.

The first step was the cleansing of heaven after the grand council. A third of the hosts of heaven rebelled against Father and His plan to bless all of His spirit children. These rebellious souls were cast out of Father’s presence by our Savior, and cast down to this earth to await a future need for their services.

The second step was the preparation of this earth as a dwelling place for mankind. This planet was not created out of nothing, for it was already in existence when the Savior came down to form it for man’s habitation. The earth was prepared with all things necessary for man to live on it in the flesh, then Adam was placed on the earth, the first flesh on earth. All of the plants and animals created for this world were brought here to be useful to Adam and Eve and their posterity.

The third step was the creation of the world. The world is a spiritual kingdom on the earth, the earth being this planet. The world was created after Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden as a married couple, having covenanted with Father to obey him in all things and having received the instruction to multiply and fill up the earth with their posterity. One of the first things they did was to disobey Father by yielding to the temptations of Satan. The result of that disobedience was the Fall. The earth fell out of its then orbit, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden and out of Father’s presence, and they were put into the power of Satan because they had obeyed him. Satan gaining power over Adam and Eve was the creation of the world, or Satan’s kingdom on this earth. Satan and his third of the hosts of heaven are here to torment and try each of us every day of our mortal lives.

The fourth step was giving Adam and Eve and their posterity a new covenant, the New and Everlasting Covenant, which would enable them to eventually work their way back out of the power of Satan. They were taught and empowered how to become godly instead of carnal, sensual and devilish as man had become in the Fall. This fourth step was teaching Adam and Eve and their posterity the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that through faith in him and repentance of all their sins they could be saved from the evil within their own selves. Through receiving the ordinances of the holy priesthood and keeping their covenants, they could change their basic eternal natures which had allowed them to fall and become as Christ is in heart, might, mind and strength. Part of this fourth step was the sending of the Holy Ghost, angels, and prophets, seers and revelators to keep the posterity of Adam informed about the wondrous news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to keep the offer of the New and Everlasting Covenant before the people through the Church of Jesus Christ. Adam’s posterity kept rejecting the Holy Spirit, the prophets, the church, the Gospel and the new covenant, so these were taken away and then restored many times.

The fifth step of the atonement was the mortal life and mission of that God who had created and presided over the earth up to this point. Christ was born to Mary, was the son of our Father in Heaven, and lived a perfect life in obeying all of Father’s commands. Having lived a perfect life, he needed no savior or redeemer for his own future. And being perfect, he could offer his own spotless life as a sacrifice for the remainder of mankind. So he sacrificed. He gave up his potentially unending mortal life in exchange for the keys of death. Having seized the keys of death, that assured that all mankind would be resurrected in the flesh and live forever, even as he will. And he suffered. He suffered the pains of all men, both for the sins they had committed and for the sins committed against them, so that there could be a forgiveness of the penalties and consequences of every human sin. And as a god, Christ undertook restitution for the sins of all humankind. As a God he blessed every human being with a restoration of every blessing they would have received had the not been sinned against. With this restitution, every human being exists in eternity as if they had not been sinned against, shortened in their enjoyment of Heavenly Father’s blessings.

The sixth step of the atonement is the judgment. As Christ was lifted up by mortal men and crucified, so Christ will draw all men up to him at the last day and will judge them. He will judge them by what they did when the Holy Spirit testified to each of them that he was and is the Christ, the Savior of mankind and that they should forsake all ungodliness and become sinless, as he, Christ, is. An integral part of the atonement is that every soul receives a full witness and explanation of the salvation through Christ before coming to the bar of judgment, and the person is to be judged by what they do after they have received that full witness and opportunity to be saved from themselves and their own wickedness. So all men will stand before Christ and will be judged, even as each of them judged him and accepted or rejected him. Those who did good will be given great eternal reward. Those who did evil will be sent to receive all that they can stand, which may be but a little.

The seventh step of the atonement is that the Savior takes all who have accepted him and his covenant in their probation, who did have faith in him and repent unto a pure heart, and teaches and nurtures them in the ways, powers and duties of godhood until they have received a fulness of all things and have become as He is and as Father is. This seventh step is the climax of the atonement: each soul who will receive it is now like the Father and the Son. These enter into their rest and become one with all the gods in all of their future exciting adventures in creating worlds, peopling those worlds with souls, and giving each of those souls the same opportunity to become one with Father and Christ that we have been given. Thus, the final step of the at-one-ment is actually bringing each soul who will receive it into a spiritual and functioning oneness with Father and the Son in their eternal round of creating worlds and blessing souls.

Thus the atonement of Jesus Christ is the whole basis and reason for the existence of each human being. We exist to be given the opportunity to inherit all that our Father is and has. How grateful we ought to be to our Savior for carrying out this wonderful plan of our Father to bless each of us. How we ought to strive to fight against the power of the adversary to stop us from receiving our heritage through Jesus Christ!

I would like now to make some specific suggestions as to how each of us might profit from the atonement in our daily lives:

1. Carefully inspect all things that come before us and separate them into really good, indeterminate, and really bad.
2. Focus our heart and mind on that which we know is really good. Leave aside all the indeterminate and really bad. All that is good comes from Christ.
3. Plan and work each day to do all of the really good you can. This will include constant prayer in the name of Christ, daily reading of scripture, careful attention to serving those around us, being cheerful and happy, being thankful for all things the Lord sees fit to inflict upon us.
4. Deliberately seek out and foster everything that is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy. The sum of these four steps is to be as a little child before God and to shun the teachings and ways and fashions of this world as one would flee a raging fire.

May the Savior ever be in our hearts; may his magnificent atonement ever be on our minds to inspire and guide us; and may we ever follow the whisperings of his Holy Spirit and overcome this world through Christ, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

1. We are born into this world with a body fashioned in the likeness of those of the gods. (Christ is the creator of all things in heaven and in earth.)
2. The light of Christ is given to each person who comes into this world, to teach them the difference between good and evil. Everyone knows the difference, but each of us gets to say which one is good and which one is evil for us.
3. By the light of Christ everyone will eventually be able to locate the Holy Spirit and its teachings. It will teach us of Christ.
4. By the Holy Spirit, each of us will eventually receive and recognize the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by those who have the true authority of God. They will invite us to be baptized.
5. As we accept baptism, we covenant to be willing to take upon us His name, to remember Him always, and to keep all the commandments He gives us.
6. When we make the covenant of baptism, we are given the right to the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Gift is the constant companionship, differing from the occasional witness which led us to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
7. If we actually receive the Holy Ghost when we are confirmed, or after, we also receive at least one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
8. As we treasure the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost by being humble and obedient, and as we use well the gift of the spirit we have been given, we become heir to all of the other gifts of the spirit.
9. As we learn well to serve others, young men are given the Aaronic Priesthood to enhance the power of their service to bless others temporally.
10. As a young man serves well in the offices and responsibilities of the Aaronic Priesthood, he becomes ready and receives the Melchizedek Priesthood, which further increases his power to serve and bless others. There are three steps in receiving the full power of the Melchizedek Priesthood:
          a. Conferring of the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordaining to the office of elder. This grace gives one the power to bless others spiritually.
          b. Receiving one’s endowment (gift from God) in the holy temple. This enables one to resist the power of Satan and overcome the world.
          c. Being sealed to one’s spouse in the holy temple by the power of God. This gives a man and a woman the right to have children and to preside over their posterity as an eternal kingdom.
11. Callings and opportunities to serve in the Kingdom of God on earth come (but none is greater or more important than the opportunity to preside over and bless one’s own posterity). The person grows in power and ability as he or she is faithful in family and church responsibilities.
12. The ultimate grace is to overcome the world through faith in Jesus Christ and to be given the gift of a pure heart. He who has the pure heart has everything. He who lacks the pure heart is still nothing. He and she who receive the pure heart will be exalted, will become one with the Father and the Son. The scriptures call this gift, “charity.”

How to live the Restored Gospel without falling on your face.

The reason we need to come to Christ is because we keep falling on our face. Until he rescues us from ourselves, we will continue to fall on our face (to sin), and we cannot stop it. So when we fall on our face we need to struggle to our knees and acknowledge before heaven and earth that we need the help of Jesus Christ. We avail ourselves of that help by doing four things: (All that follows assumes that we know that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is true.)

1. We need to stop sinning. We can examine ourselves to admit what we know already: we are sinning and then stop it. We must stop every sin we know about and replace each sinning with positive, righteous acts.
2. We need to partake of the New and Everlasting Covenant. We can be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, receive our temple endowments, be sealed in the temple in the covenant of eternal marriage.
3. We need to take upon ourselves the harness of the priesthood in serving faithfully and valiantly in the Kingdom of Christ. We can get behind the presiding officers over us in the church, pray for them, sustain them with our faith and prayers, fully fulfill any calling they extend to us to serve in the kingdom, and especially to do all of those voluntary, quiet labors of Christian service which being a neighbor to needy people can bring.
4. We need to persevere in the path of righteousness until we have done all that we can do through faith in Christ to be righteous, then to implore the Savior that he will purify our hearts, to give us that greatest gift of charity. For we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, but only after all we can do to perfect ourselves by the means he has already given us. By doing all we can first, we demonstrate that we really do want what he has to give and that we are willing to make any sacrifice necessary to do our part. Then he will make us pure. Then we will no longer have any desire to sin. Until we receive charity, that pure heart, we will continue to sin. Thus until we persevere to that end, we are as nothing.

We do not do these things, these four steps, in serial order, one at a time. We work on each of them constantly, every day, and the more we do of one, the greater our capability becomes to do the others.

What is the secret to doing these things fully and faithfully, to endure to the end? The secret is simple: to perfect each day. We can study out in our minds a plan for each day, then live as intelligently as we are able within our plan. Some elements should be in every plan:

1. Personal prayer upon arising, upon retiring, and all during the day.
2. Family prayer night and morning.
3. Daily scripture study, privately and as a family.
4. Planning each day’s work with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
5. Executing the work of each day in the spirit of love and pure knowledge.
6. Constancy in scanning the horizon for souls who may be in need of our help.
7. Building our lives around the three great works of the latter days: missionary work, perfecting the Saints (establishing Zion), and redeeming the dead.

1 Peter 1:13–16: Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Fathers: Your task as a father and head of your family is to lead all of your family back to Christ.

To come to Christ is to learn to love Him with all of our heart, might, mind and strength.

With the following particulars:

Heart: Be and teach everyone in your family to be honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and to do good to all men through faith in Christ.

Might: Use all the influence and power you have and encourage your family to build the kingdom of God on the earth (the LDS Church) and to establish Zion (the society run by Christ’s pure love unfeigned where all persons are of one heart, one mind, dwell in righteousness and will not allow anyone in their group to be poor). Meanwhile, see that everyone in your family has good nourishment, clothing, shelter and physical safety.

Mind: Believe in Christ and teach everyone in your family to full trust in Jesus Christ and to come to know that God hears and answers prayers, that we will all stand before him to be judged of our works done in this mortality, and that we will spend the rest of eternity after the resurrection doing that which we finally chose to be found doing in mortality, be it good or evil.

Strength: To honor the physical tabernacle loaned to us by Christ for this mortality, and to use it to protect all women, the weak, the ill and infirm, the aged, and to give that great gift of mortal life to all the spirits God chooses to send to mortality through your lineage, to be born in the New and Everlasting Covenant.

And never, ever, be selfish.

The purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to reveal to people the important opportunity they have to know who they are, what is ultimately good for them, how they can be released from the burden of their transgressions of God’s laws, and how they can go on to perfection through the Atonement of Jesus Christ by entering into the New and Everlasting Covenant.

One cannot comprehend the value of this message until he realizes that he has made a mistakes, cannot make up for these mistakes by his own power, and is not intelligent or strong enough to avoid making some future mistakes or transgressions of God’s law unless he has divine aid. This divine aid is a power which gives divine direction to those willing to enter into the covenant, showing them, as they are worthy, all things they should do; it comforts them with a divine witness that the Gospel Message is true, and that righteousness is the only way to happiness and power. This divine aid is given through and by a member of the Godhead whom we call the Holy Ghost.

It is the guidance and comfort of the Holy Ghost that enable a person to have the strength and wisdom to overcome the world, to put on the “new” man, as Paul says, to go on unto perfection; and the visitation of the Holy Ghost is the agency by which a person is cleansed of his sins, as it were by fire, after he has accepted the blood of Christ in baptism.

When a person receives the Holy Ghost after faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, and the laying on of hands by those having authority, that influence will linger with and labor with him as long as he does not sin. Should a person succumb to temptation and transgress God’s law, he again becomes unclean, an unfit tabernacle for the Holy Spirit, which must leave him until he can again become free from sin. He cannot be baptized again, but the Lord in His mercy has provided another ordinance that His children may again receive the Spirit, knowing that they are weak and cannot overcome all evil immediately and finally upon being baptized.

This other ordinance is the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in which commemoration of the Atonement of the Savior we have the opportunity to review our covenants. If we have sinned but desire to be forgiven and have done all in our power to repent of our transgressions, we then may renew our covenant by taking the bread and water and eating and drinking them as a witness that we have repented and desire to accept our Savior and to be like him. Should we partake of the Sacrament not having tried to repent of ever sin we know we have committed, we eat and drink damnation unto ourselves, making a mockery of the renewal of covenants.

Thus in His mercy the Lord has commanded that we should meet together in Sacrament Meeting often, to confess our sins, to inspire one another, and to renew our covenants and again receive the Holy Spirit, that week by week we might draw closer to our goal: to become just men made perfect, citizens of the Lord’s Kingdom who eagerly seek and abide His law, and who are perfect in obedience to Jesus Christ, being led in all things by the Holy Ghost.

The most important verse? That’s a strong value judgment. But there are some reasons why it might be so. The verse is 2 Nephi 26:24:

He (God) doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

“Benefit” means doing good, blessing and ministering to others. He does this because of his heartfelt love for each human. The totality of human beings is “the world” in the scriptures. Christ has suffered for the sins and pains of each and every human being in order to be able to bless each one with forgiveness of sins, resurrection, and glory. He hopes to bless each human with all, with exaltation in eternity. But he respects each person and will put upon each that which each has shown he or she wants to receive and does follow the covenant path to become able to receive. Not everyone can stand to receive all that God tries to give them.

The reasons why this verse is the most important verse come under three headings:

1. This verse gives us a most important feature of our knowledge about our God.
2. This verse solves the problem of evil in this world.
3. This verse sheds great light on the commandments God has given us.

This verse gives us a most important feature of our knowledge about our God.

Usual discussions of the nature of our God sometimes focus on how much he knows, what he can do, and where he is.

Our God is said to be omniscient, that he knows everything that can be known, past, present and future. In the Book of Mormon Jacob exclaims: “O how great the holiness of our God. For he knoweth all things and there is not anything save he knows.” (2 Nephi 9:20) This means that God is never puzzled or in the dark about anything. He knows and understands all things. Therefore he knows how to bless each of his children.

Usual discussions also emphasize the power of God, that he has all power. This means that he can do anything that can be done. The Savior said: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” (Matthew 28:18) Thus he is never frustrated by inability to bless each human being.

Our God is also present everywhere in the universe. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” (Psalms 139:7–10) This is to say that wherever any of his children are in the universe, God finds and blesses them.

And our god is also good, which is to say that he blesses or helps each of his children to enjoy as much blessing as each can stand to receive. And this is where our special verse from the Book of Mormon quoted above applies. It is well understood by mankind that God blesses his children. What is not as well known is what this verse explains: God only blesses his children. Some persons are wont to attribute curses to God, and the scriptures actually use that word. But this verse in the Book of Mormon tells us that any so-called curse from God is actually a blessing and will result in some great benefit and opportunity for the recipient. Thus God only blesses. Everything he does is to advance the happiness, power and well-being of his children. But again, he will not put upon any child of his a blessing which they cannot profit from. Thus some are damned to spare them agony from receiving blessings which would cause them to regress. And this damnation is a blessing.

This verse solves the problem of evil in this world.

Anything is an evil if it is not as good as it could or should be. Thus every human sin is an evil, something which need not be and should not be. For every human sin shortens the blessings and welfare of the sinner’s fellow-beings. God’s commandments are given so that we will have guidance and power not to do evil, but to bless only, even as God does. God holds each human accountable for all the evil each has done, and our Savior counts any evil we do to any other person as if we had done it unto him. If we repent of doing evil, our Savior forgives us. But if we will not and do not repent, he must hold us accountable on the day of judgment.

But there is a lot of so-called evil in this world that is not the doing of any human being. There are diseases, natural disasters, such as storms and volcanic activity, opposition from wild animals, heat and cold that devastate, etc. the point of this special scripture from the Book of Mormon is that all so-called evil is the hand of God delivering something to his human children which will eventuate in blessing which they will recognize and be grateful for. God’s hand is in all things, and thus nothing happens in this universe except by his permission. Thus he lets what we call evil treatment by humans and natural disasters in nature function as avenues for blessings greater than the evil humans suffer. Thus, each human being should be grateful for any suffering he or she undergoes, understanding that if he or she will turn to God as little children and humbly submit to the so-called evils that come upon them, that paves the way for greater blessings from God. “For the natural man (a man without Christ or God in this mortal world) is an enemy (does not love) to God, and has been since the Fall of Adam (because of the influence and temptations of Satan), and will be forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit (and accepts Jesus Christ as his father and guide), and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love (for Christ and all mankind and all of God’s creation), willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him (to bless him with), even as a child doth submit to his father (for that person who comes to Christ counts Christ as his father). (Mosiah 3:19)

This discussion makes no sense to those who do not believe in the immortality of the human soul: no pre-mortal, no post-mortal. For only in the post-mortal life do all the evils of mortality become blessings.

Thus everything God brings to pass happens because God is using it to bless his children, to help each enjoy all the blessings and powers of God himself if they can stand to receive such magnificence.

This verse sheds great light on the commandments God has given us.

Salvation in Christ is to change our personal character from the way we were as a natural man in this mortality into the character and nature of Christ himself. This is done by means of faith in Christ unto repentance of everything we are that is not like him, to “come unto the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) This explains why our Savior commands us to : “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children of your father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. … Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5 44–48) This is what Christ himself does, and he bids us to follow his example.

This verse in the Book of Mormon is the most important verse because it clarifies for us the most important characteristic of God: that his heart is filled only with unmixed, pure love for all his children and for all creation. Knowing the most important things about God our Father is the most important thing any human could know. And gaining and using that pure love from Him in order to purely minister to others is the most important thing any human being will ever do.

The atonement of Jesus Christ has its focus on redeeming mankind from the two deaths which are the result of the Fall of Adam. The first of these two is the temporal death of the physical body of each human (the separation of the spiritual body from the physical body of the individual). The second is having the senses of the spiritual body cease to function. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve could perceive with the sensory organs of their spiritual bodies as well as sensing with the senses of their physical tabernacles. Because Adam obeyed Satan rather than God, these two deaths came upon Adam and Eve and upon all of their posterity, the human race.

When Adam and Eve were created by Jehovah (Jesus Christ) they were immortal and could have live forever, having the same DNA as the gods. Their immortality is testified to by Lehi: “If Adam had not transgressed he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.” (2 Nephi 2:22) Having the same DNA as the Gods is testified by the fact that Elohim was the literal father of Jesus Christ in the flesh with Mary of Nazareth, a mortal woman.

The physical death which ensued upon the disobedience of Adam and Eve was doubtless imposed upon them by Jehovah under the Father’s direction, and as all of God’s gifts, was a blessing to enhance their future possibilities. This physical death which came upon mankind in the Fall would be reversed when appropriate by Jesus Christ (Jehovah), but that physical death would not be reversed to the same status for every person. In order for the resurrection to be a true blessing to each individual, it was decreed by the Father that each would receive a body appropriate to the degree of power the person could and would use it for righteousness. Those who showed in their mortality that they would and did fulfill all righteousness through Jesus Christ would receive the same physical body and powers of the gods: be exalted. Those who proved in their probation that they could and did act in some lesser degree of righteousness would receive a body with all the powers appropriate to the degree of their demonstrated righteousness. Some would be like the greatness of the sunshine (celestial), some would be like the diminished light of the moon (terrestrial), or some like the faint light of the stars that bless the earth (telestial). And there would be some who demonstrate an eternal hatred for righteousness, who would receive a physical body but with no power to do any righteous act. This because they were in mortality totally overcome by and followed the enemy of all righteousness, Satan.

The spiritual death, having the senses of their spiritual bodies stopped up so that they could no longer sense the spirit world around them was likewise a blessing imposed by Jehovah to make possible for Adam and Eve and their posterity to be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. For God would prove all human beings as to their inherent desires of the heart, not the knowledge of their minds. The desires of the heart are the indicators of the true nature of the person. Some knowledge and understanding in the mind are necessary for the heart to make a meaningful choice. But the knowledge and understanding of the mind give power but not direction for choices. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:8)

The proving of the true desires of the heart of each person was to be shown by giving each of God’s mortal children two opportunities. The first was that each person who would come to accountability and thus have a true mortal probation would be given the light of Christ as a guide. This light of Christ would manifest itself as the conscience of the person, and would steer each person to avoid succumbing to the temptations which would come from Satan to do evil. The mission and work of Satan and his followers would be to oppose all righteousness by enticing each individual to be selfish and use others to fulfill selfish desires. Thus each accountable child of God would be free to demonstrate his or her true nature: to choose righteousness through the light of Christ, or to choose selfishness through yielding to the temptations of the Satanic influence. But it was also set by the Gods that the influence of the conscience would be relatively weak as compared to the temptations of Satan.

Thus everyone would find themselves giving in to selfishness to some degree. This was deemed by the Gods to be a good thing because it meant that every mortal child of God would taste both the bitter and the sweet, the evil and the good. This would be an important part of their mortal probation, to have tried doing both good and evil, both righteousness and sinning.

But this beneficial experience of doing both good and evil while helpful in determining the true nature of each person also brought a problem. Each giving in to the evil influence of selfishness would be a breaking of God’s commandments, a sin. And every sin the person would commit would separate them from God and make it impossible for the sinner ever to return to the presence of God. This is because every sin is a wounding of someone or something else, taking advantage of that person or thing for some supposed personal benefit to the sinner. Thus every sin diminishes the happiness and blessing of those someones or somethings, God’s creatures. God, who only acts to bless others, cannot then accept that sinner back into his presence, for that would pollute the heavenly place where the gods dwell. Thus the mortal experience of proving ourselves throws up a barrier to our ever returning to the presence of our gods, the Father and the Son: “for the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” (Alma 45:16)

God, knowing that we, his children, would have this problem, prepared a way to overcome the predicament. He not only sends each of his children the light of Christ, a conscience, but he sends also to those who largely obey their conscience a special heavenly messenger, the Holy Ghost. The task of this messenger is to bear witness to the individual who will receive that witness that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God the Father, and that Christ has been sent into this world to rescue each child of God who will accept salvation from sin and sinning. Christ, the specially anointed rescuer, is sent by the Father to help each of his human children both to stop sinning and to help each pay the debt incurred by each sinful act. Stopping sinning is possible only by trusting Christ unto coming on to the path of righteousness and staying there. Stopping sinning is called repentance. Paying the debt for past sins is called restitution, and total restitution for human sins is possible only in and through the atonement of Jesus Christ. So any child of God who wants to repent of sinning and restore the blessings he or she has denied someone or something else in that sinning may do so. They may do it through their own efforts and through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and can become clean and acceptable back into the presence of the gods. But that repentance needs to be celestial repentance. Telestial repentance is saying, “I am sorry for having done that.” Telestial repentance is restoring one for one, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Celestial repentance is replacing the sin with a blessing, and involves at least fourfold restitution.

Thus the full satisfaction for having sinned necessarily includes both replacing the sinning with acts that bless, repentance, and making full restitution. Both of these can be accomplished fully only through the atonement of Christ. Full repentance is possible only under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, for only God knows what acts will bless and not harm. And full restitution must also be guided by the Holy Ghost to be efficacious, besides it often being out of the scope of the power of the sinner to make full recompense to the one(s) sinned against.

Restitution is an important part of the Law of Moses as found in Exodus 22: “If a man steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it: he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. If a thief be found breaking in … he should make full restitution; if he hath nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox or ass or sheep; he shall restore double. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution. Etc.” (Exodus 22:1–5+)

Likewise is restitution part of the New Testament, in the testimony of Zacchaeus: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold.” (Luke 19:8)

We also find the principle of restitution in the Doctrine and Covenants. “But if [thy neighbor] trespass against thee the fourth time thou shalt not forgive him, but shall bring these testimonies before the Lord; and they shall not be blotted out until he repent and reward thee four-fold in all things wherewith he has trespassed against thee. And if he do this, thou shalt forgive him with all thine heart; and if he will not do this, I, the Lord, will avenge thee of thine enemy an hundred-fold; And upon his children and upon his children’s children of all them that hate me, unto the third and fourth generation. But if the children shall repent, or the children’s children, and turn to the Lord their God, with all their hearts and all their might, mind and strength, and restore four-fold for all their trespasses wherewith they have trespassed, or wherewith their fathers have trespassed, or their father’s fathers, then thine indignation shall be turned away; and vengeance shall no longer come upon, saith the Lord thy God, and their trespasses shall never be brought any more as a testimony before the Lord against them.” (D&C 98:45–48) This passage makes it plain that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, and that therefore a given individual’s repentance must necessarily take account of the sins of his or her fathers. All of this emphasizes the importance of restitution as part of the atonement of Christ. For Christ must restore and make restitution for the sins of those who he forgives and blesses through his atonement.

There are then three main aspects of the atonement of Christ: the sacrifice, the suffering and the restitution. The sacrifice is the Savior giving up His potentially unending mortal life and all the good He could and would have done by living forever as a mortal. The suffering was that He suffered all the pain that anyone who has been trespassed against suffers, pain for every sin of mankind. The suffering is finite and was completed on the cross of Calvary when he said, “It is finished.” The restitution was that he makes whole the damage done by every particular sinning, (the reason sin is sin is because every breaking of the commandments of God causes hurt to something or someone, and these hurts have a chain of reaction that would go on forever if not blocked. The Savior blocked all of these damaging ramifications that would go on forever. Insofar as an individual human being can make restitution for his or her sins on his or her own, this will be part of his or her repentance in coming unto Christ. But it is likely that the vast bulk of the restitution due for human sinning cannot be completed by human power and this larger burden falls upon our Savior. Since the consequences of sinning and the necessities of restitution extend into eternity, even so must the restitution extend into eternity. Thus, the atonement of Christ must be infinite in its power and scope.

Thus, how grateful we humans should be that our God offers to each of us the forgiveness of our sins on condition of repentance. There would be little point in forgiving us if we did not repent, for we would then continue to wound and damn others by sinning against them. But if we have truly repented, have changed our natures so that we now bless others and never harm them, there is real benefit in Christ’s suffering for our sins and making eternal restitution for them. Oh, the greatness and the goodness of our God, Jesus Christ, who has atoned for the sins of all mankind. All who will accept his grace will have future glory in blessing others.

[It is interesting that in our LDS society today repentance is given great prominence, but restitution is seldom mentioned. Repentance is for the most part portrayed as stopping some wrong act, but usually does not include going on to replace the harmful act with a beneficial act. Restitution is not even a topic in the scriptural Topical Guide.]