God (Father and Mother) begat spirit children
Who loved with and served under Father and Mother
And learned obedience unto righteousness
That they might be proved in heart and clothed in flesh
In a fallen and mortal existence.
So Adam fell that men might be
Able to choose good and evil and overcome the flesh
By denying selfishness and learning to love
Yearning to return to be again with Father and Mother
To claim the inheritance due their noble birth.
Atonement: At-one-ment. To become one with Father.
The Great Commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all of thy heart, might, mind and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ shalt thou serve him. (D&C 59:5)
One mission of Christ is to bring about the great at-one-ment.
Only through faith in Jesus Christ is it possible to fulfill the great commandment, which is to become perfect, even as Christ is perfect. Then we can be one with Father, even as Christ is.
| Satan | Satan promotes | Man | Faith in Christ | Christ’s merits |
| Lies | Falsehood | Mind | Truth (D&C 93:28) | All truth |
| Selfish | Evil desires | Heart | Purity (Moroni 7:48) | Wholly good |
| No body | Weakness, death | Strength | Health, resurrects (Alma 11:42) | Died for us |
| Evil deeds | Sin | Might | Righteousness (Ether 12:28) | Suffered for our sins |
Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and the Holy Ghost. And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the father and the son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.
And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ, with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Nephi 31:17–20, emphasis added)
Individual Freedom vs. Social Constraint
Only individuals exist. Societies are conveniences of mind for understanding the relationships of individuals to one another.
“A society” is not a sufficiently precise term to use in any definitive way. “Society” is a collective term for groups. Groups are collections of people who influence one another.
Benefits from group membership: The functions of the ideal group are essentially summed in the idea of supplying the needs of the individual. (Cell and body example). A first-approximation list of such needs might be:
In the ideal group, the opportunity to contribute to it is its greatest benefit.
Problems to the ideal group are principally two:
1. Inefficiency inherent in the situation in necessitated by three factors:
2. Exploitation by other individuals is the tendency of some men deliberately to take more from the group than they are willing to give and could give.
Because of the factors of the human situation that create inefficiency, the benefits of society that men are able to imagine usually are greater than what the society can produce for everyone. This gives rise to exploitation.
Exploitation occurs when some individuals of the group contribute less than what they could, thus producing further inefficiency, or forcibly constrain members of the group so that they benefit from group production more than their needs justify relative to the needs of other members of the group. These tendencies are variously known as laziness, feather-bedding, gold-bricking when one produces less, and as tyranny, graft, excess profit when one forcibly takes more than his share.
Individual freedom may now be defined as the opportunity to participate willingly in a group that suffers from no inefficiency or exploitation. This indeed would be fulfillment.
How has history treated human beings? We note an interesting relationship between efficiency and exploitation.
In sum, few individuals in recorded history have enjoyed any marked degree of individual freedom, and most of that has been freedom from material want by exploitation of others. Our own national experiment is one of the greatest achievements known to the world. But most men in this or any other age have suffered terribly from inefficiency and exploitation.
What are the possible solutions to overcome inefficiency and exploitation?
The Worldly Solution
Why the worldly solution won’t work.
1. While it is true that science is doing wonders to subdue the earth, it is inherently incapable of solving value problems or of assuring us of just how we ought to solve an individual problem.
Examples.
Science is the god of the modern world. But it is a god that knows only the past and that only partly, whose stony face turns only to material, to animal problems, and whose high priests are continually rationalizing its failures to hear and answer prayers. But this is not fault of science. Science is a wonderful and exciting way to approach the unknown aspects of the material universe. But it is not God.
2. The attempt to balance exploitation through re-exploitation by law suffers similar difficulties. It supposes now that men are omniscient and can pass equitable laws to redistribute the benefits of society equably. But history again gives the lie to this arrogance. Human law never can catch up with exploitation; it would take an infinity of laws to do so. Historically judged, most lawmakers themselves have suffered from the disease they try to cure: exploitation.
The Lord’s Solution
The mission of Jesus Christ is to make men free so that they might live more abundantly. How does He achieve this?
He overcomes inefficiency through divine omniscience, and through omnipotent power over the laws of nature. Whatever the problems of men, He has the solutions and dispenses aid as fast as men can stand it. The principal reason men can’t stand more is that they put their trust in false Gods.
He overcomes exploitation by freeing men who wish to be free from the power of Satan, from avarice, greed, cruelty, and laziness. He helps them to realize that to give is more blessed than to receive, and that true happiness comes only in helping others to have real benefits.
We must belong to a group. There are two essential choices; join Mammon to exploit and be exploited, or to serve the Lord who exploits no one and blesses all far more than we can possibly repay. May we choose this day to have freedom and eternal life before the curtains of time consign us forever with the exploiters.
Vision 1 | Vision 2 | |
| Goal | Provide for the wants and needs of every human being. Make the world safe for each person. Save everyone. | Assist all who so desire to attain the character of Christ. Make each person safe for the world. Save those who want to be saved. |
| Means | Concentrate power in the intelligencia (smartest humans) so they can create heaven on earth. | Give each person the knowledge and power to become like Christ. Then establish Zion. |
| Strategy | Control education, media and governments to impose an “enlightened” mind-set on each person. | Empower every person to become like Christ through the laws and ordinances of the Restored Gospel. |
| Tactics | Use propaganda and force to control everything centrally and spoil the rich. | Preach the Restored Gospel to every human creature so that all can become unselfish. |
| Opposition | All theistic religions with their beliefs, traditions and scruples. | Selfishness of persons, temptations of Satan. |
| Religion | Glorify the human mind and treat human leaders as if they were gods. | Glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and their righteousness. |
| Theology | Only physical matter exists and all nature is governed by chance. Man evolved from primates, ceases to exist at death. | All things physical are controlled by an unseen spiritual universe controlled by the Gods. Humans are children of the Gods. |
| Morality | Obey your political leaders, break traditional moral scruples, there is no sin. | Be honest, true to your covenants, chaste and benevolent, do good to all men. |
| Rituals | Worship science, government leaders. | Pray to God, repent, partake of ordinances. |
| Church | Universities, public schools, the legal system. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. |
| Vestments | Cap and gown. | Garments, temple robes. |
| Results | This system has never fully succeeded but its adherents will keep trying to implement Satan’s plan that was rejected in the war in heaven. | This system has often succeeded but not yet in this dispensation. |
The bottom line: We are nearly to the point where there will be only two churches. Then the end will come. The engine for producing full righteousness and preparing the world for the Second Coming is the Holy Temple. We need to do all we can to promote the Cause of Christ in the earth. The greatest thing we can do to promote the Cause of Christ is to establish Zion. The greatest help to establish Zion is the Holy Temples of Christ.
“Force and compulsion can never establish peace on earth. Men’s hearts must be changed.”
— President David O. McKay
The problem: We deal with many worlds.
The challenge: To reduce the number of worlds by making some of them identical.
Historic devices to unify and simplify these worlds:
Basic questions:
1. Is the universe made of matter or ideas?
2. Is the universe made of one, two, or more basic substances?
3. Is the universe made of classes or of individuals?
4. Is the universe regular, orderly, or is everything a matter of chance?
5. Is the universe natural or does it also have a supernatural component?
6. What are space and time?
7. Is the universe Being or Becoming or both?
8. Is the reality of the universe its permanence or its change?
What is the nature of man?
1. Is man a free agent or is freedom only an illusion?
2. Which is more important or prior, man’s essence or his existence?
3. Is man’s knowledge all a posterini or is some of it a priori? (which enables him to solve metaphysical problems).
4. Is man’s knowledge objective or solipsistic?
5. What is man’s reality? Is he natural or divine? Is he a body only, or is he body plus mind, or body plus spirit? Did man’s body evolve from some lower form of life or was it transplanted or was it created?
6. What is the nature of God? Is God natural or divine? Corporal or spiritual? Personal or impersonal?
7. Arguments for the existence of God:
8. Arguments against the existence of God.
| The Original Covenant | The New and Everlasting Covenant |
| And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them. (Abraham 3:25) | And the Lord spake unto Adam, saying: Inasmuch as thy children are conceived in sin, even so when they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts, and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good. And it is given unto them to know good from evil; wherefore they are agents unto themselves, and I have given unto you another law and commandment. Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there. … For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified; (Moses 6:55–60) |
| End Goal To be perfect in keeping the commandments of God under the pressure of fallen mortality. | End Goal To become perfect in keeping the commandments of God under the pressure of fallen mortality. |
| Means to the end: Never to sin during mortality by always obeying God. | Means to the end: 1. After sinning by following Satan, accept Jesus Christ as one’s Savior in baptism. 2. Receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, then follow the commandments of God. 3. Completely repent of ever following Satan by hungering and thirsting after righteousness unto complete obedience to God. 4. Receive forgiveness of past sins through the Atonement of Christ. 5. Never again sin during mortality by always obeying God. |
| Result: A perfect person who can be exalted. | Result: A perfected person who can be exalted. |
Problem: Is technology more helpful to good or to evil (LDS frame)?
(Hypo) Thesis: Technology fosters evil more than good.
Definitions:
Argument:
Therefore: An increase of technical power is more helpful to evil than to righteousness in many cases.
(Is this why technical power has been allowed to flourish only just before the world is about to be destroyed?)
1. Common observation in the Church shows that a very high percentage of inactive families in the Church are headed by men who have the following attributes:
Conclusion: Inferior family traditions immobilize many members of the Church.
2. We might assume the following principles in connection with this subject:
Conclusion: Church authorities should specifically prepare programs to assist persons with characteristics I—1, 2, 3.
3. Comments on the program of the Church to assist inactive families to understand the Gospel and the Church.
Conclusion: Fellowshipping is a great good, but there is at present no effective general program for assisting inactive families to understand the Gospel and the Church. [The Church has now introduced the Come Follow Me program to meet this need.]
4. Comments on the problem of inferior language skills (Language skills: reading, writing, speaking, thinking).
Conclusion: Inferior language skills form a formidable barrier to spiritual advancement. Few surmount this barrier and there is no program in the Church or out which is noticeably remedying this problem.
5. Comments on the problem of marginal vocational capability.
Conclusion: Vocational counseling from a Gospel perspective is a great service to young people. This counseling could be given on a regular basis by wards and stakes and could provide a most important means of strengthening these young people spiritually.
I. The word “pure.”
1. Definition: from Latin purus = clean, pure, unmixed
2. As applied to:
II. Related words and concepts
1. Purify: to make pure (Latin purus, pure + facio, to make)
2. Purge: to make pure (Latin purus, pure + ago, to make, to do)
3. Holy: Anglo-Saxon halig, from hal, whole, complete
To be holy is to have impurities purged and to become completely like the Savior.
4. Charity: Latin caritas, love, to care about someone unselfishly, purely
5. Perfect: Latin perfectus, complete
To become perfect is to be purged of sin and to be remade whole (wholly) in the image of the Savior.
6. Enduring to the end: to become like Him, to be purified even as He is pure. (Moroni 9:48)
III. Contrast of impure and pure states
| Problems of impurity | Blessings of purity |
| 1. Try to serve two masters (Matthew 6:24) | Eye single to the glory of God. (D&C 82:19) |
| 2. Confusion (melting together) of thought (D&C 123:7) | Understanding reaches to heaven (D&C 76:5–10) |
| 3. Confounded (poured with unbelievers) (1 Nephi 22:5) | Gathered out of all nations to serve God. (2 Nephi 6:11) |
| 4. Poor judgment (1 Corinthians 3:19) | Wisdom (Luke 21:15) |
| 5. Weakness (1 Corinthians 11:30) | Strength in the Lord (Psalms 27:1) |
| 6. Ineffective prayers (Isaiah 1:15) | Effectual fervent prayers (James 5:16) |
| 7. Self-serving (2 Peter 2:10) | Great blessing to fellow man (Mosiah 8:18) |
IV. How to become pure:
If people are honest and humble they can be made pure. (D&C 97:8)
No one can make himself pure. (D&C 18:23–24)
We can be saved from impurity only by faith in Jesus Christ. (3 Nephi 27:19)
If we put our trust in the Savior, He will guide us to stop sinning and will forgive our previous sins. (Moses 6:60)
We must pray to become pure, to have the pure love, with all the energy of our heart, (Moroni 7:48), yielding our hearts to the Savior. (Helaman 3:35)
It is the atonement of the Savior which makes it possible for us to become pure. (2 Nephi 9:7; Moroni 10:33)
V. Why we need to be pure:
When our hearts are not pure, we have neither the judgment nor the power to bless those around us maximally. (D&C 121:36–37)
VI. Special helps to become pure:
1. Get rid of ego involvement. (become as a little child: Mosiah 3:19)
2. Subdue the desire of the flesh. (2 Nephi 2:28–29)
3. Learn to do things which take great discipline and sacrifice. (D&C 97:8)
4. Learn might prayer. (Alma 34:17–28)
VII. The tests of purity
1. Look upon sin with abhorrence.
2. Complete obedience: Faith in Jesus Christ
3. Chastity: Unspotted from the world
4. Consecration: Serve the Lord in blessing the needy with all we have
5. Sacrifice: Be ready to give up anything and everything to serve our God of righteousness.
VIII. Selected additional scriptures on purity.
1. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. (Psalms 24:3–4)
2. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)
3. The pure can have anything they ask for. (D&C 50:28–30)
4. The pure in heart feast upon His love forever. (Jacob 3:2)
5. Charity is the pure love of Christ. (Moroni 7:47)
6. See that ye love one another with a pure love. (1 Peter 2:22–23)
7. The words of the pure are pleasant. (Proverbs 15:26)
8. Unto the pure let all things be pure (I.V. Titus 1:15)
9. Pure religion and undefiled. (James 1:27)
IX. What are the marks of purity?
They are the same as those of charity. (1 Cor. 13)
| Suffereth long | Rejoiceth not in iniquity |
| Envieth not | Rejoiceth in the truth |
| Vaunteth not itself | Beareth all things |
| Not puffed up | Believeth all things |
| Does not behave unseemly | Hopeth all things |
| Seeketh not her own | Endureth all things |
| Is not easily provoked | Seeketh everything which is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy. |
| Thinketh no evil |
Adam and Eve could not have risen from the Fall without help. They needed and accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which Father sent to them by angelic messengers. The Gospel is not a do-it-yourself formula; it enjoins a dependency called faith. That dependency is to put our whole trust in Jesus Christ, relying alone upon His merits. Only His merits could rescue Adam and Eve from the Fall. Only those merits can save us, their children, from the effects of the Fall.
The Savior has merits enough to answer every problem. The principal merits by which he helps us who are mortal and the resulting benefits are as follows:
| Merit | Benefit |
| His omniscience | He teaches us to understand our God and that we are children of our God |
| His wisdom | He gives us direction that we might have faith unto repentance |
| His perfection | He suffered for our sins that we might have not need to do so |
| His immortality | He could and did die for us, not needing to for himself, that we might be resurrected |
| His omnipotence | He can create good out of evil that we might partake of heaven |
Our Father sent our Savior into this world that He might use these merits in our behalf, to offer salvation to every human being.
If we are ignorant of the true nature of God and man, we cannot worship God correctly. To receive the teaching of that true understanding is the necessary foundation for all true perception of reality and for all wisdom. No man is saved faster than he gains the understanding that God is truly our kind and loving Father in whom we live, move and breathe, who invites us to hear His Son and through Him to rejoin them in the celestial kingdom. Our Savior, who is the Spirit of Truth, will teach us the truth of all things if we come unto Him in faith, ready to use that truth in the work of righteousness.
Our Savior is all wise because He is first and always a god of righteousness. In Him is no selfishness, no shadow of turning from that strait and narrow path which takes Him to fulfill His Father’s will. Having learned obedience as a Son, He is now in a position to succor us if we too are interested in pursuing that strait and narrow path to righteousness. As the sole source of righteousness to the inhabitants of this earth, He is generous in His offer to impart wisdom to any or all who ask in faith. Thus He will lead each person through the still, small voice of conscience, to do those things which will both lift up the lives of others and to ennoble the character of him who is obedient. That same faith will lead each person who hungers and thirsts after righteousness through the gate of baptism to the holy priesthood and to the fullness of all that the Father has.
These first two aspects of the Savior’s mission, the imparting of knowledge and wisdom (truth and light) to the inhabitants of the earth have been in place and a benefit to mankind since the fall of Adam. Not everyone who has lived on the earth has been a beneficiary of these merits, but everyone on the earth is descended from one who knew of these blessings. The fact that some parents who know of the Savior will not teach that light and truth to their children does not thwart the great plan of salvation, however, for each soul is guaranteed a full and personal understanding of basic gospel light and truth before he or she is judged. For some, that opportunity must come in the spirit world. But it will come.
The next two merits of the Savior, His moral perfection and His immortality, combine to make possible that single event which is the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of mankind: the atonement.
The first part of the atonement was the suffering. Every time a human being breaks a commandment of God, that sinning causes a certain amount of suffering on the part of all those who are around the person. This suffering might be caused knowingly or unknowingly, but the result is the same: the inflicting of hurt or the deprivation of rightful blessings. Our Father has so designed this world that each person would receive a fulness of blessing if every person would obey Him, the Father. When anyone disobeys the Father, that shortens the blessing of every person around him, thus cursing them. Now the Father does not look upon this cursing kindly; He desires rather that His children be blessed. So when anyone takes away the blessings of another, the Father has decreed that that person who curses his neighbor must stand for that deed and suffer exactly the same deprivation or hurt which he has caused his neighbor to suffer. Thus there is a time when each human being must stand before the Father to account for his stewardship; he who has used his stewardship to curse his neighbor must pay fully the amount of suffering which he has caused. In addition, and even worse, having cursed his neighbor, he can never again go back into the presence of the Father, for the Father cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Anyone who curses his children or others must be cast off forever. Thus, because all men sin, all men would be forever lost from the presence of the Father were it not for the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Our Savior came into mortality and kept every commandment of the Father, thus engendering a fullness of blessing with no admixture of cursing for every person whose life He affected (which was everyone). Thus our Savior had no sins to account for and could and did reenter the presence of our Father upon His death, not needing assistance from anyone. In the Father’s presence He pleads our case, asking the Father if we, too, might not reenter that grand and holy presence. That plea must of necessity be very inappropriate unless some very special conditions obtain for the individual whose case is being examined.
The first condition that must obtain for forgiveness is that the person must have stopped cursing anyone, anytime, anywhere, for any reason. This is to say that the person must have stopped sinning, any sinning, and must have replaced sinning with complete and heartful obedience to all that the Father commands. That repentance is only possible for one who has taken upon himself the fullness of the light and truth which the Savior has to give to men by accepting and living by the laws and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having replaced cursing with blessing, the person has a beginning of merit for his case, which merit obtains only because he has thus far trusted in the merits of Christ.
The second condition which must obtain is that the cursings which the person inflicted on others through his disobedience must have been matched by a full inflicting of that same exact pain and anguish upon the person of the inflictor. The justice of the Father must be fully satisfied. Because He was perfect, having kept the commandments of the Father perfectly, our Savior had nothing to suffer under the law of justice. Being perfect, He could then offer to suffer in behalf of someone else who was under penalty under the law of justice. Thus the Savior had offered to do for all mankind, and this the Savior did for all mankind, for each and every person, for each and every sin.
The suffering of our Savior needed to be done in the flesh, even as the sins for which he suffered had been committed in the flesh. In one twenty-four hour period at the close of His earthly ministry, the Savior took upon Himself the suffering for the sins of every human being who had ever lived or who every would live. Beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane and finishing on the cross of His crucifixion, our Savior bore the wrath of His Father in full measure, suffering in a manner and to a degree that we human beings can only begin to imagine.
Thus having paid the debt of sin for every human being, our Savior was then in a position to satisfy the second requirement for each person. Justice had been satisfied; the suffering had been done. The way back into the presence of the Father was nearly complete.
A third and final requisite was necessary, however. This was that anyone who had sinned and thus deprived his neighbor of blessing must restore that blessing to the person wronged, for only then would justice be complete. Then the person wronged would be as he would have been had the sin never been committed, had the commandment of the Father been kept in the first place. How could this be done? Not even God can reverse time and deeds. But there is a way, through the mercy and merits of Jesus Christ.
Being omnipotent, the fifth merit, our Savior has the power to reward every person with blessings so far in excess of that which we mortals can imagine that he cannot even tell us about it. He has promised that should we suffer any deprivation in this world because of the wickedness of those around us, He will restore that loss to us completely, and more, even an hundredfold. That restoration may or may not come in this world, because it depends upon timeliness and upon the worthiness of the person to receive it. But come it will, in the wisdom and goodness of an almighty God.
The three conditions for the forgiveness of sins then are that the sinner must now be completely obedient to the Father, his debt of suffering must be fully matched with a totally comparable suffering, and the person sinned against must be fully recompensed for any loss suffered in the sinning. Only through the merits of Jesus Christ may these conditions be met. Only in Him can we repent, never again to break the commandments of the Father. Only He could suffer for our sins, satisfying the justice of the Father yet enabling us to be acceptable again in the presence of the Father. Only He has the power to recompense the evil done in our sins. Thus the suffering of the Savior in the atonement is one key to all that we hold dear for eternity.
But the atonement was not complete in the suffering alone. Also necessary was the sacrifice.
As foretold in the myriad sacrifices of the old covenant, there must be a great and last sacrifice to bring about the purposes of our God. This could not be a sacrifice of man or of beast, for it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice. Only a god could perform such a sacrifice; only a god could be such a sacrifice. So it was that our Savior was willing to be the sacrifice of the Father that would wrest from Satan the keys of death and make possible the resurrection of all mankind.
In submitting to Satan and partaking of the forbidden fruit, Adam had occasioned the delivery to Satan of the key of death, among other things. With that power Satan, as the destroyer, could kill (as he had permission from the Father) and then keep dead (separate from the tabernacle of flesh) both Adam and Eve and every one of their posterity. Thus it was that death came upon all men.
Our Savior, being the literal son of our Father in the flesh, inherited immortality. He never would have needed to die, not being subject to the fall of Adam in that respect. But our Savior was also the son of Mary, and from her He inherited blood, which gave Him the power to die if He so chose. Following the Father’s instruction, our Savior voluntarily gave up that potentially unending mortal life which He possessed together with all of the good things he could have done had he remained alive into eternity. Thus was His sacrifice infinite and eternal. Thus, not having to die, he seized the keys of death and made possible the unlocking of the door of death that all men might live again in the flesh. He, the first fruits of the resurrection, brings all mankind through that door with Himself, sharing all that He can with each of them.
Having lived a perfect life, having suffered the wrath of the Father, and having voluntarily died though an immortal being, our Savior completed the atonement, making it possible for each of us to be reconciled to the Father and again to enjoy His presence.
It remains now to mention the fifth merit of the Savior as it relates to the remainder of His mission. His omnipotence was needed to fulfill the conditions for the Atonement. That same omnipotence is needed by Him to create the heaven which is the reward of the faithful. It is obvious even to the casual observer on earth that the natural processes which nature and humans partake of will never afford the possibility of creating a true heaven on this earth. The inevitable deterioration of natural conditions and the increasing bestiality of so many human beings foretell a steady worsening of the human condition so long as the world shall stand. How can a heaven come out of all this?
The answer to this puzzle is again that it can happen only through the merits of Jesus Christ. Only He has the knowledge, the wisdom, the power and the authority to give every person a fair chance to repent, to separate the righteous from the wicked unerringly, and to renew the earth to a paradisaical glory that the earth might enjoy her sabbath of rest. Though the schemes and programs of men come to naught and the world ripens in iniquity, His purposes and powers fail not, because His merits are sufficient. Only one whose imagination allows him to believe that this world was the blind creation of chance could also be so unrealistic as to believe that the continuing course of natural events will produce any kind of a utopia for mankind. Only he who depends solely upon the merits of Jesus Christ will survive the cataclysm in which the “natural” order will eventuate to see that new heaven and new earth which the kind hand of an omnipotent Father will bring to reward His faithful children for their long-suffering and obedience.
And how did the Savior gain all of these merits, that He might so richly bless mankind? How did He come to be exalted, to become the only Begotten of the Father, the Savior of mankind? He did all of this by humbling Himself before the will of the Father, doing all things whatsoever He was instructed to do, in love for the Father and in long-suffering under the consequences of that obedience. The way up for Him was down.
How then do we partake of the merits of our Christ? In the same manner in which He partook of the merits of His Father, our Father. We partake of His omniscience by receiving His Holy Spirit, not being faithless, but rather, believing. We partake of His wisdom by obeying His instructions as we receive them in our own bosom, acting out in our own flesh the word of His law. We partake of His perfection by making covenant with Him in the waters of baptism, the water a symbol of His blood which was shed for us, of the suffering which pays our debt of sin. We partake of His immortality as His free gift; we need do nothing to be resurrected. Yet if we would obtain His kind of flesh in His kind of kingdom, we must learn to subdue this earthly flesh to the will of God as He did, learning all holiness and righteousness through the covenants of the holy priesthood, showing forth the fulfillment of those covenants in that same flesh. We partake of His omnipotence by showing mercy to others. Even as we would be recompensed for the evil we have suffered at the hands of wicked men, so must others be recompensed for our evil. We partake of the Savior’s omnipotent recompensation only as we demand nothing of others, in forgiveness, and cease completely from any wrongdoing. Thus, without faith it is impossible to please God, our Father. All who would come to Him must declare and show their faith in His Son, bringing forth fruits meet for celestial repentance, taking upon themselves the divine nature and character of Christ Himself.