This post focuses on highlights from a past General Conference talk called “Atonement, Agency, Accountability” by Elder Boyd K Packer in April 1988 and this post is part two.
Elder Packer has mentioned the following; “Whatever else happened in Eden, in his supreme moment of testing, Adam made a choice. After the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth and commanded them not to partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, He said: “Nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Moses 3:17).
There was too much at issue to introduce man into mortality by force. … The plan provided that each spirit child of God would receive a mortal body and each would be tested. Adam saw that it must be so and made his choice. “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:25).
Adam and Eve ventured forth to multiply and replenish the earth as they had been commanded to do. The creation of their bodies in the image of God, as a separate creation, was crucial to the plan. Their subsequent fall was essential if the condition of mortality was to exist and the plan proceed.
Jacob described what would happen to our bodies and our spirits except an atonement, an infinite atonement, were made. … Because of the Fall, the Atonement was absolutely essential for resurrection to proceed and overcome mortal death.
The Atonement was absolutely essential for men to cleanse themselves from sin and overcome the second death, which is the spiritual death, which is separation from our Father in Heaven. For the scriptures tell us, seven times they tell us, that no unclean thing may enter the presence of God.
… introduced Adam and Eve and their posterity to all the risks of mortality. In mortality men are free to choose, and each choice begets a consequence. The choice Adam made energized the law of justice, which required that the penalty for disobedience would be death.
… A redeemer was sent to pay the debt and set men free. That was the plan. Alma’s son Corianton thought it unfair that penalties must follow sin, that there need be punishment. In a profound lesson Alma taught the plan of redemption to his son, and so to us.
Alma spoke of the Atonement and said, “Now, repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment” (Alma 42:16). If punishment is the price repentance asks, it comes at bargain price. Consequences, even painful ones, protect us. So simple a thing as a child’s cry of pain when his finger touches fire can teach us that.
Except for the pain, the child might be consumed. I readily confess that I would find no peace, neither happiness nor safety, in a world without repentance. I do not know what I should do if there were no way for me to erase my mistakes. The agony would be more than I could bear. It may be otherwise with you, but not with me.
An atonement was made. Ever and always it offers amnesty from transgression and from death if we will but repent. Repentance is the escape clause in it all. Repentance is the key with which we can unlock the prison from inside. We hold that key within our hands, and agency is ours to use it.
How supernally precious freedom is; how consummately valuable is the agency of man.
Lucifer in clever ways manipulates our choices, deceiving us about sin and consequences. He, and his angels with him, tempt us to be unworthy, even wicked. But he cannot, in all eternity he cannot, with all his power he cannot completely destroy us; not without our own consent. Had agency come to man without the Atonement, it would have been a fatal gift.
We are taught in Genesis, in Moses, in Abraham, in the Book of Mormon, and in the endowment that man’s mortal body was made in the image of God in a separate creation. Had the Creation come in a different way, there could have been no Fall.
… How well I know that among learned men are those who look down at animals and stones to find the origin of man. … They train themselves to measure things by time, by thousands and by millions, and say these animals called men all came by chance.
And this they are free to do, for agency is theirs. But agency is ours as well. We look up, and in the universe we see the handiwork of God and measure things by epochs, by eons, by dispensations, by eternities.
The many things we do not know we take on faith. … It was all planned before the world was. Events from the Creation to the final, winding-up scene are not based on chance; they are based on choice! It was planned that way.
.. Had there been no Creation, no Fall, there should have been no need for any Atonement, neither a Redeemer to mediate for us. Then Christ need not have been. At Gethsemane and Golgotha the Savior’s blood was shed. Centuries earlier the Passover had been introduced as a symbol and a type of things to come. It was an ordinance to be kept forever (see Ex. 12).
When the plague of death was decreed upon Egypt, each Israelite family was commanded to take a lamb, firstborn, male, without blemish. This paschal lamb was slain without breaking any bones, its blood to mark the doorway of the home.
The Lord promised that the angel of death would pass over the homes so marked and not slay those inside. They were saved by the blood of the lamb. After the crucifixion of the Lord, the law of sacrifice required no more shedding of blood.
For that was done, as Paul taught the Hebrews, “once for all, … one sacrifice for sins for ever” (Heb. 10:10, 12). The sacrifice thenceforth was to be a broken heart and a contrite spirit —repentance. And the Passover would be commemorated forever as the sacrament, in which we renew our covenant of baptism and partake in remembrance of the body of the Lamb of God and of His blood, which was shed for us.
It is no small thing that this symbol reappears in the Word of Wisdom. Beyond the promise that Saints in this generation, who obey, will receive health and great treasures of knowledge is this: “I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them” (D&C 89:21).
I cannot with composure tell you how I feel about the Atonement. It touches the deepest emotion of gratitude and obligation. My soul reaches after Him who wrought it, this Christ, our Savior of whom I am a witness.
I testify of Him. He is our Lord, our Redeemer, our advocate with the Father. He ransomed us with His blood. … For agency is mine, and this I choose to do!”
Here's a link to the talk;
Stay Tuned.
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