In an article, “Place of Repentance in the Plan of Salvation” (Improvement Era, March 1956), Marion G. Romney wrote the following, affirming, contra some of the more misinformed critics of LDS theology, that Christ died for the sins of all mankind, not the transgression of Adam merely:
By his atonement, Jesus accomplished two things:
(1) he overcame mortal death, and (2) he put into effect the plan of redemption from spiritual death.
By atoning for the fall of Adam, he overcame death and brought about the resurrection. As has already been pointed out, the benefits of this aspect of his atonement are extended to every creature to whom death came as a result of Adam’s fall. The Lord indicates the scope of its application in the following quotation from the 29th section of the Doctrine and Covenants:
And the end shall come, and the heaven and the earth shall be consumed and pass away, and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth.
For all old things shall pass away, and all things shall become new, even the heaven and the earth, and all the fulness thereof, both men and beasts, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea.
And not one hair, neither mote, shall be lost, for it is the workmanship of mine hand. (D&C 29:23-25)
The working out of that part of the atonement which brought about the resurrection was a great act of mercy by the Redeemer. It is matched only by the second aspect of his atonement. However, so far as the beneficiaries of universal resurrection are concerned, the bringing of it abut was for them an act of justice, not of mercy only. This is so because mortal death came to them not as a penalty for their own sins, but as a consequence of the fall of Adam. Therefore, it was but justice to them that their bodies should be raised from the grave.
Since by the fall of Adam came death (that is, mortal death—death of the body), so by the atonement of Christ comes the resurrection. One is as wide in its scope as the other. The resurrection is universal and unconditional as a matter of justice to the beneficiaries thereof.
As has already been said, the second aspect of Christ’s atonement was the putting into effect of the law of mercy, the plan of redemption whereby men may be cleansed from the stain of their own sins and thereby freed from spiritual death. With respect to this aspect of the atonement, the circumstances differ from those attending the first. The difference arises in the origin of spiritual death.
As we have seen, spiritual death is the penalty for men’s own sins and not for the transgression of Adam, as was the case in temporal death. Men, in the exercise of their own free agency, voluntarily break the laws of righteousness, the penalty for which is spiritual death. They therefore have no such claim upon justice for relief from spiritual death as they have for relief from temporal death. So far as men are concerned, Christ’s atonement for their individual sins was entirely beyond the scope of justice—it was an act of pure mercy. It seems to me that, if possible (particularly since it was an act beyond the power of men to do for themselves), we owe our Redeemer an even deeper debt of gratitude for this aspect of his atonement than we do for bringing out the resurrection.
Because men’s transgressions are voluntary acts of their own, Jesus did not, by his atonement, remove the stain thereof unconditionally. He merely did for men, with respect to the remission of their sins, what they themselves could not do, that which they were powerless to do. Specifically, he put into effect the plan of redemption whereby they may secure forgiveness upon the condition that they will do what they can do to bring themselves within reach of that plan. He left with them the responsibility to meet this condition.
This requirement is in full harmony with the laws of justice for in addition to the atonement which Christ made for the sins of men. Justice itself requires, as part of the price for their release from spiritual death, that men do what they can do for themselves. This they must do before they can profit from the atonement which Christ has conditionally made for them. For, as Nephi put it, we are saved by the grace of Christ only after we have done “all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). (Look to God and Live: Discourses of Marion G. Romney [comp. George J. Romney; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1975], 97-99, emphasis added)