If There Were No
Savior
The scriptures tell
us plainly what the fate of mankind would have been if there were no Atonement.
First, there would have been no resurrection of the body. Adam’s fall brought
death upon every living creature. Without the redemption of Jesus Christ that
came by the shedding of his blood, there would be no resurrection of the dead
bodies either of humans or of animals. Furthermore, the spirits of all that
belong to the human family would remain estranged from God and from
righteousness. That is called “spiritual death.” First, because of the spirit
of every man, woman, and child would remain in a state of spiritual darkness
and every person would become a devil and be forever miserable.
When the scripture
says that Jesus gave us a more abundant lift, it means not only a resurrected,
endless life with a body; it means also a celestial life compared with the misery
and disappointment of hell. Jesus’ unique situation and the important fact that
he alone is the Savior for all mankind and that without him all is
list is also born out in other scriptures. For example Jesus said, “I am
the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John
14:6). Peter said it this way: “neither is there salvation in any other for
there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby ye must be saved”
(Acts 4:12). Peter made this declaration after the atonement and in
Mosiah 3:17; 4:8; and 5:8, we find precisely the same doctrine spoken many
hundred years before Jesus was born. We must realize that there never
was any other name, even before Christ came, by which salvation could be
obtained. He always has been the only Savior for all of mankind and he always
will be. There is no alternates, no backup men, no substitute plans.
I find when I talk to
students about the Saviour, that quite often they want an alternate. They want
to say, “What if Jesus had failed?” Well, you know I think that is one of the
tools the devil used in the premortal life. I think he not only “guaranteed” a salvation
without effort whereby he said he would save everybody, but I think he went
around saying, “Now look, if you allow yourselves to be born into this world
subject to the fall of Adam, subject to sin and to death, and if Jesus doesn’t
come through, then you have lost your salvation.” That is true, that is what would
have been the case. If Jesus had not made the atonement, we all would have
become sons of perdition and so would he. When Lucifer went around, you can
almost hear him saying, “Are you going to put all of your faith in Jesus?” And
those who had not strong faith would say, “Well, I don’t know if I want to
trust him or not; what if he fails?” That is just about like going tracting
without purse or script but having $10 in your shoe just in case. That is not
faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is that we knew that he would not let us
down. That is why the gospel is called the good news. The good news is
that there is a redemption and he performed the atonement.
Thus, our
relationship with the Savior is not casual, it is not optional, it is absolute
and critical. Without him there would be no salvation, no redemption, no resurrection,
and no happiness. All mankind must take upon themselves his name. Salvation is
to triumph over everything that would destroy the happiness and the well-being
of man: sin, fear, unhappiness, jealousy, death, and the devil.
Jesus saved mankind
from the consequences of the fall of Adam. We cannot have a proper
understanding of the need for a Savior if we do not believe in the fall of
Adam, and we have to go one step further than that and accept the creation of
the world as having been done with the view in mind that there would be a fall
and the provision of the Saviour from before the foundation of the world. The
fall of Adam was no surprise to heaven. God wanted it done. He provided the
Savior before the fall ever occurred.
The consequences of
the fall of Adam were both physical and spiritual. Had Jesus not done what he
did in his atonement, nothing the rest of us could ever do would make up for
the loss. Jesus said:
I am the true vine,
my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he
taketh away. Every branch that beareth fruit he prunes, that it may bring forth
more fruit. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the
vine, no more can ye except he abide in me. I am the vine ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit, for
without me ye can do nothing (John 15:1-8).
Jacob taught:
Wherefore it must needs
be an infinite atonement, save it be an infinite atonement this corruption
could not put on incorruption, wherefore the first judgment which came upon man
must needs remain to an endless duration and if so this flesh must have laid
down to rot, crumbled to its mother earth to rise no more. O the wisdom of God
is mercy and grace for behold if the flesh should rise no more than our spirits
must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of God and
became the devil to rise no more, and our spirits must have become like unto
him and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence
of our God to remain with the father of lies in misery like unto himself (2
Nephi 9:7-9).
That is why the
scripture says Jesus saved us from death and hell. We also sing about his
atonement in our hymns. In “O Little Town of Bethlehem” we find these words, “the
hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” In the hymn “O
God the Eternal Father” (Hymns, no. 125) we find this expression, “How
infinite the wisdom that plan of holiness, that made salvation perfect and
veiled the Lord in flesh. To walk upon his footstool and be like man almost, in
his exalted station to die or all was lost.” In the hymn, “While of These
Emblems We Partake” (Hymns, no. 217), we read “For us the blood of
Christ was shed, for us on Calvary’s cross he bled, and this dispelled the
awful gloom that else were this, creation’s doom.” Do we really believe that?
That is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is having faith in Christ.
The message of the
gospel is that Jesus has broken the bands of death and of hell. The
resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest proclamation of all time. But it
is more than the life of the physical body. There is a resurrection of the dead
body to everlasting life and a redemption of the spirit from unhappiness to a
state of eternal bliss and a fulness of joy. All of this is because of the
blood of Jesus Christ, which he shed in Gethsemane, and his death upon the
cross, and then his rising from the grave with a perfect resurrected body. (Robert
J. Matthews, “The Price of Redemption,” in The Eleventh Annual Sidney B.
Sperry Symposium: The New Testament, January 29, 1983 [Provo, Utah: Brigham
Young University Campus, 1983], 165-67, emphasis in original)