Friday, August 9, 2024

Lowell L. Bennion, "The Latter-day Saint Way of Salvation"

  

The Latter-Day Saint Way of Salvation

 

In the way of salvation as understood by the Latter-day Saints, all three ways described above-grace, sacraments, and individual merit-play significant and indispensable roles. In fact, salvation is a wonderful blending of these three, each being interdependent in the life of man on the other two. Let us indicate briefly the place of each in our salvation.

 

I. We believe in the grace of Deity

 

To us God is a Father, full of grace and truth, a Being of love, mercy, and forgiveness. He has done for us, with and through his Son, far more than we have merited. In the first place, he created us his spirit-children. With his Son, he prepared the earth and gave us life upon it. Through the ages, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have made available to men the influence of their Spirit and revelations of truth. Christ brings to each-be he saint or sinner, believer or unbeliever-resurrection from the dead and opportunity for immortal life. Redemption from sin is also offered to men by the Savior.

 

According to Latter-day Saint doctrine, men could not think of achieving at-one-ment with God or of realizing their own full powers without the grace of Deity. Life itself, in many of its aspects, is a gift of Deity. Christ is our Creator, Guide, Ideal, and Redeemer from death and sin.

 

II. We believe in the Sacraments of the Church

 

To achieve salvation, we, too, believe in the efficacy of the sacraments or, as we call them, the ordinances of the Church. We believe that Christ established a Church, as a means by which men could find fellowship in their efforts to do God's will and to build his kingdom. He vested divine authority (the priesthood of God) in the Church. Through its power and authority, exercised in humility and love, God promises his children gifts and knowledge of the Gospel when they are prepared to receive them. Some of these gifts come to man through the ordinances of the Gospel, as we shall illustrate in ensuing chapters.

 

The Church, in Latter-day Saint doctrine and practice, is a sacred institution founded by the Lord to bring about the salvation of men. It is not an end in itself, but is established to be a blessing to mankind through its numerous functions. 1

 

III. We believe in individual merit as a means of gaining salvation

 

Latter-day Saints place great emphasis on the responsibility of the individual in the attainment of his own salvation. We have always had a strong affinity for the little book of James, and for such teachings contained therein as the following:

 

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. (James 2:14-18)

 

Believing that man is an eternal intelligence with capacity for freedom, we believe that he can take initiative, and that he should work and strive for the right, through his own resources, as well as with the help of God. This attitude in our faith is forcefully stated in a revelation to Joseph Smith:

 

For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward. Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:26-28)

 

To us the peculiar strength of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it has been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, lies in the interdependence of Deity and man. We reject predestination completely. Man is not saved by grace alone. Neither can he save himself without the grace of Deity. And the ordinances and authority of the Church are meaningless to him, "putting trust in dead works," unless he participates in them with faith and sincere moral effort. Salvation from the grave, the resurrection, comes to us through the grace of Christ. It comes to all men irrespective of merit. Here we see grace operative quite independent of human effort. Man, as far as we know, is wholly dependent on God for his resurrection, as he was for his creation. Yet, when it comes, to the problem of overcoming ignorance and sin and thereby developing an intelligent, moral and spiritual life, grace alone will not suffice. Neither will the sacraments or ordinances of the Church. Knowledge cannot be given man without his thinking. Virtue cannot be placed upon him like a cloak. It must grow from within. It is the product of good desire and of right action. Man, as well as the Spirit of God, must create virtue in man.

 

This is our earnest belief. It robs God of nothing precious. He and the Son are eagerly striving to lead, teach, persuade, and inspire man to help him gain eternal life. But we, too, must play our part, assume our responsibility. It is a law of life, which we see operative everywhere, in nature, in education, in human relations, even as in religion. This interdependence of Deity and man in salvation is expressed in our Third Article of Faith.

 

We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

 

It is beautifully illustrated also in an editorial written recently by David O. McKay, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

The Gospel of Work

 

One day, a group of small boys were swimming. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, they were learning to swim; for none could take more than a few strokes. Just below them a short distance down the stream was a treacherous hole much beyond their depth. Into this, either through bravado or accident, one daring youngster either plunged or fell. He became helpless to save himself; and for a moment his companions were powerless to aid him. Fortunately, one with presence of mind and quick action, jerked a long stick from a willow fence and held one end of it toward the drowning lad. The latter grasped it, held on tightly and was saved.

 

All the boys declared that the venturesome lad owed his life to the boy who furnished the means of rescue.

 

This is undoubtedly the fact; and yet in spite of the means furnished him, if the lad had not taken advantage of it, if he had not put forth all the personal effort at his command, he would have drowned, notwithstanding the heroic act of his comrade.

 

In this old world of ours, children of men are playing, swimming, struggling in the sea of life. There are those who claim that no one will sink and be lost if he will look to Jesus on the shore and say, "I believe." There are others who declare that every one must by his own efforts swim to the shore or be lost forever. The real truth is that both of these extreme views are incorrect. Christ redeemed all men from death which was brought upon them through no act of theirs, but He will not save men from their personal transgressions who will put forth no effort themselves, any more than the young rescuer on the river bank could have saved the drowning lad if the latter had not seized the means provided him. Neither can man save himself without accepting the means provided by Christ for man's salvation.

 

There was a time in the early history of the human race when men floundered in total ignorance of God's plan of redemption, a time when he was "cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord."

 

Being subject to follow after his own will, he "became carnal, sensual, and devilish by nature. Nature was his god, and self-preservation-that is, the prolongation of his earthly existence, the sole object of his life. When that ended, since his soul could never die, he would have been lost eternally, for he would have obeyed no spiritual laws, not having known them, whereby his spirit could have regained the presence of God.

 

To man, thus struggling, Christ gave the Gospel, the means of salvation. It was a free gift. It was by the grace of God, "not of works lest any man should beast. Without this, man was powerless to save himself. He was as helpless as the boy in the deep whirlpool. Truly, "By grace are ye saved."

 

But having been given the Gospel, what is man expected to do? With the means of salvation within his reach, what must he do? He must grasp and hold to it with his whole might and strength. It is his duty not only to look at the Savior on the bank and say I believe He will save me, but also to make that belief a knowledge by obeying every principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, he must work out his own salvation.

 

"Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21)

 

It is the height of folly for men to try to persuade themselves that Christ has done everything for them, that He has thrown a rope around them, as it were, and will pull them to safety in spite of themselves.

 

Such a false, superficial view of the Gospel is denounced also by the Apostle James: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

 

"Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

 

"But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" (James 2:14, 18, 20)

 

Thus James emphasizes the fact that "the indication of faith is the act that it inspires, and consequently that a faith which does not result in acts is of words merely, with which one cannot feed the hungry, or justify belief, or obtain salvation. A faith without acts is not faith. It is only a disposition to believe in something in which one does not really believe."

 

Love of God and His righteousness is shown not in words but in works.

 

Eternal life is God's greatest gift to man, and the Lord in turn is glorified in man's immortality. Eternal life is the result of knowledge and knowledge is obtained by doing the will of God. Said the Savior to the skeptics who questioned Him as to how they might know that He is the Christ:

 

"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself." (John 7:17)

 

Thus the truth is proclaimed that a testimony of Christ's divinity and eternal life itself are the result of man's doing the will of God.

 

The fallacy that Jesus has done all for us, and live as we may, if on our deathbed, we only believe, we shall be saved in His glorious presence, is most pernicious. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, has given us the means whereby any man may obtain eternal happiness and peace in the Kingdom of our Father, but man must work out his own salvation through obedience to the eternal principles and ordinances of the Gospel.

 

For centuries men have been blinded by false teaching of "belief alone is sufficient;" and today there is manifest on every hand the sorry plight into which this and other perverse doctrines have thrown the pseudo-Christian sects. The world is in sore need at the present time of the Gospel of individual effort-the Gospel of faith and works. He who will not grasp this means provided him, will sink beneath the waves of sin and falsehood.

 

The Instructor, January, 1955. (Lowell L. Bennion, An Introduction to the Gospel [Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1955], 145-49)

 

 


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