Saturday, July 31, 2021

Robert J. Matthews, "If There Were No Savior"

  

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)