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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