What Do Mormons Really Believe? Part III
Article of Faith #3
This is Part Three of my series on what members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, sometimes called "Mormons", believe. Also please remember that though I am an active member of the church, my disclaimer is that I do not claim to provide the official view from the church; I'll leave it to the church to do that (see, for example, www.mormon.org).
And just as a reminder, the intent of these articles is not to attack or demean other faiths or to cause any kind of contention or argument. They are written to simply outline the beliefs of church members in as straightforward a way as possible. I have no intention to convince, trick or deceive anyone. Indeed, this is far from the mind of anyfaithful member of the church. We realize full well that spiritual matters are deeply personal and can only be accessed through study, reflection, and with the aid of the Divine.
The Articles of Faith were written by Joseph Smith Jr., whom church members take to be a prophet and the first leader of the church in our time. They were written to clarify the church's position about many fundamental issues.
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Article of Faith #3
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
The church is firm in its central belief that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Nearly every lesson at church approaches this in some way. Nearly every sermon preached either addresses this topic directly or indirectly. But what do being a Savior and a Redeemer actually mean?
The church defines atonement in the following way:
"The suffering and death of Jesus Christ, through which resurrection is provided to all mortals and eternal life [life with God] is offered to those who have faith in Christ and repent of their sins." (click here for reference)
Another definition, this time of the term resurrection:
"After physical death, the reuniting of the spirit with the perfected physical body of flesh and bones. Jesus Christ was the first to be resurrected." (click here for reference)
God is a god of law. He works by and through laws and is eternally just. When a law is broken (when someone sins, for example), He has decreed in His perfect justice that a punishment be affixed. The law breaker is also found unclean. Worse, most of us humans break laws over and over again. We may be unkind to our spouse, be too quick to anger, avoid doing a good deed, etc., and these all add up to lots of unclean acts for us and punishments to be borne. Yet for all that we try to do, we cannot make ammends for our law breaking. We simply break them too often, and however tirelessly we work, we cannot fix things. Even the simplest law broken is beyond our ability to repair by ourselves.
Even though our Heavenly Father is eternally and perfectly just, He is ultimately as merciful, and has provided a plan whereby His children can return to him, even though they, by themselves, have no way of making themselves clean (See Ephesians 5:5; Romans 3:20). This plan includes a Savior, whose life without sin and Divine nature qualify Him to suffer for us so we do not have to.
A few years ago, our current church President, Gordon B. Hinckley, told a story I'll never forget and that moved me deeply. It was "something of a parable" about "a one room school house in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough no teacher had been able to handle them":
"Then one day an inexperienced young teacher applied. He was told that every teacher had received an awful beating, but the teacher accepted the risk. The first day of school the teacher asked the boys to establish their own rules and the penalty for breaking the rules. The class came up with 10 rules, which were written on the blackboard. Then the teacher asked, "What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?"
"Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on," came the response.
A day or so later, the lunch of a big student, named Tom, was stolen. The thief was located--a little hungry fellow, about ten years old.
As Little Jim came up to take his licking, he pleaded to keep his coat on. "Take your coat off," the teacher said. "You helped make the rules!"
The boy took off the coat. He had no shirt and revealed a bony little crippled body. As the teacher hesitated with the rod, Big Tom jumped to his feet and volunteered to take the boy's licking.
"Very well, there is a certain law that one can become a substitute for another. Are you all agreed?" the teacher asked.
After five strokes across Tom's back, the rod broke. The class was sobbing. Little Jim had reached up and caught Tom with both arms around his neck. "Tom, I'm sorry that I stole your lunch, but I was awful hungry. Tom, I will love you till I die for taking my licking for me! Yes, I will love you forever!"
President Hinckley then quoted Isaiah (Isaiah 53:4-5):
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Because of God's infinite mercy, He has provided us a Savior to redeem us from our sins if we repent from them. He suffered for every sin we would commit in advance so that we would have the opportunity to repent from these and ultimately return to Him. The church is firm in its claim that Jesus Christ is that Savior. His atonement through suffering and death stand as central tenets in nearly every Christian religion. Certainly, in the ultimate scheme of things, there has been no act or event with such significance as this act by Jesus, our Christ.
In the words of the late James E. Faust, one of the church's leaders:
What He did could only be done by Deity. As the Only Begotten Son of the Father in the flesh, Jesus inherited divine attributes. He was the only person ever born into mortality who could perform this most significant and supernal act. As the only sinless Man who ever lived on this earth, He was not subject to spiritual death. Because of His godhood, He also possessed power over physical death. Thus He did for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He broke the cold grasp of death. (click here for reference).
In summary, the greatest act of mercy of all time--the atonement of Jesus Christ--satisfies the demands of justice so long as we take advantage of it through our own repentance and through adhering to the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (in other words, through keeping the commandments).
Church leader Elder David A. Bednar recently said:
Repenting and coming unto Christ through the covenants and ordinances of salvation are prerequisite to and a preparation for being sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost and standing spotless before God at the last day.
And so the church reminds us that God loves us. Through the ultimate sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father has provided a merciful and loving way for us to return to Him. It is through the atonement of Christ and the adhering to the teachings of the Gospel provided by our Savior that we are rescued. Church leader Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in his last address before his death, proclaimed:
...By Christ came immortality and eternal life. If there had been no fall of Adam by which cometh death, there could have been no Atonement by which cometh life.
And now as pertaining to this perfect Atonement, I testify that it took place at Gethsemane and at Golgotha. And as pertaining to Jesus Christ, I testify that he is the Son of the Living God who was crucified for the sins of the world. He is our Lord, our God, and our King. This I know of myself independent of any other person. I am one of his Witnesses [apostles]. And in the coming day I will feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears. But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God's almighty Son and he is our Savior and Redeemer and that Salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way.
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Next stop: Article of Faith #4
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Contents to articles:
What Do Mormons Really Believe?: Introduction
What Do Mormons Really Believe?: Part I (Article of Faith #1)
What Do Mormons Really Believe?: Part II (Article of Faith #2)
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Comments: 12
Posted: Jan 27, 2008 09:20 PM
According to Utah newspaper Deseret News, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away this evening around 7pm. The initial reports say President Hinckley died of causes incident to age. He was 97 years old.
In the October 2007 General Conference, President Hinckley told the audience as his closing remarks "We look foreward to seeing you again next April. I'm 97 and I hope I'm going to make it."
President Gordon B. Hinckley, world leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was ordained and set apart as the 15th President of the Church on Sunday, March 12, 1995.
He had earlier served 14 years as a counselor in the First Presidency, the top governing body of the Church, and as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for 20 years prior to that.
His Church service has been extensive. He was called as a member of the Sunday School General Board in 1937, two years after returning home from missionary service in Great Britain. For 20 years, he directed all Church public communications. In 1951 he was named executive secretary of the General Missionary Committee, managing the entire missionary program of the Church, and served in this capacity for seven years. He was president of the East Millcreek Stake in Salt Lake City when he was called as a General Authority in the capacity of an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on April 6, 1958.
President Hinckley was named to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on October 5, 1961. On July 23, 1981, he was called into the First Presidency to serve as Counselor and on December 2, 1982, was named Second Counselor to President Spencer W. Kimball. He served as First Counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson from November 1985 to May 30, 1994. On June 5, 1994, he was called as the First Counselor to President Howard W. Hunter. He was also ordained and set apart as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
As a member of the First Presidency, he has had a major role in administering both the ecclesiastical and temporal affairs of the Church, whose more than 10 million members are spread over some 160 nations and territories. His Church assignments have taken him around the world many times, and he has dedicated more temples than any other leader in the history of the Church. He is the first Church President ever to travel to Spain, where in 1996 he broke ground for a temple in Madrid, and to Africa, where he met with thousands of Latter-day Saints in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
He has given numerous interviews to major news media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the CBS 60 Minutes television news magazine, which featured him and the Church in 1996 on an Easter Sunday show seen by more than 20 million. In September of 1998 he was the guest on the popular CNN cable television program Larry King Live.
President Hinckley was born June 23, 1910, in Salt Lake City, Utah, a son of Bryant Strigham and Ada Bitner Hinckley. One of his forebears, Stephen Hopkins, came to America on the Mayflower. Another, Thomas Hinckley, served as governor of the Plymouth Colony from 1680 to 1692.
His first job was as a newspaper carrier for the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City daily. After attending public schools in Salt Lake City, the future Church leader earned a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Utah and then accepted a call from the Church to spend two years as a full-time missionary in Great Britain. He served with distinction and ultimately was called to be an assistant to the Church Apostle who presided over all the European missions.
Upon being released from missionary service in the mid-1930s, he was called by then Church President Heber J. Grant to organize what has become the Church's public affairs program.
President Hinckley's major assignments during two decades of service as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles included the supervision of Church units in Asia, Europe, and South America. His Church committee assignments as a general officer have been in such areas as temples, missionary work, welfare services, priesthood, and members in the military service. He also served as chairman of the executive committee for the observance of the Church's 150th anniversary in 1980.
In addition to his Church duties, President Hinckley has been active in community and business affairs, serving as chairman and board member of a number of business corporations. In 2004, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civil award, by President George W. Bush. He has been the recipient of a number of educational honors including: the Distinguished Citizen Award, from Southern Utah University; Distinguished Alumni Award, from the University of Utah; and honorary doctorates from Westminster College, Utah State University, University of Utah, Brigham Young University, and Southern Utah University. He has received the Silver Buffalo Award of the Boy Scouts of America and has been honored by the National Conference (formerly the National Conference of Christians and Jews) for his contributions to tolerance and understanding in the world.
He has served as chairman of the executive committees of the Board of Trustees of Brigham Young University and of the Church Board of Education. The Church Educational System includes not only Brigham Young University's Utah and Hawaii campuses, but Brigham Young University - Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho, LDS Business College in Salt Lake City, elementary and secondary schools in developing countries, and hundreds of seminaries and institutes of religion serving several hundred thousand high school- and college-age youth.
The Church leader is known for his writing and speaking skills, which he began developing as a young boy growing up in the Church. He honed those talents as a missionary preaching regularly from a portable stand in London's Hyde Park and further refined them as a Church authority. He has written and edited several books and numerous manuals, pamphlets, and scripts.
President Hinckley married Marjorie Pay in the Salt Lake Temple in 1937. They have five children. Sister Hinckley passed away 6 April 2004.
Good article David! I like that you are doing the Articles of Faith because they do explain us so well ;o)
A big THANK YOU for my sister Elaine for taking over the moderator duties of BEST ORIGINAL PHOTOS, ART AND WRITING and I thank YOU for posting your original work to this group.