Joseph Smith was asked: "What are the fundamental principles of your religion?
Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, April 1950, p.130
He replied: "The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it." (DHC 3:30.)
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST
The atonement of Christ is the most transcendent and important event that has ever occurred, or ever will occur, in the history of this world. Everything pertaining to life and salvation, all that the aunts have or that they may obtain, center in that most glorious event. Christ came into the world chiefly for the purpose of working out the infinite and eternal atonement.
He said: ". . . I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; . . ." (3 Nephi 27:13-14.)
That was to the Nephites. To the Jews, while in his mortal ministry, he said: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." (John 10:11, 17, 18.)
FALL OF ADAM
Adam had come into the world; had been the first man, the most noble member, save Jesus only, of the human race; had fallen, as the scriptures recite; and had brought temporal death and spiritual death into the world.
Spiritual death is to be banished from the presence of the Lord. Temporal death is the dissolution of the body and of the spirit. The atonement of Christ came to ransom us from the effects of the fall of Adam. That atonement gives all men temporal life. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Cor. 15:22.) That atonement offers to all men who will believe and obey the principles of the gospel eternal life or spiritual life again in the presence of the Eternal Father.
GOSPEL IN ITS FULLNESS
We Latter-day Saints have the gospel in its fullness and in its perfection. Authorized teachers reveal its doctrines to us; legal administrators are among us to perform the ordinances of salvation. We are on the path to eternal life, and if we endure to the end, we will be saved.
Those in the world who will repent, who will come into the Church, believe the doctrines, and receive the ordinances, will have their sins forgiven. They will be washed clean in the blood of Christ because of the atonement. Those who decline and fail to do this, who will not repent, but who stay outside the reach of mercy, will -- in the justice of God -- have to pay the penalty for their own sins. They will be required to suffer, even as Christ suffered, which suffering caused himself, " . . . even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit, . . ." and would that he might not drink the bitter cup. (See D. & C. 19:15-20.)
There is no more important thing in this world, nor will there be, than the single act of the atonement of Christ; and we can be participators in the blessings of it. We can inherit the glories of eternity, and all the rewards that God has promised the Saints, if we will abide the law that he has given us in this day.
To King Benjamin, a righteous and faithful Nephite, an angel of God said this: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord Seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." (Mosiah 3:19.)
That we may so do I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
