I am reluctant, however, to allow the enemies of Christ to
pollute the table or to corrupt what the Lord has given to us. To humanity at large, many of the gifts of
the Savior will seem new and powerfully at odds with the fare offered on the
impoverished tables of the world. It has
always been so. If they are to be of
value to the disciples of Jesus Christ and those who would join them, they must be
preserved in their purity.
One of the great offerings from the Savior to the world
through the church of Jesus Christ is the privilege of being baptized for release
from our sins. Through that marvelous
ordinance we are able to make a promise to God to turn away from a life of
sinning to a life of goodness and good will to all and eternal perfection of
ourselves, leaving the former ways of dissipation in degrees small and great
behind us. In return, we are washed of our
sins, and our days and ways of death are left buried underneath the wave as we
arise from the water in newness of life.
We escape the consequences of our past sins by completely accepting the
Savior Jesus Christ and receiving His suffering in place of our deserved
punishment. As Christ explained through
modern prophets,
For behold, I, God, have suffered these
things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent. . . (Doctrine
and Covenants 19:16)
That is a wonderful doctrine of change and peace of mind, by
which the evils of the world can be overcome and peace prevail—today for any
individual who chooses to embrace it, and for any society made up of such
individuals. It is all the more powerful
because it is real, having been tested and demonstrated in millions of lives
over the course of human history.
As a young teenager I could see the value of these doctrines,
and I welcomed them. I was particularly
moved by the doctrine of extending these blessings of repentance and baptism to
all, even to people who had little or no opportunity to hear or receive them
during their mortal lives.
While those who once walked where we walk now live in the world
of spirits, awaiting the great resurrection of all, they continue to learn and
associate with one another. There they
have the opportunity of learning of Jesus Christ and accepting His sacrifice
for them, or rejecting it, as many have and do in mortality. Those who accept the Savior’s vicarious
sacrifice can make the same promise and commitment to newness of life by
accepting vicarious baptisms performed by the living on their behalf in
Christ’s Temples. Thereby they obtain
all of baptism’s changing and redemptive power.
Similarly, just as Christ and His vicarious suffering can be rejected in
the world of spirits so can those vicarious baptisms by which the Savior is
otherwise received. As in mortality,
free will is preserved and indeed enhanced by having the opportunity to accept
or reject what otherwise would be beyond reach.
Even to a thirteen year old the fairness and justness of this doctrine
was apparent.
What is not apparent to me several decades later is the
logic of those who would object to this doctrine. If you do not believe that it is a true
doctrine of God, then at worst Christ’s disciples are wasting their time being
baptized here on behalf of those who have died.
If the doctrine is false and the church of Jesus Christ is mistaken,
then nothing that it does can reach beyond the grave and the dead remain out of
touch from any in this life. If,
however, Jesus Christ is the Savior and indeed did suffer vicariously for the
sins of any who would receive Him so that they might not suffer for themselves,
and if the work offered in Christ’s Temples does reach beyond the grave, then
this doctrine is a cause for rejoicing and partaking, among the many other rich
things prepared for us and available on the Lord’s table of fat things.
And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a
feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of
marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
(Isaiah 25:6)
Y’all come and pull up a chair.
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