Please note that these talks are my own work. Feel free to use the references in them and to learn from them. I kindly ask that you do not quote anything I say here as I am, by no means, an authority on the subject. Thank you.
Life is often full of trials and tribulations. Even the best hours of our lives can suddenly be halted by sudden difficulties. We have learned a lot about why trials are important in our lives. If these trials did not happen, we would not have as great opportunities to come to know the Savior, and to appreciate the Atoning Sacrifice He offered.
Abinadi was one who suffered much tribulation. He was mocked, persecuted, hunted, exiled, imprisoned, tried in the courts of wicked King Noah, falsely accused on personal grudges by the king and his priests, and finally martyred by fire. Yet up until his last breath, his testimony of the Savior’s Atonement was undeniable.
When Abinadi was brought before the priests to be tried, he was asked, “What meaneth the words which are written, and which have been taught by our fathers, saying: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth...? (Mosiah 12:20-21)” This scripture the priests referenced was written by Isaiah himself, and is today recorded in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 52, of the King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Abinadi, appalled that the priests didn’t know the meaning of the scripture, proceeded to answer by teaching about the Atonement and the Resurrection. After citing the ten commandments, he quoted the next chapter of Isaiah: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
“Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
“But 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…
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth…
“He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
“Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:3-5,7,11-12)”
Nearly 150 years before Christ was born, a prophet in the American Continent had come to know the Savior, and to feel the effects of the Atonement in his life. Because of that knowledge, he was able to testify with “power and authority.”
It is important that we all understand the Plan of Salvation and the Savior’s role in that plan. Perhaps those priests did not understand the Atonement because they did not understand the plan. The Plan of Salvation began to be carried out when Adam and Eve began walking in the Garden of Eden. Then came what for centuries was considered a disaster. Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and were thus exiled from the garden into a fallen state in the Telestial World.
The Fall is a critical part of the Atonement, for if there was no Fall, there would be no need for an Atonement, and thus no possibility of salvation nor Exaltation, “and all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. (2 Nephi 2:22)”
The prophet Jacob, son of Lehi, helps us to understand the need for an Atonement after the fall:
“For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfil the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of the Lord.
“Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption… (2 Nephi 9:6-9)”
It is important to understand, however, that although the Atonement has been offered in our behalf, we are not free of pain. The difference, rather, comes in the righteous acts we do. Jacob explains this difference. Note in his teaching that all will feel pain, but only the righteous will receive more. He taught,
“...Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness. (2 Nephi 9:14)”
Lehi teaches this true nature of the fall when he says, “Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:25)” Adam himself knew that joy. Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the Quorum of the Seventy said, speaking of Adam’s fall, “Adam and Eve learned constantly from their often harsh experience…Yet because of the Atonement, they could learn from their experience without being condemned by it. Christ’s sacrifice didn’t just erase their choices and return them to an Eden of innocence.That would be a story with no plot and no character growth. His plan is developmental—line upon line, step by step, grace for grace. (Ensign, May 2004, p. 97)”
The Atonement is a powerful blessing in every individual’s life. It has the power to heal, to strengthen, and to teach. It is not meant to be a free ride to heaven, for that would give us nothing in the end. Rather, it brings us closer to God by teaching us to be like him. Again, Elder Bruce C. Hafen described the Atonement simply:
“…our Father’s plan subjects us to temptation and misery in this fallen world as the price to comprehend authentic joy. Without tasting the bitter, we actually cannot understand the sweet. We require mortality’s discipline and refinement as the ‘next step in [our] development’ toward becoming like our Father. But growth means growing pains. It also means learning from our mistakes in a continual process made possible by the Savior’s grace, which He extends both during and ‘after all we can do.’”
I testify that Jesus Christ, in performing His part of the great Plan presented by our Father in Heaven, suffered pain and agony in Gethsemane, in behalf of all of our sins. This He did so that we can learn and grow in this life and become more like God Himself. Even more importantly, I testify that He lives, and sits at the right hand of God. As we travel through the trials of mortality, I pray that we may come to know the Savior by trusting His holy hand, which is there to guide us through tribulation, and thus join Him in partaking of Eternal Life. This is my testimony that I leave with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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