By Chauncey C. Riddle
Before mortality, we lived as spirit children of our Heavenly Father and Mother in another place. We learned much and had important work to do with them. But we knew we could not inherit the fullness of their glory unless we did two things. First, we needed to have a physical body; second, we needed to continue to develop a character which would help us control that fleshly tabernacle and use it only for good.
In a pre-mortal council our Heavenly Father proposed a plan wherein each of us would receive a body of flesh and bone which we could learn to control and use for good. We learned that there must be opposition to good as well as good, leaving us free to choose our own way. Each of us would be responsible to continue to build a noble character for ourselves while in our bodies.
Our brother Lucifer proposed that he personally could assure the shaping of everyone’s character and lead them all back to glory, for which action he wanted eternal leadership over us.
However, our oldest brother encouraged us to accept our Father’s plan, wherein every soul would be free to become like God if he or she so chose. No one of us would be forced to become anything we did not want to become. Most of us chose the plan to become free, responsible for our own eternal destiny. Those who did not accept the Father’s plan were denied further progress.
Our Father appointed our eldest brother, Jesus Christ, to be his executive officer, the model, the pattern in fulfilling the plan. Under his direction, the earth was created and other things made ready for our mortal probation.
Following God’s plan, Adam and Eve, our first earthly parents, were placed on the earth into a paradise, a terrestrial glory. Their fleshly tabernacles were immortal, and they spoke with God.
But in order to fulfill conditions for the earthly probation of all of us, Adam and Eve’s bodies had to be changed so that they and their offspring could suffer, die, and then be resurrected. It was also important that each of us be born into mortal tabernacles so that our time here would be temporary.
The Fall
A significant part of our Father’s plan was for Adam and Eve to fall from their immortal condition to a mortal one better suited to probation. It would be better for them to fall voluntarily; then they could choose voluntarily to be redeemed from the fall or not. Had the Fall been involuntary, redemption from the Fall would need to be automatic for God to be just.
The plan for the Fall was carried out. Lucifer—Satan, was allowed into the paradise to tempt Adam and Eve with the knowledge of good and evil, so that they could choose for themselves to fall. Thinking that he was thwarting our Father’s plan, Lucifer tempted Adam and Eve, who disobeyed the Father and reaped the consequential Fall that was so necessary.
Adam and Eve had been promised that if they disobeyed Father they would die, and they did. Their spirit bodies became dead to the spirit world. They could no longer see with their spiritual eyes nor hear with their spiritual ears. Their immortal tabernacles became mortal.
When Adam fell, all nature fell with him. The earth was no longer a paradise. Animals and plants also fell, becoming subject to death. The earth fell from its place nigh unto Father’s throne and received appointment of its present times and seasons.
The contrast between before and after the Fall is clearer when we understand agency. Agency exists only when three things are together: 1) An intelligent being who can act and is not merely acted upon, 2) knowledge of alternatives, and 3) ability to carry out a choice. Agency is thus a matter of degree: As knowledge and power increase, so does agency. When one has all knowledge and all power, then one has a fullness of agency.
Adam and Eve in the Garden were intelligent beings. They doubtless had considerable power since they were spiritually alive and all things were subject unto them. But they had little knowledge of alternatives. They only knew one wrong thing to do: their agency consisted in choosing whether or not to partake of the forbidden fruit. They did disobey, died spiritually, and became subject to Satan. After the Fall, being subject to the temptations of Satan, they had much opportunity to choose evil. But being cut off from God, knew little about how to do good. Being spiritually dead they probably suffered a loss of power. They had little agency, but enough, in the Garden. They had little agency in the world after the Fall, until the voice of the Lord came to them.
The Lord told Adam and Eve how to do good. They obeyed these commandments because it was their desire and was within their power to do so. As they obeyed, they were given more knowledge. As they acted obediently, they were given more power to act. In this process they learned the Gospel of Jesus Christ which brings to men the full knowledge and ability to do good. This message taught them how to have the countenance, the heart, the mind, the character of the Savior. They received first the Holy Ghost and then the holy priesthood, which opened to them the power of God. By accepting the gospel and exercising the power of the priesthood in righteousness, Adam and Eve grew in knowledge and power until they personally were redeemed from the Fall. For them the plan was now nearly fulfilled. Having achieved the purpose of mortality, they needed only to die and be resurrected with an immortal, celestial body to inherit all things.
For Adam and Eve, then, the way up to exaltation began by first going down through the Fall. Far from decrying the Fall, we should be eternally grateful for our noble first parents who were willing to fulfill the plan. Though they were fallen, they humbled themselves yet further by putting their trust in the Savior. Thereby they rose again, and for them the Fall was overcome.
The Atonement
But Adam and Eve could not have risen from the Fall without help. They needed and accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is not a do-it-yourself formula. It requires a dependency called “faith in Jesus Christ.” Trusting in Jesus Christ, they were redeemed from the effects of the Fall.
The Savior teaches us how to live righteously and offers forgiveness for sins if we repent. Because of this, we can be resurrected to immortal glory after our mortal probation is over.
A person who loves righteousness comes to hate sinning, to tremble at the very thought of it. When he learns through the gospel that the Savior can lead him out of sin into doing only that which blesses others, he rejoices. As his understanding grows, he realizes that the Savior is the fountain of all righteousness; no other guidance can unerringly lead a person to do right. This guidance is delivered either through one who presides in priesthood authority in the Savior’s church, or through the Holy Spirit in personal revelation. However that instruction comes, it is confirmed to us by the Holy Spirit. When we are receptive, we know that the word of the Lord is good. When we are faithful, we experience the good fruits of faith in Christ and we know we are on the right path to return to Father.
A second gift of the Savior to mankind was his suffering for our sins. Every human sin causes a certain amount of suffering. The justice of our Father demands that when one person causes suffering in another person, the one who caused the suffering must himself suffer an equivalent amount. Therefore, each adult in the world who has sinned has a certain debt of suffering to do to pay for having caused others to suffer. If we could each just do our own quotient of suffering, that would help. But that would not enable anyone to become exalted as our Heavenly Father and Mother are. Becoming celestial involves learning to live without sinning, made possible by the Savior’s first gift—his influence and example. But then we must also have no former sin charged against us, for the Father cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Our Savior made our total forgiveness possible by suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross. The Savior will intercede at the bar of justice in our behalf if we are righteous because he suffered for us and our debt of sinning has been paid by him.
A third gift of our Savior is resurrection. Because of the heritage of immortality from God the Father, who was Christ’s literal and biological Father, the Savior did not have to die. Because of the heritage from his mortal mother, Mary, he could die. Thus he would die only if he so chose. He sacrificed his mortal life so that each of us might live again as resurrected beings.
The plan of salvation would not be complete without agency. Some of us use agency for good. All of us use it for evil sometime in our lives. Our evil affects others, causing distress. That distress is not our divine heritage as children of God, but that suffering is our mortal lot. Should another’s misuse of agency cause us to lose eternal blessings? A just God would not allow that.
Being just, being infinite in power, and knowing all things, our Savior sees that no one suffers eternally for anyone else’s misdeeds. He stops the chains for cause and effect that would condemn the children of apostates as well as the parents, and guarantees that those children will have a full chance to hear the gospel. He further turns all the suffering inflicted on a righteous person into an opportunity for blessings. Should we suffer calumny because of our faith, and should we bear it patiently and humbly, replacing the tendency for malice with the Savior’s pure love, we are rewarded an hundredfold.
How we ought to rejoice at these gifts from our Savior! Understanding them should make us anxious to serve and bless one another. That understanding should help us to love and serve Christ with all of our heart, might, mind and strength.
The Savior’s suffering and his sacrifice are usually spoken of as the Atonement. Surely his entire divine ministry was part of it. In the Creation he prepared the earth for man’s habitation and then made possible the Fall. He governed the earth and sent the sweet whispering of his Holy Spirit to guide the earth’s inhabitants away from sin. He lived a perfect mortal life so that he could suffer for us. He sacrificed the opportunity to minister in the flesh indefinitely and thus made possible our living again. He intercedes for us and bestows the blessings of the Father upon all of us.
The Savior submitted himself as a little child unto his Father, descending into depths of humility to do his Father’s will. He descended below all things on earth that he might rise above and become Lord and Savior of all. He descended to take upon himself the sins of mankind though he personally had no sin. He descended into death, that he might triumph in the resurrection of all. For Adam, the way up was first down. Even so for our Savior.
Our Mortality
You and I are born into this world having forgotten everything. We struggle to activate and to control our new tabernacle of flesh and bone. As we begin to grow, the consequences of mortality begin to appear. Though he cannot tempt us as children, Satan can begin to exact his toll even before we are born. His power of disease can afflict us in our mother’s womb. Disease, accident, and death can track us relentlessly each day of our lives, taking what toll they can, until we reach the grave. Though we need to understand these powers which afflict us, we need not fear them. They may destroy our tabernacle of flesh, but the tabernacle is not “us.” It is expendable.
Our spirit is not expendable. Knowing this, the adversary pursues it vigorously. He uses accountable humans who are under his influence already to affect even the youngest of us. The proper heritage of a newborn child is to be enveloped in the protective strength and warmth of parents’ arms and to feel the compassion of their Christlike love. Anything less than this fosters fearfulness and uncertainty to the degree which it departs from that proper heritage. Parents or other attendants who have not yet remade their own character in the image of the Savior cannot help but begin the process of emotional harm to the infant.
Harm is the heritage of most children. The effects of the Fall are with each one. As harmful influences accumulate with time, each of us learns about and finally commits sin. By sinning, we fully reap the spiritual death of the Fall and its consequences.
But our heritage also includes an opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ before we are judged. It tells us that we all are children of God, precious to God. We learn that we can become righteous by putting our trust in Jesus Christ. If we hunger to become righteous, put our trust in the Savior, replace sin with obedience, make the covenant of baptism, receive the Holy Ghost as our companion and guide, and endure to the end, we are promised that we shall live again spiritually with our Father and Mother.
This message is attested in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We hear the testimony of men, but we have better evidence for its truthfulness through the Spirit. We are not condemned for needing assurance, but are encouraged to try this new way of thinking and acting. As we begin to exercise but a particle of faith, the blessings and evidences flood upon us. Building on them with righteousness, we soon find ourselves built upon a rock. We know that this is the way of God, for we feel the love of righteousness swell within us.
We cannot partake of this grand design, however, if we are proud. If we claim that we have no sin or that we need no instruction, we remain subject to this world. But if we become humble, pleading for help from our Heavenly Father, help will abound. We may need to renounce much that we once thought good. We will need to admit that we have sinned. As we reject the ways and ideas of the world, we are caught into a newness of life that brings us new ideas, hopes, sentiments, countenance, and strength of mind, body, and spirit. We begin to acquire that divine character which we were sent here to forge.
And forge we must. We must be tempered on the anvil. As the blows of temptation, persecution, ridicule, illness, deprivation, and sorrow rain upon us, and as we bear each patiently, we are tempered and molded in the divine pattern. We know that no blow or force can separate us from the love of God. The Holy Spirit quietly assures us that all things work to the good of those who love the Lord and our own experience proves that to be so.
And thus the pattern is complete. The way to ascend is first to descend into humility to do the Father’s will; then he can and will lift us up. Adam and Eve brought about the Fall from their comfortable paradise so that the Father’s plan could begin. They humbled themselves after the Fall to do God’s will, and thus were redeemed from the Fall. Our Savior subjected himself to our Father’s will from the beginning, and through humility he enabled the Father to exalt him and thus made possible our exaltation. It remains for each of us to also do the Savior’s will in humility. Then the Father’s plan to bless each of us will be fulfilled because we each went down to go up.