Sacrament meeting talk: Works and Grace

When I was a student at BYU, we received a caution from our Priesthood leaders that there were some then circulating among us, which had made a whole religion out of a single principle of the Gospel, such as The Word of Wisdom, or Preparing for the Last Days. These people tended to focus on the one principle, to the exclusion of all others, and then preached according to their understanding, thus fomenting a misunderstanding of the Gospel in general among those who chose to listen. We were cautioned not to be swayed by their preaching. These people, though members of the Church, preached “up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning,” something Nephi warned against; they “set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they [sought] not the welfare of Zion (2 Ne. 26:20,29).”

Such was very much the case, when our Savior walked the earth, with those who were supposed to be the leaders and teachers over the people of God. Because of their state of apostasy, it had been a very long time since the Jewish people had been led and taught by a prophet, who spoke and acted under authority from God. Their leaders had also “set themselves up for a light” by making up countless rules, based more and more loosely on the Law of Moses, which they said people must strictly adhere to if they were to be considered worthy of the Kingdom of God. By the time the Savior and his forerunner, the great prophet John the Baptist, had begun their ministries, almost the entire Jewish religion depended more upon the outward performance than upon the state of the heart. The law of Moses had become their whole religion, rather than what it was meant to be, and what indeed it was to the righteous peoples of The Book of Mormon: merely a tool to point people to the Savior. As stated in the Gospel of John, 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

The apostles who spread the true Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the predominantly Jewish world found it necessary to lay a great deal of emphasis upon the principle of grace, in order to help them see the Law in its true light: as a “schoolmaster” that leads unto Christ (Gal 3:24-25), rather than as the defining goal in and of itself, as the Jews in general had come to believe. The apostles taught that it is “Through the grace of Christ, we shall be saved (Acts 15: 11, Rom. 3: 23-24; D&C 138: 14),” that “we have access by faith to his grace (Rom. 5: 2),” and that “by grace [we] are saved through faith (Eph. 2: 8). “The grace of God brings salvation (Titus 2: 11).” “Come boldly unto the throne of grace (Heb. 4: 16).” “God gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5: 5).”

It was very necessary for those who desired to be part of the Kingdom of God to understand that, as Paul taught, “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Cor. 5:17)” through the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and through his Resurrection and Atoning power.

The Jews had to rethink their whole idea of salvation and of the Messiah, whom they had come to expect as One who would deliver them from earthly bondage. They had to come to see that it was from the bondage of their own sins that they most needed deliverance, and that such redemption was only possible in and through the Atoning grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The apostles of the New Testament era were charged with the daunting task of undoing hundreds of years of false teachings that emphasized salvation through man’s works, teachings that excluded what the prophets of the Old Testament had plainly taught: that a Savior was necessary to save us from our iniquities, that an atonement was required for our sins, an “infinite atonement,” as Nephi tells us (2 Ne. 9:7; see also 2 Ne. 25:16 and Alma 34:12), to which every sacrifice ever made by the priests of the temple pointed.

“It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus, made possible by his atoning sacrifice,“ we are told in the Bible Dictionary, “that mankind will be raised in immortality, every person receiving his body from the grave in a condition of everlasting life.”

It was very important for the people of New Testament times to understand this principle, so the apostles reiterated it again and again. This was occasioned, as I said initially, because the leaders of the Jews had created an entirely different religion, based upon their own interpretation, in order to set themselves up as a light, to gain unto themselves followers who would uphold them and support them.

We all know what happened, eventually, to the Lord’s apostles; Paul had warned that “the time [would] come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (2 Timothy 4:3-4).”

What I understand from Paul here is that, after all the efforts of the apostles to teach and to spread the true Gospel again, so that people would know to Whom they must look for salvation, and would know the way in which they must walk in order to receive the blessings of salvation; notwithstanding being led by the power of the Priesthood of God and by the Gift of the Holy Ghost, yet eventually people would choose other ways, would follow those who “set themselves up as a light” in order to get gain; and the true Gospel would be taken from the earth once more. The people would be left with only a “form of godliness (2 Tim 3:5),” until many churches would be built up around this or that principle, but none would have a fullness.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie spoke in 1984 at a devotional at Brigham Young University, concerning this Great Apostasy, and what has sprung out of it. He says:

"I wonder how many of us are aware of one of the great religious phenomena of the ages, one that is now sweeping through Protestant Christianity, as only one other thing has ever done in the whole Christian Era.

"We are silent witnesses of an almost worldwide religious craze that had its birth in the minds of a few great religious reformers nearly five hundred years ago and which is now receiving a new birth of freedom and influence.

…

"But before zeroing in on this religious mania that has now taken possession of millions of devout but deluded people, and as a means of keeping all things in perspective, let me first identify the original heresy that did more than anything else to destroy the primitive Christianity.

"This first and chief heresy of a now fallen and decadent Christianity--and truly it is the father of all heresies--swept through all of the congregations of true believers in the early centuries of the Christian Era; it pertained then and pertains now to the nature and kind of being that God is.

"It was the doctrine, adapted from [pagan beliefs], that changed Christianity from the religion in which men worshipped a personal God, in whose image man is made, into the religion in which men worshipped a spirit essence called the Trinity. This new God, no longer a personal Father, no longer a personage of tabernacle, became an incomprehensible three-in-one spirit essence that filled the immensity of space.

"The adoption of this false doctrine about God effectively destroyed the true worship among men and ushered in the age of universal apostasy.

…

"The Second Greatest Heresy

"Nearly a millennium and a half later, during the sixteenth century, as the Reformation grew out of the Renaissance, as a means of breaking the hold of the dominant church, the great Christian reformers lit a new doctrinal fire. That fire, burning wildly over the dry and arid prairies of religious autocracy, is what really prepared the way for the restoration of the gospel in modern times.

"It was nonetheless the doctrinal fire--the burning, flaming, heretical fire--that became the second greatest heresy of Christendom, because it effectively destroyed the efficacy and power of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ by whom salvation comes.

"The first great heresy, sweeping like a prairie fire through the struggling branches of a newly born Christianity, destroyed the worship of the true God. And the second, a heresy originating in the same courts of darkness, destroyed that very atonement of God's only Son.

…

"This second heresy--and it is the delusion and mania that prevails to this day in the great evangelical body of Protestantism--is the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, without the works of the law. It is the doctrine that we are saved by grace alone, without works. It is the doctrine that we may be born again simply by confessing the Lord Jesus with our lips while we continue to live in our sins.

…

"Interwoven with this concept is the doctrine that the elect of God are predestined to be saved regardless of any act on their part

..."

You see what has happened? The doctrine of grace, which the apostles found it so necessary to emphasize in order to combat the false Jewish ideas of outward performance, has itself become “a religion of its own” in the eyes of many today, to the exclusion of other principles of the Gospel of Christ that are every bit as essential to salvation. It is the doctrine that appeals most in today’s world, and so it is touted by those who “set up themselves as a light.”

So, we could say that the pendulum has swung the other way in our time; among those who purport to follow the Gospel of Christ, the value of one’s works is diminished; “the conviction that the sinner is justified by faith alone, without the works of the law“ has overridden all other considerations.

Now, as I have grown up in the Church, I have observed an interesting phenomenon, and it is best illustrated by a conversation with a friend of mine several years ago. As we sat discussing the challenges of being a Latter-day Saint, he expressed the belief that he had “just about made it.” He clicked off the basic commandments, as he viewed them, expressed his modest evaluation that he kept them conscientiously, and pronounced therefore that he felt pretty close to being a candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. His wife, on the other hand, felt that no matter what she did, she was abysmally far away from being a candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. In short: he had made “works” his religion, and she was in dire need of understanding grace.

To continue from Elder McKonkie:

"We believe and proclaim that salvation is in Christ, in his gospel, in his atoning sacrifice. We are bold to say it comes by the goodness and grace of the Father and the Son. No people on earth praise the Lord with greater faith and fervor than we do because of this goodness and grace.

"As the Lord's agents, as his servants, as ambassadors of Christ--sent by him, sent to speak in his place instead, sent to say what he would say if he personally were here--we testify that no man, as long as the earth shall stand, or the heavens endure, or God continues as God, no man shall ever be saved in the kingdom of God, in the celestial kingdom of heaven, without doing the works of righteousness.

"As far as man is concerned, the great and eternal plan of salvation is:

"1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; faith in him as the Son of God; faith in him as the Savior and Redeemer who shed his blood for us in Gethsemane and on Calvary;

"2. Repentance of all our sins--thus forsaking the world and its carnal course; thus turning from the broad way that leads to destruction; thus preparing for the spiritual rebirth into the kingdom of God;

"3. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; baptism under the hands of a legal administrator who has power to bind on earth and seal in heaven--thus planting our feet firmly on the strait and narrow path leading to eternal life;

"4. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost--thus enabling us to be baptized with fire; to have sin and evil burned out of our souls as though by fire; to be sanctified so as to stand pure and spotless before the Lord at the last day; and

"5. Enduring to the end in righteousness, keeping the commandments, and living by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God.

"Thus saith the Lord:

'He who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come. [D&C 59:23]'

"As God is true, and Christ is the Savior, and the Holy Ghost is their minister and witness, such is the plan of salvation, and there neither is nor ever shall be any other.

"Let those in the world think and act as they please; let us, the Saints of God who know better, together with all who are willing to live by the higher standard of the gospel, praise the Lord for his goodness and grace and do so by keeping his commandments, thereby becoming heirs of eternal salvation."

In the Bible Dictionary, we read: “It is … through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.”

Brothers and Sisters, let us not just hold on to those parts of the Gospel of Christ that are the easiest, or that make the most sense to us; let us not hold on to any “private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20)” at all, wherein we build up our own religion. We have the first principles and ordinances before us; all of them revolve around the great atoning sacrifice of the Savior in our behalf, because the Father and the Son want us to become like them: “For this is my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39).”

Moroni, in almost the last verses of The Book of Mormon, summarizes how this is accomplished:

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

"And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot (Moroni 10:32-33).”

Coming unto Christ is our part, our little but absolutely necessary part, involving obeying his commandments and keeping our covenants to the very best of our ability; his “amazing grace” does the rest. In this way “when he shall appear we may be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen (Moroni 7:48).”

note: James E. Talmage's tome Jesus the Christ was an invaluable resource in the thoughts expressed in this talk.