Atonement
Ensign, November 2008, pg. 57; “”[The] testing of our limits in priesthood service is made necessary by God’s plan to qualify His children to live with Him again forever. Heavenly Father loves His children…To qualify us to receive that gift, He gave us a mortal body, the opportunity to be tempted to sin, and a way to be cleansed from that sin and to rise in the First Resurrection. He gave us His Beloved Son, Jehovah, as our Savior to make that possible. The Savior was born in mortal life, was tempted but never sinned, and then in Gethsemane and on Golgotha paid the price of our sins so that we could be cleansed. The purifying can come only to those who have faith enough in Jesus Christ to repent of sin, be cleansed through the ordinance of baptism, and make and keep covenants to obey all His commandments. And there was to be a fierce enemy of our souls, Lucifer, who would with his legions relentlessly try to capture every child of God to keep him or her from having the joy of eternal life.”” – Henry B. Eyring
Romans 10:9; “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Have you ever had to qualify someone to receive a gift you’re giving them?
Yep.
After all, you don’t give a car as a gift to one who does not have a liscense.
Also, how many parents give “graduation” gifts to their children. Such gifts, by definition, are dependant on the child graduating. You don’t give a graduation gift until graduation.
I am sure there are other examples of such qualifying for gifts, but you get the point.
As to confessing and believing, can one truly claim to believe in Chirst without believing those things that he taught? In other words, if you believe in Christ would you not also accept the requirement of Baptism, for he has said that “he who believes and is baptised shall be saved,” thus making baptism a requirement for salvation.
So, were is the dilemma? It seems that all these things are in perfect harmony.