Romans 6:23; “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The Ministry of Prophets and Apostles Today, ‘Our Savior’s Atonement’, February 19, 2016 M. Russell Ballard, Apostle
Earlier this year, Mormon apostle Russell Ballard delivered a speech about the atonement of Christ. We’ve taken the main comments he made and used them in this article to expose how the Church erroneously defines the word ‘atonement’.
A link for the entire speech is provided above.
“…Thankfully, Jesus Christ courageously fulfilled this sacrifice in ancient Jerusalem. There in the quiet isolation of the Garden of Gethsemane, He knelt among the gnarled olive trees, and in some incredible way that none of us can fully comprehend, the Savior took upon Himself the sins of the world.
This isn’t true. According to Mormon doctrines, there are three sins that can’t ever be forgiven.
From our article Interesting Facts of the 3-in-1 –
They believe you can’t be saved if you’re a murderer, D&C 42:79; an apostate of the church D&C 85:11; or if you’ve blasphemed the Holy Ghost D&C 132:27.
Even though His life was pure and free of sin, He paid the ultimate penalty for sin—yours, mine, and everyone who has ever lived.
What penalty did the Mormon Jesus pay for when the Mormon people are still left with a laundry list of ‘must-dos’ in order to gain salvation?
His mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish were so great they caused Him to bleed from every pore (see Luke 22:44; D&C 19:18).
As we stated in an article earlier this week, the stress from knowing what laid ahead would have done this, but bleeding like this did not constitute sacrificing His life. Remember beloved, scripture tells us a death must take place.
Hebrews 9:16; “For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.”
As horrible the anguish was for our dear Lord, He didn’t die in Gethsemane. He died at Calvary, the ‘place of the skulls’, aka, Golgotha.
And yet Jesus suffered willingly so that we might all have the opportunity to be washed clean—through having faith in Him, repenting of our sins, being baptized by proper priesthood authority, receiving the purifying gift of the Holy Ghost by confirmation, and accepting all other essential ordinances.
Yes, Jesus died willingly so that we can be washed clean, however, that is only for those who accept He is the Savior, not us!
Isaiah 64:6 tells us that our works are as filthy rags. The Hebrew word for this is ʿiddâ. It means ‘the menstrual flux (as periodical); by implication (in plural) soiling :- filthy’.
(See Strong’s Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary #H5708.)
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
We pray the Mormon people will remember this is the worth of what they consider ‘works’.
Without the Atonement of the Lord, none of these blessings would be available to us, and we could not become worthy and prepared to return to dwell in the presence of God.
Those ‘blessings’ are the worthless works we just spoke about. How could this be a blessing???
I believe that if we could truly understand the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we would realize how precious is one son or daughter of God. I believe our Heavenly Father’s everlasting purpose for His children is generally achieved by the small and simple things we do for one another.
The atonement Jesus provided was all that was necessary for us to be found righteous in the eyes of God, thereby securing our salvation in Him! This isn’t about us, or what we can do. This is exclusively about the things Jesus Christ did for us when He was whipped and beaten, and then nailed on Calvary’s Cross!
At the heart of the English word atonement is the word one. If all mankind understood this, there would never be anyone with whom we would not be concerned, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, or social or economic standing.
If Mormons really believed this, why aren’t they out serving in the slums of America instead of trying to convert people who are already Christians? Why not go to countries who are known for worshiping Buddha, or other false gods?
Moreover, even though they’ve now ‘accepted’ blacks into their priesthood, why does their sacred canon still reflect the racist doctrines of Joseph Smith’s day? This includes the Book of Mormon, the book of Moses, and the book of Abraham.
We would strive to emulate the Savior and would never be unkind, indifferent, disrespectful, or insensitive to others…we would seek out the wayward boy and girl and every other wayward child of God. We would help them to know of the love Christ has for them. We would do all that we can to help prepare them to receive the saving ordinances of the gospel.
The Bible does give us a step-by-step plan on how to be saved! Here it is –
Romans 10:9-10; “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. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Another most beneficial item in the Bible is known as the Romans Road to Salvation! Check it out!
I pray that you will seek to know the blessings of the Atonement and that you will strive to be worthy to serve the Lord in the mission field.
Specifically, how is one ‘blessed of the Atonement’?
The irony of the Atonement is that it is infinite and eternal, yet it is applied individually, one person at a time.
The true irony of the atonement is how it wasn’t performed in secret, nor was it done in a darkened Garden at nighttime. In keeping with the requirements of the Law, it was done in the morning, in a very public place, taking six hours to complete.
Never, never underestimate how precious is the one. Remember always the simple admonition of the Lord: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Always strive to live worthy of the sacred full blessings of the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. …
May you give to others and receive for yourselves every blessing the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ offers.
This is a sad, sad statement for the Mormon people! They must live an exemplary life so they can work for their salvation. How dismal for them. Worse yet is how they’ve shunned the work Jesus already did and have turned Him away with His most gracious offer to us. May God have mercy on each of them, and turn them from this blasphemous doctrine.
As it always the case, we’re asking you to come alongside us and pray for these dear people!
With Love in Christ;
Michelle
Ballard, like Bruce R. McConkie, can’t really tell the truth about the Mormon atonement without revealing Mormonism’s pagan polytheistic theology and the Mormon agenda in publishing it. You see, the real theology of Mormonism conveys what the Mormon Church actually believes about the Mormon Jesus, a character that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and all of their successors have said is very different from the Christian Jesus of the Holy Bible. You see, while attempting to convince struggling Christians, who are being taught by Mormon full-time missionaries, that the Trinitarian doctrines about God in the Book of Mormon are the crux of Mormon theology, the Mormon Church officially declares in “Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God,” and in their temple rite, that, in fact, there is an infinite number of saviors, just like Jesus, who have been procreated by an infinite number of father-gods and mother-goddesses, with a capital G, who began as mortal men and women on earth-like planets. In other words, there is a ritual Mormon atonement by every savior procreated by every father-god, with a capital G, for every world that is created and populated.
Since the Mormons have doctrinally maintained, since 1844, that their saviors are limited in their ability to atone for a variety of sins, and that the blood sweated out of their living bodies is not sufficient for atoning for sins such as murder, saying things against the Mormon prophet, not attending church, and marrying a non-Mormon, the shedding of that particular offending Mormon’s blood is necessary for that person to have the Mormon father-god forgive their sins. Yes, during the time that Brigham Young reigned over the Mormon Church and the Mormon people as a theocrat in the theocracy, Young had the power to order people killed for their own good, so that their blood would flow into the earth as an offering for sin. Sounds like Young hadn’t read the Book of Hebrews too well, to understand that the real Jesus came to fulfill the Judaic law as the perfect Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice. Atonement sacrifices, under the Law of Moses and before the crucifixion of Christ, had to be consummated by the death of the offered lamb, so that the blood could flow onto the altar. The atonement sacrifice was not completed until the Lamb was dead. Hence, the atonement of Christ was not through a process of sweating, but through a process of dying on the cross. By his death, and the shedding of his precious blood, Jesus atoned for all of the sins of the world, past, present, and future, every sin that had been committed, was being committed, and which would be committed by humanity.
Mormon theology states that Jesus’ death on the cross only brought one thing into existence, the resurrection. The resurrection is, to Mormons, the free gift of salvation from death; the only free gift that Jesus gave to mankind. The confounding of the grace of God with works, in the Book of Mormon, showed Joseph Smith’s severe lack of understanding. If Jesus’ holy grace is sufficient and covers all sins, then work is totally unnecessary for us in order to receive the grace of God. Paul said that after we are saved from sin by faith through the grace of God, we will work because we have been saved, not in order to be saved. One of the disastrous results of believing that you have to work your way to heaven is that you end-up thinking that you can’t be good enough to please God. This can create a great deal of depression in a human mind, and can lead a person to boast about their works, that they are better than other people’s works. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, in Eph. 2: 8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Not of works lest anyone should boast.”
How can a literate rational Mormon read the true word written by the Apostle Paul in the Holy Bible, and then not realize the flagrant confounding of grace and works by an uninspired flimflam man, Joseph Smith, in the Book of Mormon, in 2 Nephi 25:22, For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”