Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Alma Chapter 11



11:37 - "...and I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins..."
There is a big difference between saving in their sins and saving from their sins (Helaman 5:10-11).
The Lord can save us from all our sins, but we must repent, hence why we cannot be saved in our sins.  When we are sinning, we move away from Him, and in essence reject Him.
If we want to be saved from our sins, we have to repent and remove ourselves completely from them...or stop being in our sins.


11:42-45 - "...now, there is a death which is called a temporal death; and the death of Christ shall loose the bands of this temporal death, that all shall be raised from this temporal death..."
The death of Christ looses the bands of temporal death.  This is in essence a free gift to all...we will all be blessed with the blessing of resurrection.
The reality is that it was not free.  He paid a huge price to pay the demands for resurrection, so that the effects of death can be taken away.  There's more to this that I just don't understand yet.
The resurrection testifies of the Savior, that He has a body.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke about this in the November 2007 Ensign, pg. 40-42.  He said, "If the idea of an embodied God is so repugnant, why are the central doctrines and singularly most distinguishing characteristics of all Christianity the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the physical Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ?  If having a body is not only not needed, but not desirable by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be separated from His spirit in time or eternity?  Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ.  No one claiming to be a true Christian will want to do that."
It is a very good point...we need to make sure that we study these things carefully and not just randomly accept personal views, but rather correct doctrine.

11:42-45 - "...every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame..."
The Resurrection and the Atonement are great blessings and we have the opportunity to become "perfect" in that sense because of the Atonement.  It makes us perfect because He is perfect.  It covers us...almost like when one company buys out another - it takes on them all the debt and liability.

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