Resurrection, Restoration and Accountability

Alma 40-42
Book of Mormon, pg
Today we will talk about three main doctrines: resurrection, restoration and accountability.

In these chapters, Alma is talking to his son Corianton, who is in the mission field, but has been tempted and influenced by anti-Christ’s and fallen into sin.  Alma, whose father once pleaded for his son to repent and return, is now pleading for his own son to do the same by teaching him the correct doctrines of the gospel.  In fact, Alma is a great example of the instruction of teaching children that we find in section 121:41-44 of the Doctrine and Covenants:

By persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love.

In the previous chapter, Alma begins this portion of his instruction by telling Corianton that every soul is precious in the sight of God and therefore it is necessary that every soul must hear about the plan of redemption.  Because if every soul knew of and believed that life continued after what we are now, perhaps their behavior in this life would be different.  President Kimball said, that “if they knew better, they would do better.”

We are going to study why we would do better and how to do better.  Alma first talks about the resurrection in chapter 40.  He says there is a resurrection of the dead, and the time, or times, appointed for this resurrection, is only known to God, which information is sufficient for us to know.  But he then relates the information, concerning the space of time between when a person dies and is resurrected, that he has “inquired diligently” of God.

Alma 40:11-14

He goes on to explain that there are those who think the initial judgment and separation into spirit paradise and spirit prison is THE resurrection.  But it is not.  The first resurrection occurred when the Savior was resurrected and all the righteous from the days of Adam until the resurrections of Christ, were resurrected.  Alma offered this as his opinion at this time, but it is backed up by what President Joseph F. Smith saw in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 12-17:

12 And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality;
 13 And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name.
 14 All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
 15 I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand.
 16 They were assembled awaiting the advent of the Son of God into the spirit world, to declare their redemption from the bands of death.
 17 Their sleeping dust was to be restored unto its perfect frame, bone to his bone, and the sinews and the flesh upon them, the spirit and the body to be united never again to be divided, that they might receive a fulness of joy.

WHY IS THIS DOCTRINE OF SPIRIT PRISON AND PARADISE IMPORTANT FOR US TO KNOW?
• Continuation of spirit
• The Lord is in charge and has a plan for everything
• Awaiting the times and purposes of the Lord
• There is a purpose to all things and a purpose to your actions, in pre-judgment and final judgment, as he says in vs 26, we are consigned to partake of the fruits of our labors
• It is part of bringing forth the restoration of all things
• Brings hope and faith

This doctrine he says in vs 23, brings about he doctrine of the restoration, which he will discuss further in chapter 41, specifically addressing the twisting of doctrine that Corianton has heard of, either that this life is the only life we get so live it up, or there is no Christ who redeems for sins, so there must be no law or moral code to offend.

Alma 41:2-4
• Vs 2 talks about the physical restoration (resurrection)
• Vs 3 talks about the spiritual restoration (atonemeent)
• Vs 4 talks about everything being restored to a proper order (whose order is God’s)
• Vs 5 talks about our desires leading us to action

Alma 41:12-15
He defines restoration: if you are restoring something, you are putting it back into it’s former or original state.

WHAT STATE ARE WE TRYING TO BE PUT BACK IN?
• Being with God (we were with him in pre-mortal existence, we will be restored to His presence after this life, but only if we choose.  We will be restored to the state of being that we choose in this life: good restored to good, evil restored to evil)
• Vs 11, refers to it a the nature of happiness, meaning we make the nature of happiness become our natural state rather than a carnal state, but rather than just being in that state of happiness, we now have to choose to be in a state of happiness, or head toward it.

And the only way to be with God again is to be clean.  So, Alma admonishes Corianton that in order to be clean, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” if you want mercy, be merciful to your brethren, if you want justice, be just to your brethren.

So, taking the fact that good will be restored to good and evil for evil, what do we do about our human tendency to be stubborn and rebellious and lazy?

Alma addresses this issue especially, because Corianton seemed to be of the opinion that it’s just not fair that a sinner should be consigned to a state of misery.

As many of The Book of Mormon prophets do to explain the plan of salvation, Alma rehearsed the situation in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve having to make the choice that brought on temporal and spiritual death.  Alma said, in vs. 8, that it wasn’t expedient yet to reclaim them from temporal death, because that would eliminate our proving time, and therefore the plan of happiness.  But, he says in vs 9 that there needed to be immediate reclamation of the spiritual death because that meant they were cut off from God.  If they are cut off from God, how will they know how to return to Him.  So, they are in this state of being where the have been given commandments and laws, and they have transgressed those laws, now what?

Alma 42:12-15
• There is a plan of justice, where offenses need to be accounted for and redeemed, but how can a man redeem himself to God?
• Only on conditions of repentance during his preparatory state, so that mercy can help redeem
• Mercy can come, only through an atonement, a mediation that helps bring us back into the presence of God

Alma reviews the necessity of all components a few times:

Alma 42:22-25
1. There are laws given
2. There may be sin against the law, if so
3. There will be punishment
4. Remorse of conscience
5. Repentance
6. Mercy because of the atonement
7. Afraid to sin
8. Cleaner and closer to God – v23 “restored into his presence”
9. Resurrected
10. Judged according to works

Justice exercises his demands (answering to the stewardship of the law), Mercy claimeth her own, who are the truly penitent. Note the masculine and feminine pronouns assigned to justice and mercy.

Elder Holland talks about who Mercy claims in his book, “Christ and the New Covenant:”

Those that “mercy claimeth” as “her own” are the followers of Chrsit.  They understand, as Paul did, that they were “bought with a price” and owe something in return for the freedom.  As a consequence of the Atonement, we need not be in subjection to the devil, but we must be willing, as Jacob taught, to “become subject unto [Christ].”
What that subjection means does not involve anything slavish or restrictive nor does it require any payment of money or worldly gifts.  What that subjection means, what these people choosing redemption “owe” to Christ, their new master, is a life of discipleship, beginning with faith, repentance, and baptism and leading on to all the ordinances and covenants of the gospel and a life of loving kindness.  Clearly all of humankind is still in debt even after the full effect of the Atonement has transpired.  But fortunately he to whom we are indebted is Christ the Merciful father than Lucifer the Miserable.  We still have obligations, but they are of a much higher and happier sort.  We are in debt, but we are not in bondage.  Christ and the New Covenant , Elder Jeffry R. Holland, pg 231.

CAN MERCY BE GIVEN UNLESS ASKED FOR?
• Is this is the meaning of can “mercy rob justice?” Mercy for the law can’t be taken unless sought and asked for through the Savior.
• Vs 13 – redemption only through repentance; except it were these conditions, mercy could not take effect
• Vs 22 – mercy claimeth repentance
• Vs 23 – mercy claimeth the penitent

There is another part of the plan of redemption that we need to be aware of and that is grace.  Another of my gospel questions was answered in preparation for this lesson, and Elder Holland, I found, explained it best:

Obviously the unconditional blessing of the Atonement are unearned, but the conditional ones also are not fully merited.  By living faithful and keeping the commandments of God, we can receive a fuller measure of blessings from Christ, but even these greater blessings are freely given of him and are not technically “earned” by us.  In short, good works are necessary for salvation, but they are not sufficient.  And God is not obliged to make up the insufficiency.  As Jacob taught, “remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.” Christ and the New Covenant , Elder Jeffry R. Holland, pg 236.

I was so grateful to find these definitions of mercy and grace and justice from Elder Holland, as I don't quite understand how they work together, especially the balance of justice and mercy.  But the understanding of grace as Elder Holland defines, is that we are to ask for mercy through repentance to appease the demands of justice, so we can live comfortably with ourselves and other people in this life.  Even after all we can do (see 2 Nephi 25:21) we still don't know how to save ourselves, return to God's presence, or resurrect ourselves. We need the grace/power to complete the process of earthly life.