Christ Is the One Who Sets Us Free to Choose

John W. Welch

For Lehi, one of the results of the redemption of Christ is to make us free. Only then can we have joy by choosing properly. We have freedom to choose, and that is because the redemption of Christ allows us to choose either life or death. Without that redemption, we could not have that choice. Now it doesn’t mean that we are free to do whatever we want. We are not free to violate the laws of gravity. We are not free to do things and not suffer the natural consequences. It means free to make a choice between Christ and life or Satan and death.

Lehi goes on to explain how this will happen. You are free, first of all, to make a choice and in order to make that choice, you know good from evil. Again, one of those oppositions, and because of the redemption and because of your experience you can know good from evil, you are then free to act for yourselves and not to be acted upon. That is crucial—you aren’t being compelled and you aren’t being driven. It is Satan’s plan to have you be acted upon. The only proviso in the Plan of Salvation is you are free not to be acted upon "save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given" (v. 26). Everyone is subject to this. No flesh can dwell in the presence of God save it be according to this plan.

So, we have here the Creation, the Fall, and now we have the Atonement—three grand pillars of eternity. "And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall" (v. 26). How does mankind get back into the presence of God? He died spiritually—being cut off from the presence of God—so he has to be born again right? The Book of Moses tells us that Adam was born again, that he was baptized, that he received the spirit of God and came back into the presence of God spiritually (see Moses 6:64). But in order to enter the presence of God and overcome spiritual death it had to be done by the power of the Redeemer, and Adam received spiritual life just like all of us receive spiritual life. Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance of sins, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. I am not exactly sure who laid their hands on Adam’s head, but he received the Holy Ghost and endured to the end in righteousness, for 930 years! He endured to the end, and he received a crown of eternal life. He is the great Michael, and he will preside at the final gathering—a conference that will be held before the Second Coming of the Savior. Adam will receive the keys back from all the prophets and deliver them up to Christ. I like to think that it was that mighty Michael who was the one who came to the Garden of Gethsemane as an angel and comforted the Lord in his great agony.

Further Reading

Book of Mormon Central, "Why Did Lehi Teach About the ‘Two Ways’? (2 Nephi 2:27)," KnoWhy 287 (March 15, 2017).

John W. Welch Notes

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