The Savior, in speaking to those of our day, said: “Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you ... for verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom” (D&C 25:1; italics added; cf. D&C 39:4). “Thus it is that the saints are born of Christ because they have been born of the Spirit; they are alive in Christ because they enjoy the companionship of the Spirit, and they are members of his family because they are clean as he is clean” (New Witness, p. 285). Those who have given strict heed to the words of the prophets are thus known as the “seed of Christ,” persons who are “heirs of the kingdom of God,” those “for whom he has died” (see Mosiah 15:11-12).
“Ye Are Born of Him and Have Become His Sons and His Daughters”
Entering into the kingdom of God through repentance and baptism is properly referred to as a “rebirth”, for thereby we become as children in the household of faith. The godly anguish and suffering of the repentant soul could be likened to the pain experienced by the mother in labor. The elements common to the process of birth are water , blood, and spirit.
The amniotic fluid which surrounds the child prior to birth is a watery substance which aids in the development of the infant. The water of the baptismal font serves as a medium through which spiritual development begins. Blood is the medium through which saving nutrients and life-giving substances are passed to the child. Likewise, it is through the blood of Christ that the benefits of the Atonement are extended to man and the saving principles of the gospel are made a part of his life.
Just as the individual spirit gives life to the infant body, even so the reception of the Holy Ghost begins a “quickening in the inner man” (see Moses 6:59-61, 64-65). It follows, therefore, that if one receives the ordinance of water baptism but fails to live worthy of the enlivening and sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost, he has not been “born again”; he is, in effect, stillborn as to the things of the Spirit.