The violation of God’s law requires punishment. In so saying we but echo the testimony of Lehi and Alma, who both reasoned that unless a penalty followed the breaking of divine law, the law would be nothing more than the figment of someone’s imagination. (See 2 Nephi 2:10-13; Alma 42:16-18.)
Modern revelation assures us that this is the case, declaring that the unrepentant must suffer even as Christ suffered. “Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit-and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink” (D&C 19:18).