With his appearance to the Nephites at Bountiful, the resurrected Lord personally reiterated these principles. These verses in chapter 11 become the foundation for his subsequent teaching of the gospel and preparing the people to live a life of “higher righteousness.”
Here the Savior enumerates the principles and ordinances of his gospel, but later he expounds further on how each principle is linked to the others, how all are appendages to the atoning sacrifice of the Only Begotten, and how together they constitute the “fulness of the everlasting Gospel” (see commentary on 3 Nephi 27:13-27).
“But Little Children Are Alive in Christ”
3. Because little children cannot sin they cannot bring about their own spiritual “fall” or estrangement from God. The only spiritual death they experience, therefore, is that which comes upon all mankind by reason of the fall of Adam. Thus they are “alive in Christ” because the atonement of Jesus Christ has redeemed all, including little children, from the effects-both temporal and spiritual-of the fall of Adam.
Those, then, who die without achieving personal accountability are redeemed and saved by the mercy, goodness, and pure love of Christ as evidenced by his atoning sacrifice. They become heirs of the celestial kingdom. (For an extensive doctrinal discussion of this concept see Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “The Salvation of Little Children,” Ensign, April 1977, pp. 3-7 )