Linchpin Doctrines

Section 89, the revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants that we know as the Word of Wisdom, contains four very remarkable promises.

“And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones;

“And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;

“And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.

“And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them.  Amen.”

Any one of those promises would make a fine sacrament meeting talk, but I want to focus on the second—the part that says that anyone who keeps the commandments—not just the Word of Wisdom, but all of the commandments—”shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures.”

You have been diligently keeping the commandments, so I ask you, what hidden treasures of knowledge have you found?

Perhaps nothing comes to mind, but I think that you’ll quickly agree that it would be possible to spend the next several hours enumerating the “hidden” treasures of knowledge that have come because of the Restoration of the gospel.  These great treasures of knowledge are wide open and in plain view for anyone to understand and to accept, but they remain hidden to everyone who prefers to believe in the false and vain and foolish doctrines of men.

I’m going to confine my remarks to just two doctrines—the linchpin doctrines of the gospel—and examine the great and hidden treasures of knowledge that are contained therein.  The linchpin doctrines of the gospel are the Atonement and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You and I have existed forever.  (There’s a hidden treasure of knowledge).  Until a short time ago in that forever existence we were spirits.  We didn’t have a body like our Father and our Mother had.  When it was announced that an earth would be created for us and that we would be given the opportunity to go there and obtain bodies we shouted for joy.  (Job 38:3-7).  We were so eager for this opportunity that we were willing to settle for even a deformed and twisted body if our Father, in His wisdom, deemed that the best way for us individually to learn what we needed to learn through our experience and service.  That would be all right with us because we trusted Him, and the promise was that it would only be for a little while, and that then our imperfect bodies would be resurrected in perfect form and be made glorious.

In comparison to forever, earth life is a minute, or a blink of the eye.  All we have to do is to be good, make covenants, and to endure that minute, and then we’ll have our perfect, glorious bodies for the rest of eternity.

But first we have to experience death.  It will be good for us to be without our bodies for a short time because having lost what we had, we’ll truly appreciate what an astounding blessing a body is.  Doctrine and Covenants 45:17 says that we’ll look upon the long absence of our spirits from our bodies as a bondage.  (See also D&C 138:50).  It will be a bondage because we’ll temporarily lose the ability to do the physical things that we’re now taking for granted.

But that same verse promises that a day of redemption shall come.  It’s a day when we’ll get our bodies back again in their perfect form.  “The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul, yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.”  (Alma 40:23).  I’ll be exchanging my titanium hip for the real thing.  I think it’s saying that I’ll get my gall bladder back again (which I don’t miss at all), and that my stooped shoulders will get straightened.  It’s saying that Ken Hutchison will be running again, that diabetics will be able to eat their desserts, that our mental abilities will go from their current 8% to 100%.

We’re all mighty attached to this earth.  None of us want to ever leave it.  A great and hidden treasure of knowledge is that we don’t have to.  Do you realize that the Earth is a living thing?  Doctrine and Covenants section 88 says that it’s being prepared for the celestial glory.  (v. 18).  Being a living thing, like us, it must die.  (v.26); “yea, notwithstanding it shall die, it shall be quickened (or made alive) again, and shall abide the power by which it is quickened, and the righteous shall inherit it.”  (v. 26).  That’s what Jesus was referring to when He said in the Sermon on the Mount that “Blessed are the meek:  for they shall inherit the earth.”  (Matthew 5:5).

“For notwithstanding (we) die, (we) also shall rise again, a spiritual body.

“They who are of a celestial spirit shall receive the same body which was a natural body; even ye shall receive your bodies, and your glory shall be that glory by which your bodies are quickened.

“Ye who are quickened by a portion of the celestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.

“And they who are quickened by a portion of the terrestrial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.

“And also they who are quickened by a portion of the telestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.

“And they who remain shall also be quickened; nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received.”  (D&C 88:27-32).

Everyone is going to be resurrected, but not everyone will be resurrected with the same glory.  Those who are resurrected with a celestial glory will have unlimited capabilities and will inherit the earth.  Where the others will go has not been revealed, but I know that this earth—the celestial kingdom—is where I want to end up.  If I keep my covenants I won’t have to live “separately and singly” as the scripture states (D&C 132:17), and I’ll have eternal increase.

These are great treasures of knowledge, for sure.

I was asked a question several weeks ago.  The question was, “Is Jesus a person or a thing?”  Another person chimed in with the suggestion that maybe Jesus is a spirit.

I passed a group of missionaries from another church last week.  Thinking that I might get material for this talk, on a whim I stopped to talk with them.  I said to them, “I was asked a question, and I’d like to hear how you’d answer it.  The question was, ‘Is Jesus a person, a thing, or a spirit?’”

The convoluted answer I received is that Jesus is both a person and a spirit.  He died, was resurrected, and went to heaven; but because bodies are corruptible, and since no corruptible thing can be in heaven, He no longer has His body.

“Then Jesus died again?” I asked them.  “What happened to His body?  What was the purpose of His resurrection?”  They had no satisfactory answer.

I decided to use my question as the means of introducing myself to the pastor of another church who was new in town.  I welcomed him to the community, and posed my question.  “Is Jesus a person, a thing, or a spirit?”  Other churches would declare that Jesus is a spirit or a power, but to this pastor’s credit he passed the question to his children who unitedly declared that Jesus is a person.  I gave them a thumbs-up.  However, the pastor tempered their answer by inserting their concept of the trinity which says that God the Father and God the Son are one and the same Being.

Joseph Smith’s vision of the Father appearing with the Son is a hidden treasure of knowledge that once and for all clears up the nature of the Godhead.  That vision brings to light the knowledge that the Father and the Son are separate Beings, that we’re indeed created in Their image, that the Father has a body and that Jesus still has His, and that we have the potential to become like Them.

Many times I have told Primary children that they know more about true religion than the pope does or any Christian pastor.  Ministers of other churches might tell you that not even baptism is necessary.  They will tell you that all that is necessary to be saved is to accept Christ as your Savior.

And they’re absolutely right.  If all you desire is salvation, that is achievable in the telestial kingdom.  Salvation simply means to be placed beyond the power of your enemy.  But we don’t want to merely be saved.  We want to be exalted, and that can only be achieved in the celestial kingdom.  Exaltation in the celestial kingdom can only be achieved by making and valiantly keeping sacred covenants.

Exaltation is not possible without a true knowledge of the godhead, and of the three degrees of glory, and of covenants, and without valiantly keeping them.  These are great and hidden treasures of knowledge that we’re desperately trying to share with the world.  These treasures may be hidden, but they’re not secret.

The greatest treasure of knowledge of them all is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  I don’t think that it’s understood or talked about by other people.  I think that’s because the word “atonement” is used only once in the Bible, but 35 times in the Book of Mormon.

Covenants are never talked about in other churches.  They’ve been lost, yet they’re essential—they’re crucial, Boyd K. Packer says—to our exaltation.

Grant Lindsay was a bishop of the Baker Ward in the early 1960s.  That was before I was even a member of the Church.  But Grant became my great friend and mentor.  One day he made a statement to me that was shocking.  It was so audacious that I’ve never forgotten it.  He told me that the only people that the Atonement applies to are Latter-day Saints.  He was largely right.  Listen to this:

“But remember that he that persists in his own carnal nature, and goes on in the ways of sin and rebellion against God, remaineth in his fallen state and the devil hath all power over him.  Therefore he is as though there was no redemption made, being an enemy to God; and also is the devil an enemy to God.”  (Mosiah 16:5).

“Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.”  (2 Nephi 2:7).

“And he shall come into the world to redeem his people; and he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation cometh to none else.

“Therefore the wicked remain as though there had been no redemption made, except it be the loosing of the bands of death...”(Alma 11:40-41).

The Atonement of Jesus Christ opens the way for every soul to rid himself of his sins through repentance.  Repentance is a great gift given to all mankind through the Lord’s Atonement.  Every sin that anyone will ever commit has already been paid for, on the condition that each individual will repent and covenant through the ordinance of baptism to follow Jesus and to keep His commandments.  Anyone who does not take that step lives and dies in his sins, and must then pay for his own foolish deeds.

“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

“But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

“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...”  (D&C 19:16-18).

The Atonement is an individual thing.  It is applied individually.  Anyone who does not avail himself of this opportunity to repent is more than foolish—he’s stupid.  He’s ignorant of the most basic and important thing in this world.

The Atonement provides for each individual’s repentance of sins.  That’s the first great gift.  The second is the gift of Resurrection.  Because of the Lord’s Atonement all will be resurrected, but the quality of that resurrection will depend upon how the gift of repentance was used.

The Atonement and Resurrection are the linchpin doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is absolutely—critically—crucially—important that every soul be alerted to these “hidden treasures of knowledge,” and that we ourselves never become complacent about them or take them for granted.