Sabbathought : True or False?

Is this statement true or false?

We believe that all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

It is, of course, false. The most important element of the third article of faith is missing from this statement.

Last Sunday a twelve-year-old youth recited, as is traditional these days, one of the thirteen articles of faith in sacrament meeting as a token of graduation from Primary. It was rendered just as we have written it here. No one seemed to notice. It was not corrected at the time nor later. It should, of course, have been rendered:

"We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel."

Some of us may think this is just splitting hairs, that if you leave out the beef in a beef-pie dish there will still be enough strength in the other ingredients to provide nutrition and nourishment.

But in doctrine this is not the case. As we find on the front cover of our course of study for this year and next, nothing less than "the very points of [Christ's] doctrine" are necessary for us to "know how to come unto him and be saved." Approximate doctrine won't do. Reduced or abbreviated doctrine will come short.

This is why the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, the most doctrinally correct book, and why it is Another Testament of Jesus Christ:

"Wherefore, all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer" (1 Nephi 10:6).

"And my soul delighteth in proving unto my people that save Christ should come all men must perish. For if there be no Christ there be no God; and if there be no God we are not, for there could have been no creation. But there is a God, and he is Christ, and he cometh in the fulness of his own time" (2 Nephi 11:6--7). Stunning logic, unsurpassed in holy writ or anywhere else.

" . . . salvation doth not come by the law alone [ie the Law of Moses, nor by the 'laws and ordinances of the Gospel' alone]; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses [or 'the laws and ordinances of the Gospel']" (Mosiah 13:28).

"For it is expedient that an atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish; yea, all are hardened; yea, all are fallen and are lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement which it is expedient should be made" (Alma 34:9).

This is the language and the clear doctrine of the Book of Mormon. We should get it so deep into our souls that it comes out in our character and in our every expression. It is far clearer than anything in any other book, sacred or otherwise, and we should know it well.

President Ezra Taft Benson said, "If they [the sons of Mosiah, see Mosiah 1:2--3, but also we ourselves] did not know the right words, they would not know the plan."

Does this make eternal sense to you, and resonate as it should?

Please let me have your thoughts. . . . More later.

Warm regards,

Steve