Repentance of the sins we know of is the first part of exercising faith in Christ, but obtaining forgiveness of one’s sin is not the end of the journey. It is merely the beginning:
17 ...the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
18 And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive. (2 Nephi 31)
Forgiveness of sins makes possible the reception of the Holy Ghost, which is the mechanism through which the Father successively reveals everything you yet lack to become like him, commensurate with the degree of faith you exercise.
Obtaining the Holy Ghost enables you to enter into the lifelong path of learning more from God line upon line:
15 And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the words of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
16 And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.
17 Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me....
19 And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.
21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen. (2 Nephi 31)
There is a difference between being forgiven of past sins and being holy. Forgiveness of past sins comes as you forsake those sins and reconcile yourself to what you presently know about God. Being holy goes beyond reconciling to what you presently know about God. You become holy as you become more like God is , not just how you presently believe him to be. Becoming holy requires learning more about God and assimilating everything you learn about him into your own character.
There is no other way to obtain eternal life except through a lifetime of learning more about God and unfailingly implementing it.
Learning more about God
Willful sin occurs when you deviate from the best path you know,1 while sin in ignorance occurs when the best path lies beyond your present knowledge.2 For sins committed in ignorance, Christ’s “atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice.” (2 Nephi 9:26) However, the atonement of Christ does not violate the law of cause and effect, and therefore cannot deliver the outcomes of paths not taken.
Forgiveness is the removal of a just outcome—the punishment you deserve, not the delivery of an unjust outcome—eternal life you don’t yet deserve. Even if you are forgiven for not obeying what you do not know, you can never obtain all God offers without actually becoming like him.
The only way to become more like God is to seek, obtain, and obey more of his commandments:
33 Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.
34 Yea, he saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink of the bread and the waters of life freely;
35 Yea, come unto me and bring forth works of righteousness, and ye shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire— (Alma 5)
God’s voice comes to you through various means. The Lord said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27) Do you hear it?
God’s voice is the voice of improvement. Everything that invites you to be better is from God. The Lord said:
And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me... (Ether 4:12)
We are steeped in incessant invitations for improvement, both from within and without. From without, we are surrounded by evidences that something better than what we have and are exists. We see and smell and feel beauty in nature that exceeds what we create and enjoy in our daily lives. In our experiences with other people, and even in media, we hear and see and feel love and peace and beauty beyond what we have, give, and receive. From within, a subtle but recurring message comes through a still, small voice that paradoxically whispers with the strength to shake us, suggesting to our deepest core that we can live up to and become whatever good we become aware of.
We ought to interpret these flashes of good observable all around us as they are: the voice of God calling us to be better.
The most important source of God’s instruction to you is found in your conscience. Through your conscience, God will show you what is right and what is wrong according to your present understanding. Through perfectly obeying this influence all of the time, in all things, you will unlock the Lord’s ability to teach you more about himself, yourself, and the world, enabling you to reach outcomes far better than otherwise possible.
The channel of your conscience will be informed by external resources, including God directly, and how he acts through your experiences and interactions with the world. Seeking more of God’s commandments requires finding those you know who know God better than you. You have access to many such people via their writings in scripture. The scriptures will yield greater insights about God’s character and commandments, leading you to more of the outcomes he intends for you:
Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea. (Jacob 4:6)
God will also send into your life living people who know him better than you do. These people will share with you even more insights about God’s character and commandments that will lead you to even more of the outcomes he intends for you:
20 And now, my brethren, how is it possible that ye can lay hold upon every good thing?
21 And now I come to that faith, of which I said I would speak; and I will tell you the way whereby ye may lay hold on every good thing.
22 For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting, behold, he sent angels to minister unto the children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing.
23 And God also declared unto prophets, by his own mouth, that Christ should come.
25 Wherefore, by the ministering of angels, and by every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith, they did lay hold upon every good thing...
30 [Angels] minister according to the word of [God’s] command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness.
31 And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfil and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him.
32 And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men. (Moroni 7)
The Lord’s voice is not limited to one finite message. He said: “...my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease.” (Moses 1:4)
These ubiquitous signals can easily be ignored, but never silenced. They are the voice of God, relentlessly calling us towards improvement. This voice is deliberately woven into the very fabric of our lives, being in and through all things from the creation of the world. Faith is what this voice is calling us toward—the revelation of the prospect for improvement and the invitation to discover the path that will bring its fulfillment: to take upon yourself these improvements; to become as good as you now know is possible; to acquire the attributes of God as quickly and completely as he reveals himself to you.
When you ignore these messages, you are engaging in a deeper commitment than you probably realize:
37 O ye workers of iniquity; ye that are puffed up in the vain things of the world, ye that have professed to have known the ways of righteousness nevertheless have gone astray, as sheep having no shepherd, notwithstanding a shepherd hath called after you and is still calling after you, but ye will not hearken unto his voice!
38 Behold, I say unto you, that the good shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and <u>if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, to the name by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd.</u>
39 And now if ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd, of what fold are ye? Behold, I say unto you, that the devil is your shepherd, <u>and ye are of his fold; and now, who can deny this? Behold, I say</u> unto you, whosoever denieth this is a liar and a child of the devil.
40 For I say unto you that whatsoever is good cometh from God, and whatsoever is evil cometh from the devil. (Alma 5)
Without faith in Christ, we would lose hope in ourselves and others and stop acting in the face of delayed outcomes or unclear paths. Faith in Christ allows us to relentlessly revise our actions through trust in his loving character and his attainment of all the Father has. We can continue to learn and grow and try until we become all he has promised we can because we know that he desires us to have the same fulness of joy that he enjoys.
Becoming more like God through obeying what you learn
It is extremely important to realize that salvation is not just obtained through Jesus, but in him:
`...there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only _in_ and _through_ Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness. (Alma 38:9)`
It is insufficient to believe in Jesus. One must also be like him. It is possible to become like he is:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
The Lord commanded:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)
While we remain in ignorance of what God knows, how can we be perfect as he is?
We do not become like him instantly. It requires a lifetime of learning, one that invests the consistent application of “all the energy of heart.” This purification process is what enables people to “become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure.” (Moroni 7:48)
The Lord will continue to teach all who will continue to listen to him. During his mortal ministry, he prayed that the Father would “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” (John 17:17)
The Lord’s word sanctifies those who seek after, believe, and live according to it:
`For [my elect] will hear my voice, and shall see me, and shall not be asleep, and shall abide the day of my coming; for they shall be purified, even as I am pure. (D&C 35:21)`
In the day of judgment, we will not be measured by whether or not we asked for forgiveness. We will not be measured by comparing ourselves to others. We will be measured by how well we lived up to God’s available instructions:
16 I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?
17 Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord — <u>in that day, and say Lord, our works have been righteous works</u> — <u>upon the face of the earth and that he will save you?</u>
18 Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?
19 I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having <u>the image of God engraven upon your countenances?</u>
20 I say unto you, can ye think of being saved when you have yielded yourselves to become subjects to the devil?
21 I say unto you, ye will know at that day that ye cannot be saved; for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.
22 And now I ask of you, my brethren, how will any of you feel, if ye shall stand before the bar of God, having your garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness? Behold, what will these things testify against you? (Alma 5)
Paul described how living by faith is required to be just, or to obtain knowledge of and live according to God’s character. He explained how we are accountable to live the extent we know:
17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Romans 1)
In the day of judgment, the question will be whether we have sought after and followed God’s word or not:
41 Therefore, if a man bringeth forth good works he hearkeneth unto the voice of the good shepherd, and he doth follow him; but whosoever bringeth forth evil works, the same becometh a child of the devil, for he hearkeneth unto his voice, and doth follow him.
42 And whosoever doeth this must receive his wages of him; therefore, for his wages he receiveth death, as to things pertaining unto righteousness, being dead unto all good works. (Alma 5)
As we humbly and tenaciously seek and implement God’s word in our lives, he will continue to teach us, and we will become more and more like him:
Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God. (Helaman 3:35)
30 And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing.
31 And awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments...
32 Yea, come unto Christ, and <u>be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all</u> ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot. (Moroni 10)
Reconciling the world to God
Your faith in Christ is a catalyst to bring about change in the world through seeing, working towards, and inspiring others to act to bring about outcomes that would not otherwise occur.
The Lord taught that we should pray by saying:
9 ...Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6)
You help bring his kingdom by reconciling the world to God—by gaining greater understanding of God, and by actively interacting with the world to bring it into closer alignment with what you learn.
Are you living the best way you know how? Are your desires and actions fully and consistently reconciled to the purest idea you have of what is possible for humankind? Are you fully reconciled to every example of what is good that you have observed, at all times and in all places?
You can improve yourself through faith. Are you as good as you can be? How could you be better? Why should you want to be better? What can you do to make it so?
You can improve the world through faith. Is everything as good as it can be? How could it be better? What can you do to make it so? What can others do to make it so? What can you do to help them do it? Why should you care?
You can improve other people through faith. Are others as good as they can be? How could they be better? What can others do to make it so? What can you do to help them do it? Why should you help them?
Could not look upon sin
Through faith in Christ, you can conquer all sin. Jesus said:
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3)
John wrote:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)
People, by default, love the world: “For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Philippians 2:21) Through faith, a person’s desires can be turned away from sin:
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2)
Through faith in Christ, many people have become sanctified to the point that they were disgusted by sin:
`Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence; and there were many, exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God. (Alma 13:12)`
The root of why we find pleasure in sin lies in our ignorance of things as they really are. Sin is not desirable to those who know the true value, cost, and benefit of things as they really are.
Your desires are not changed by magic. Desires only change through information—believed through precept (reason) or through experience. You don’t desire what you believe will harm you. You don’t desire what you don’t believe is worthwhile. Unless you are a liar, you don’t desire things that you know are a lie, or are a counterfeit to the real thing. Only a fool finds mirth in folly.3 Only the ignorant or dishonest find pleasure in sin.
God brings about remission of sins through belief in him—not through a magic change that comes independent of you changing, but because he gives you the reasons to change in what he teaches you about himself, and because you choose to believe them:
7 Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.
8 And now I ask of you, my brethren, were they destroyed? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, they were not.
9 And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the chains of hell which encircled them about, were they loosed? I say unto you, Yea, they were loosed, and their souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love. And I say unto you that they are saved.
10 And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved? Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation? What is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death, yea, and also the chains of hell?
11 Behold, I can tell you—did not my father Alma believe in the words which were delivered by the mouth of Abinadi? And was he not a holy prophet? Did he not speak the words of God, and my father Alma believe them?
12 And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true.
13 And behold, he preached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in the true and living God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved.
14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? 15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body? (Alma 5)
7 And behold, ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them—
8 Therefore, as many as have come to this, ye know of yourselves are firm and steadfast in the faith, and in the thing wherewith they have been made free.
9 And ye know also that they have buried their weapons of war, and they fear to take them up lest by any means they should sin; yea, ye can see that they fear to sin—for behold they will suffer themselves that they be trodden down and slain by their enemies, and will not lift their swords against them, and this because of their faith in Christ. (Helaman 15)
One may ask: if sin is only desirable to those who either don’t know or intentionally ignore true value, cost, and benefit, why is sin so prevalent, even among those who profess to believe in God? The answer lies in the almost universal lack of faith in Christ.
Until a person seeks more information through faith, they will not be able to learn what prevents them from seeing the true cost of sin.
Obtaining more knowledge about reality is not for the faint of heart. It requires immense trust in God, as well as effort in seeking and diligence in obeying what is learned in order to learn more about reality.
Learning more about reality is the most harrowing experience life has to offer. It requires a great deal of faith to endure—let alone seek—God’s instruction on how things really are.
As God reveals to you the true cost and true benefit of what is available in life, you will find far less value in what everyone tends to value. You will find severe cost in what others consider innocuous. You will yearn for deep things of eternity. You will find very little satisfaction or joy in the things of this world. The moorings of all things considered valuable to the world will be violently ripped from your heart. What’s worse, the removal of desire for the things of this world must occur while there is as yet nothing to replace it. One must truly be empty to be prepared for God to fill them, and it might take decades of enduring the emptiness before you are finally filled with the truth you seek.
Sanctification is the process of learning—through faith—the truth of all things, while necessarily reconciling your desires, reasons, and actions to that truth. As you learn more and more about reality, you will obtain a more correct understanding of what is good, what is evil, the true cost of things, who pays it and how, and the true benefit of things. This will create in you a greater willingness to learn more about and submit wholly to God through an increased awareness of your nothingness and his loving sacrifice in the face of reality. In the scriptures, this is called a “broken heart and a contrite spirit.”
When you realize that what you thought was good in and around you is really not very good at all—and may actually be evil—your heart breaks and your spirit becomes submissive:
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: (Ephesians 2)
When you realize that, through your “trespasses and sins,” you are “dead,” that your actions were “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,” or according to “the lusts of [y]our flesh” and the “desires of the flesh,” and that you are doomed to the “wrath” of eternal punishment for your choices, you will develop a broken heart and a contrite spirit. You will realize that God, in his rich mercy and “his great love,” has extended his grace and kindness towards you through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as a gift from God. You will realize that you did not and could not deserve his gift of reconciling you to the Father through your forsaking of sin, and this will cause you to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
Willingly submitting to this incrementally increasing knowledge is as desirable as subjection to immense pressure is to a lump of coal. Without faith—perceiving and believing what is far from your sensual experience with unshakable certainty—you will only be able to see sanctification as immense, and purposeless, pain and sorrow. But if you see the end of your suffering with the eye of faith, you will see how it is the only possible way to convert you into something much more valuable. A lump of coal cannot see its potential as a diamond, but through faith, you can see enough of the divine potential God makes possible in you to endure and even desire the unimaginably intense experience necessary to realize it.
Willingly submitting to the truth of all things is a burden so sore that it is impossible to imagine except to those who have done it. Try to imagine what it is like for your concept of what is good to expand closer to the fullness of who and what God really is. Try to imagine what it would be like to realize that everything you thought had value has far less (or even negative) value than you had supposed. Imagine everything you previously valued moving farther behind you, causing you the pain of loss and robbing you of all the crutches you have leaned on to shelter you from your weakness, while what you previously considered to be God moves farther ahead of and away from you than you previously thought possible. This is what Daniel meant when he said, “my comeliness became corruption.” (Daniel 10:8)
Imagine walking further into the dark, through faith only, while simultaneously letting go of the flicker of what you supposed was a bright light. It is a trial so completely harrowing—both in its intensity and consummate duration—that only those who experience it can comprehend it, and yet it is required of all who will come to Christ, as it is the very way we do.
Without walking in faith towards a more accurate understanding of the truth and value of things, we can never marshal sufficient desire for eternal life and every good outcome, which are the same. If we do not have sufficient desire, we will never have the required mindset or motivation to engage in the content or intensity of reason required for eternal life and obtaining every good outcome. Without sufficient reasons, we will never exercise the actions required for eternal life and obtaining every good outcome.
Sanctification is not an optional process. It is the incessant iterative application of the faith cycle to every aspect of life. It is walking deeper into the darkness in order to obtain more light. It is gaining a greater understanding of the truth and value of all things. It is letting go of what God has shown you is lesser for what—in the eye of faith—you now see as better. It is discipleship. It is what it means to have a broken heart and contrite spirit. It is what it means to walk by faith and not sight.