“From Your Sins” vs “In Your Sins”

9 O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.

10 And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins.

11 And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance; therefore he hath sent his angels to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the power of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls. (Helaman 5, italics added)

These verses are very enlightening.  Of note is the delineation that Helaman makes between the idea of people being saved “in their sins” and the idea of being saved “from their sins”. The prepositions “in” and “from” may be small, but they have very big implications.

 

In denotes present or inclosed, surrounded by limits; as in a house; in a fort; in a city. It denotes a state of being mixed, as sugar in tea; or combined, as carbonic acid in coal, or latent heat in air. It denotes present in any state; as in sickness or health. It denotes present in time; as in that hour or day. The uses of in, however, cannot, in all cases, be defined by equivalent words, except by explaining the phrase in which it is used; as in deed; in fact; in essence; in quality; in reason; in courage; in spirits, &c. A man in spirits or good courage, denotes one who possesses at the time spirits or courage; in reason is equivalent to with reason; one in ten denotes one of that number, and we say also one of ten, and one out of ten. (Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)

Whereas,

The sense of from may be expressed by the noun distance, or by the adjective distant, or by the participles, departing, removing to a distance. Thus it is one hundred miles from Boston to Hartford. He took his sword from his side. Light proceeds from the sun. Water issues from the earth in springs. Separate the coarse wool from the fine. Men have all sprung from Adam. Men often go from good to bad, and from bad to worse. The merit of an action depends on the principle from which it proceeds. Men judge of facts from personal knowledge, or from testimony. We should aim to judge from undeniable premises.

There is no question that mankind is sinful by nature, and one of the greatest evidences of God’s mercy is the opportunity that he extends to mankind to repent, but one of the biggest misconceptions that the majority of Christians have is the idea that God will save people who continually sin.  I frequently hear phrases like “We are all sinners” or “God saves sinners.”  Well, actually, no.  A sinner is someone who is “in” sin. A sinner is one whose present state is sinful. Jesus Christ did not come to redeem mankind in their sins.  He came to redeem them from their sins. He redeems individuals who remove themselves from sin and who create a distance between them and their sins.  He redeems those who depart from their sins and leave them behind.  These people are no longer sinners.  When people meet the conditions of repentance and obtain a remission of their sins, the scriptures clearly teach that they become “new creatures” and have “no more disposition to do evil”.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 

25 And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;

26 And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. (Mosiah 27)

And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. (Mosiah 5:2)

“No more disposition” doesn’t just mean that that they no longer had a desire to sin. It means that they no longer had a tendency to sin.  The following definitions of “disposition” are applicable here:

3. Natural fitness or tendency. The refrangibility of the rays of light is their disposition to be refracted. So we say, a disposition in plants to grow in a direction upwards; a disposition in bodies to putrefaction.

4. Temper or natural constitution of the mind; as an amiable or an irritable disposition.

5. Inclination; propensity; the temper or frame of mind, as directed to particular objects. We speak of the disposition of a person to undertake a particular work; the dispositions of men towards each other; a disposition friendly to any design. (Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)

When men truly repent, God not only forgives them of their past sins, but he also removes their disposition to do evil. He removes their propensity to sin. Statements like “No one will ever be perfect in this life” are completely untrue.  The fact of the matter is that we have been commanded to be perfect.

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

And we know that God always provides a means whereby we can keep his commandments. 

And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them. (1 Nephi 3:7)

From the scriptures, we are able to understand that God is merciful and long-suffering. He is just. He is a God of truth. He is love. He doesn’t go around giving us commandments that we are unable to keep. And yet, keeping his commandments isn’t always easy.  While it is possible to keep all of God’s commandments, it isn’t exactly a walk in the park, but that is only because our understanding is not the same as God’s and so, consequently, we will not always understand why he gives us the commandments he does. When our understanding is lacking, our trust in his character and attributes must give us reason to believe that, having been forgiven of our past sins, our obedience to his commandments will result in a greater understanding of why he does what he does and that that understanding will steel us to withstand any temptation. And let me just mention here that an actual forgiveness of sin is a non-negotiable part of salvation. Heaven actually has to witness to you that you are clean, every whit. That forgiveness testifies of God’s character and attributes and it results in your improved ability to understand the things of the Spirit.

Our ability to remain perfect and steadfast in obedience to law—which is what makes God who he is and which is the means of our own salvation—improves with each decision we make to obey him because it invariably results in both a tangible positive outcome and an understanding of how that outcome was obtained. Satan becomes less and less capable of tempting us to disobey God’s laws because our “eyes become open”. His reasons to disobey don’t stand up to God’s reasons to obey and it becomes easier for us to leave behind our sins that previously beset us. Our improved ability to choose righteousness over sin (which is obviously a result of God’s grace in imparting forgiveness of sin and continued and increased understanding) is what creates that “distance from” sin. We separate ourselves from sin and, by natural consequence, are redeemed and inherit salvation.

You can’t remain a sinner and have that happen. You cannot continually yield to temptation and expect that tendency to sin to change once you die. The scriptures provide you with absolutely no reasonable expectation to believe that.  God does not save sinners. He saves those who repent and sin no more. He saves those who depart from their sins and remain clean.

36 Now Amulek saith again unto him: Behold thou hast lied, for thou sayest that I spake as though I had authority to command God because I said he shall not save his people in their sins.

37 And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins. (Alma 11)

But behold, and fear, and tremble before God, for ye ought to tremble; for the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; yea, even all those that have perished in their sins ever since the world began, that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection. (Mosiah 15:26)

35 When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them:

36 Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance. (1 Kings 8)

Quit telling yourself that you will never be perfect in this life. Quit telling yourself that it’s not possible to be obedient to all of God’s commandments. Christ has laid the foundation. Your own unwillingness to believe that he can make you capable of perfect obedience is your Achilles heel, a token of your unbelief, and an open mockery of the great sacrifice that he has made for you.

Quit believing that your verbally professed belief in Christ without an attendant obedience to his commandments is sufficient for salvation. Not only is it not enough for salvation, it will also not be enough to support you through the increasingly difficult times that lie ahead and that have been foretold in scripture. (And for those who believe in some form of rapture that will be a means of your escape from those difficult times, I would ask, what gives you reason to believe that God will raise you up to be with him when you are nothing like him?)

The idea that God will redeem people “in their sins” is a lie.  God cannot do that and remain just. He would cease to be God. He would cease to be any kind of being in whom we could exercise faith. We will need his deliverance in the days ahead.  We will need to exercise faith in him in order to obtain that deliverance. Let us exercise faith in him now.  Let us believe in his ability to make us perfect. Let our obedience to him be a manifestation of his power to change us, to redeem us, and to make us holy, without spot.

 

Oil and Water

Forgive me in advance if this blog seems like I am rambling. This blog post is, admittedly, going to be a compilation of some thoughts that I have had. It is a work in progress about a subject that I am seeking desperately to understand better. My search isn’t over and so if it seems like this post doesn’t have a conclusion or a neat package that ties everything together, there is a reason for that.

Oil and water are interesting compounds. What I am going to say about them, in general, could probably be ascribed to many compounds, but I will address just these two, specifically.

Most people know that water is formed when two atoms of hydrogen bond with one atom of oxygen. The single molecule that is formed has certain properties that are unique and that differentiate it from other compounds. When there are many water molecules-whether it’s enough to fill a drinking glass or an ocean-we don’t typically indicate any kind of a plural nature when we talk about it. We don’t generally say, “waters”. We just say “water”, regardless of the quantity.

The same thing holds true for oil. Though there are many different types of oil, I wish to draw attention to edible oils. In terms of what atoms make up edible oils, the only difference between water and oil is carbon. Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen bond in differing sequences of similar structures to make the variety of organic compounds that we call edible oils. We do not refer to many molecules of oil in the plural form. We don’t say, “a bottle of oils”. We say, “a bottle of oil”.  Each type of oil has properties that are specific to itself. One thing that they all have in common, however, is that they do not mix with water.

Assuming both are liquid, when you pour oil into water, the oil becomes submerged in the water, but after a certain amount of time, each drop of oil rises to take its natural position above the water and cleaves to other drops of oil that have done the same. There is a natural separation between the two based on their energetic properties (in particular, the hydrogen bonding of water). 

Water quenches fire. Oil sustains it. Water is available in abundance. Oil must be extracted. Oil can be used to create a layer of protection against water. 

Recipes

I have in my recipe collection a category called “Family Favorites.” I think that many people do. Eating with those we love forms a bond between family members and passing down family recipes memorializes relationships even when family members have passed on.  I tend to not play around with these recipes very much. I have learned that, when I do, the resulting dish is never the same as the original and I regret having toyed with it.

The whole purpose of writing down a recipe is to save what worked—what combination of ingredients produced a desirable result. And people use recipes so that they can duplicate that desirable result. It would be pretty foolish to obtain a recipe for a dish that you knew was amazing and then overhaul it with a bunch of changes. Of course, recipes do have some wiggle room. You can substitute a few things here and there. But every recipe has at least one ingredient that makes or breaks the dish and, most of the time, there is more than one. Make changes to those ingredients and you will no longer achieve anything close to what the original recipe was meant to produce. And this is to say nothing of the, perhaps, “less important” ingredients that affect other aspects of the food such as texture, flavor, density, moisture, nutrition, and appearance.

There are many things in life that require recipes and, unfortunately, we don’t even realize it. That is because both the recipes and the ingredients are difficult to come by. You have to work for both. Having tasted the result of another’s efforts, people take for granted what it cost to produce it and, consequently, think that they can substitute (or even omit) ingredients out of hand. Take “liberty”, for example. If you were to ask people if liberty was a good thing to have, most would answer in the affirmative. But, first, have them define “liberty”. Do they even know what they are trying to produce looks like?  Then ask them how it is obtained. Ask them what “ingredients” are needed. Compare the answers you get from those people to the scriptures and to many of the nation’s founding documents. It is as if people think they can create liberty by reading from a recipe card that has been torn to shreds.

Take “salvation”.  Ask someone to define it for you. See if their idea of what “salvation” is aligns with scripture. Then ask them how salvation is obtained. Ask them what ingredients go into that recipe. Compare that to the word of God and you will discover how many people are trying to obtain salvation without even bothering to pull out the recipe card. (Or, if they do pull it out, they conveniently omit/alter the ingredients that seem unpalatable to them without realizing that God puts them in there for a specific purpose.)

Satan’s greatest counterfeits to God’s tried-and-true recipes alter or omit the most important ingredients. He gets you to believe that these ingredients aren’t really necessary and that you can do without them. For example, he has convinced people that liberty can be had without morality. He has also convinced people to change their beliefs about what is and is not moral. When it comes to salvation, he has downplayed the need for a baptism of fire, true and continued repentance, and unwavering obedience to God’s commands. And, unfortunately, many people are oblivious to the disastrous consequences that come from these deceptively subtle changes. 

When you change the recipes for liberty, salvation, health, life, happiness, prosperity, wisdom, or any other good thing (or worse, when you lack the recipe altogether), you can’t produce those things. All of the recipes for “good” things come from God. Our unwillingness to obtain those recipes and/or our willingness to alter them leads to undesirable results. Obtaining the recipes, following them, and partaking of the result creates a familial relationship between us and our Father and those who follow after us who would do the same. 

"The Law" by Frederic Bastiat

A little less than a year ago, I posted the following on my Facebook page:

One of my favorite books of all-time is “The Law” by Frederic Bastiat. It is a short and relatively easy read. So much logic! So much common sense!—two ingredients that are sadly lacking in our culture and that is why you can look around and notice pretty quickly that the  recipe for a good and stable society is just not turning out right. We have thrown reason to the wind and (more often than one might think) we subscribe to and even fight for the very things that will destroy us. Bastiat does a fantastic job of giving us the tools to whittle away the rhetoric of so many of the issues that we face today, so that we can meet our challenges head on-independent of any who would bring us into subjugation, intended or not.

You can find copies of this book in many places on the internet. Here is a link to a free pdf of the book.

https://fee.org/media/14951/thelaw.pdf

Do yourself a favor and skip the next movie or TV show and sit down and read this short (but life-altering) book. For any seeker of truth, it won’t disappoint. :)

I feel to share this here on my blog, as well. There are destructive forces at work that have gained (and are quickly gaining) the support of well-intentioned individuals who simply do not understand underlying principles that should govern the decisions we make. These principles are like the rudders on a ship—relatively imperceptible, but absolutely necessary if individuals and societies are to successfully navigate the inherent challenges of this world.