Christ to be Subject to Man—His Descent Below all Things—Man's
Condition had there been no Atonement—The Sons of God—Man's
Inability to Save Himself—Christ's Glory before the World Was—
Necessity for an Infinite Atonement—The Father and Son have Life in
Themselves.
Again we will return to the quotation from the Book of Mormon.[A] Satan, as we have remarked before, wanted to deprive man of his agency, for if man had his agency, it would seem that necessarily the Lord would be subject to him; as is stated, "For it behooveth the Great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him."
[Footnote A: 2 Nephi, ix, 5-7.]
The Lord being thus subjected to man, He would be placed in the lowest position to which it was possible for Him to descend; because of the weakness, the corruption and the fallibility of human nature. But if man had his free agency, this necessarily would be the result, and hence, as it is said, Jesus descended below all things that He might be raised above all things; and hence also, while Satan's calculation was to deprive man of his free agency, and to prevent himself or the Only Begotten from being subject to this humiliation and infamy, the Lord's plan was to give man his free agency, provide a redeemer, and suffer that redeemer to endure all the results incidental to such a position, and thus, by offering himself as a substitute and conquering death, hell and the grave, he would ultimately subjugate all things unto himself; and at the same time make it possible for man to obtain an exaltation that he never could have had without his agency. It is said, as already stated, "For behold, if the flesh should rise no more, our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more;" and hence the plan of Satan it appears would have frustrated the designs of the Almighty, and have deprived man of that exaltation and glory which his Heavenly Father contemplated. It is further written:
"And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies; in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our first parents; who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder, and all manner of secret works of darkness. O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit. And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave. And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel. O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand, the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible and immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like unto us in the flesh save it be that our knowledge shall be perfect; wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt; and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness. And it shall come to pass, that when all men shall have passed from this first death unto life, insomuch as they have become immortal, they must appear before the judgment seat of the Holy One of Israel; and then cometh the judgment, and then must they be judged according to the holy judgment of God. And assuredly, as the Lord liveth, for the Lord God hath spoken it, and it is his eternal word, which cannot pass away, that they who are righteous, shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy, shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are filthy, are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up for ever and ever, and has no end. O the greatness and the justice of our God! For he executeth all his words, and they have gone forth out of his mouth, and his law must be fulfilled."—2 Nephi, ix, 9-17.
In the economy of God pertaining to the salvation of the human family, we are told in the Scriptures that it was necessary that Christ should descend below all things, that He might be raised above all things; as stated above, He had to "become subject to man in the flesh." It was further necessary that He should descend below all things, in order that He might raise others above all things; for if He could not raise Himself and be exalted through those principles brought about by the atonement, He could not raise others; He could not do for others what He could not do for Himself, and hence it was necessary for Him to descend below all things that He might be raised above all things; and it was necessary that those whom He proposed to save should also descend below all things, that by and through the same power that He obtained His exaltation, they also, through His atonement, expiation and intercession, might be raised to the same power with Him; and, as He was the Son of God, that they might also be the adopted sons of God; hence John says:
"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, iii, 2.
And by this power we shall overcome and sit down on His throne, as
Jesus overcame and sat down upon the throne of His Father.
We are told in the foregoing quotation from the Book of Mormon that the atonement must needs be infinite. Why did it need an infinite atonement? For the simple reason that a stream can never rise higher than its fountain; and man having assumed a fleshly body and become of the earth earthy, and through the violation of a law having cut himself off from his association with his Father, and become subject to death; in this condition, as the mortal life of man was short, and in and of himself he could have no hope of benefitting himself, or redeeming himself from his fallen condition, or of bringing himself back to the presence of his Father, some superior agency was needed to elevate him above his low and degraded position. This superior agency was the Son of God, who had not, as man had, violated a law of His Father, but was yet one with His Father, possessing His glory, His power, His authority, His dominion. As He, Himself, prayed:
"And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."—John, xvii, 5.