70. We Are Bought with a Price

On Sunday morning, December 19, 1993, in a special high council meeting, President F. Michael Watson put aside all regular agenda items and invited the members of the stake presidency and high council to share their thoughts and some favorite scriptures about either the Lord Jesus Christ or the Prophet Joseph Smith. In essence, the following represents a summary of the testimony I shared on that occasion. I was serving at the time as the stake executive secretary.

It is amazing how much buying and selling are a part of the celebration of Christmas in our culture. Indeed, the very health of our national economy is measured largely on how much we buy during the holiday season.

Interestingly, the holy scriptures employ monetary terminology in discussing the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the very heart and soul of our religion. Jesus came to “redeem” us, which means to “pay a price for” us. Peter speaks of the Lord’s people as being “a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9), which in the original Greek meant “a purchased people.”

I think often we do not appreciate the cost of the Savior’s gift, the price He paid for us, for as the scriptures affirm, we “are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23; see also 2 Peter 2:1), the price being His own “precious blood” (1 Peter 1:19).

Jacob, the brother of Nephi, taught that “he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam” (2 Nephi 9:21). That appears to include everyone. If we could somehow remember all the pain and suffering and hurt we have ever experienced personally—mentally or physically or spiritually—and times that by the billions of people that now live or have ever lived on this planet, that might begin to give us an inkling of the price He paid for us. That is a lot of pain!

President John Taylor testified that “in a manner to us incomprehensible and inexplicable, he bore the weight of the sins of the whole world” (Mediation and Atonement, ch. 21). I don’t think we can begin to understand the magnitude of what He went through for us, although the revelations give us glimpses.

Mark records an interesting little detail, not mentioned by the other gospel writers, about the suffering Jesus faced in Gethsemane: “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy” (Mark 14:33). Sore amazed. The Greek renders this passage as “amazed, awestruck, astonished.” Here was the Savior of the world, knowing full well what He had to face, the cup He had to drink, and yet even He was amazed, awestruck, astonished at the weight of it all, of how terrible it was, of how exquisite it would be.

Some 1,800 years later He would talk of that experience: “Therefore, I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, how hard to bear you know not.

“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—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—

“Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men” (D&C 19:15–19).

That was the price He paid for us, just as similarly the Prophet Joseph Smith gave his life to seal his witness of the reality of the Father and the Son and all that they communicated through him as the Prophet of the Restoration, which “cost the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring them forth for the salvation of a ruined world” (D&C 135:6). There is mention again of the cost.

I am grateful beyond all ability to express for the price that has been paid—not only by the Prophet Joseph Smith, but by all the faithful Saints who have gone before in this dispensation who have made possible what we enjoy here today. I thank the Father and His beloved Son for Their priceless gift, the pearl of great price, that opens the gate to our everlasting salvation in Their presence.

31. Glad Tidings of Great Joy

A bishopric message written on November 28, 2000, for the December 2000 issue of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward Newsette.

Christmas. What a glorious time of year! A time when love and hope and light fill our darkened world for a brief moment. A season when generosity and good will and charity enlarge our souls just a little more.

And all this because a baby was born. In every age the glad tidings of great joy center in one pivotal truth: “the great and wonderful love made manifest by the Father and the Son in the coming of the Redeemer into the world” (D&C 138:3).

To the shepherds of ancient Judea: “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11).

To the prophets of ancient America: “I am come to declare unto you the glad tidings of great joy. . . . For behold, the time cometh . . . that with power, the Lord Omnipotent . . . shall come down from heaven” (Mosiah 3:3–5).

The witness of the resurrected Christ Himself: “This is the gospel [literally the good news, the glad tidings] which I have given you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father” (3 Nephi 27:13).

And in our own day: “This is the gospel, the glad tidings, which the voice out of heaven bore record unto us—That he came into the world” (D&C 76:40–41).

Why? “To be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness; that through him all might be saved” (D&C 76:41–42). “That through his atonement, and by obedience to the principles of the gospel, mankind might be saved” (D&C 138:4). Good news indeed!

I close this message, my witness that Love Personified came into the world that first Christmas 2000 years ago, with a little Christmas poem I wrote some years ago:

He came,
The one bright perfect Light,
He came
To chase away the misted darkness of the night
And make my narrow pathway plain.

He died,
The sinless Son of God,
He died
To ransom me from sin's exacting, heavy rod,
And death, my death to set aside.

He lives,
The wondrous name of Love,
He lives
Who lifts my earth-stained soul, now cleansed, to home above,
And glory there forever gives.

1. A Christmas Greeting

A Christmas greeting from the BYU 49th Branch elders quorum presidency, written in Provo, Utah, in December 1972, just a week or so after I had married Claudia Lange in the Provo Utah Temple. I was serving as elders quorum president, and my two counselors were Wes Zmoleck and Val C. Sheffield. A couple months later—on Sunday, March 25, 1973—I was called to serve as a counselor to Gene Dalton in the presidency of the BYU 11th Branch and consequently was released as elders quorum president in the 49th Branch. Both branches were a part of the BYU First Stake.

The Christmas season is here again. We pause in thankful reflection as we look back over the closing year and especially this past semester. Hopefully it has been a growing time for all of us.

We extend to each of you our warmest thanks for your support and fellowship thus far. For the most of you who will be returning next semester, we are anxious to continue serving among you. And we offer a special hand of friendship to the prospective elders who are now a part of our quorum.

The Christmas season is an appropriate time to let you know that we know of the divinity of this latter-day work. God lives. And His greatest gift to us was that of His beloved Son—whose birth we now celebrate—that we all may partake of eternal life by obedience to His gospel. We rejoice in the great advancements of the kingdom of God as restored by the Prophet Joseph and now administered by our own beloved prophet-leader, Harold B. Lee. Our united testimony are that these things are true.

That God may bless you this holiday season—in your finals, in your travels, and in your associations with friends and family—is our Christmas wish for you.