Liberty’s Origins in the Atonement of Jesus Christ

The law of the harvest is a natural law by which every action has a consequence and those actions that lead to increase require efforts to plant and cultivate seedlings. One truth of the law of the harvest that can not be denied is that only weeds are free.

When the government gives free money to public schools, the schools exchange some of their autonomy for the money. They are no longer able to teach as they see fit because their schools must account for the money with test scores and performance metrics.

When women and children get free food from the government program WIC, they exchange medical data, financial information and time to get it.

If a museum offers free admission, they must still pay the staff, utilities, and maintenance even though ticket sales are not offsetting the cost.

If religion offers salvation for nothing more than a spoken phrase, they are selling something because salvation is not free.

What costs are inherent to salvation?

Before this world was formed, a debate raged in heaven. God the Father presented a plan whereby his children would come to Earth. God’s plan included freedom to act as an agent to oneself in making decisions. The consequence of this freedom is that not everyone would choose good things and the consequence of evil is to be shut out from the Father’s presence. Satan proposed a way that everyone would be saved but he needed to destroy the agency of man to do it. He would essentially turn all of us into slaves and make us return to heaven the way a dictator makes people conform. “There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.” (Rev 12:7-8)

So the first cost of God’s plan whereby his children would have the liberty to choose and the environment where choices were presented, was the loss of Satan and his followers which constituted a third of the host of heaven.

A world without choices is not what God had in mind. In a conversation with Enoch recorded in the Pearl of Great Price, God says, “I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency…” (Moses 7:32) In fact, God created the first choices in the form of two fruits, one giving life and the other death.

“And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.” (2 Ne 2:15-16)

So the second cost inherent to salvation is the loss of all God’s children with the bite Eve took. It would seem that everything was working against God but he sees with an infinite perspective. The choice to do good being so narrow of a path that no one would naturally choose it in all cases, every person became subject to the consequences of sin — spiritual and physical death.

God’s plan included a contingency for this in that Jesus Christ offered to redeem all except the third who followed Satan from the effects of the original sin.

So the third cost inherent to salvation was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of everyone else.

Now Christ, the author of salvation, is very merciful to offer us salvation through His great atoning gift. However, he does not offer it for free. First Christ pays the debt owed justice and then we become subject to his requirements. He says his yoke is easy and his burden light.

“Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” (Moses 6:57)

Repentance is a process of change where humans bring their choices into alignment with the commandments of God. When Christ says his yoke is easy, I don’t think he means repentance is easy. I think he means that living the commandments is easier than living contrary to them when combined with the weight of the natural consequences.

Jesus Christ offers mercy to the repentant but not freedom from consequences. Someone who beats their children and then repents may receive mercy but the fact that their children do not trust them is a consequence that will still naturally follow. Happily, Jesus offers to wipe away the tears of children and restore even the broken heart so we hope for a full redemption of both spirit and body.

I assert that all liberty originates in the atonement of Jesus Christ because it is only from Him that we gain the ability to choose for ourselves and the mercy to escape from death. What we do with our agency here on earth determines the glory we will receive according to the laws of God.