The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Judgment Day, and You

Thank you, President Reese, for the kind introduction and the opportunity to address this amazing student body.

The Klebingat family is true blue BYU. Years ago, Sister Klebingat and I attended these devotionals together. And after teaching our three children “in the way [they] should go,” when they were older they did “not depart from it”¹ and also attended BYU. Our youngest son, Alexander, is still here today.

I remember sitting in this auditorium for new student orientation when the speaker invited us to look up at the Y on the mountain often and to then consider how blessed we were to be here. I still do that.

The Ultimate Reckoning

I desire to speak to you today about how the Atonement of Jesus Christ can make us confident to stand before God both today and at the day of judgment. But before focusing on life on this side of the veil in greater detail, let’s talk about Judgment Day. Most of you know what Judgment Day feels like as you’re walking to the Testing Center for a midterm for which you have not studied sufficiently. Or when your illegally parked car has been booted by BYU police and your Venmo account boasts $10. The brethren know that Judgment Day comes knocking when our wife or serious girlfriend asks for five reasons we love her and we stall after giving her only three. Been there, done that!

Let’s now consider our real Judgment Day—this long-prophesied and therefore inevitable moment joyfully anticipated by some and dreaded by others—when we will be standing before our Maker to there be judged concerning the sum total of all our thoughts, words, deeds, and desires in relation to the degree of our heartfelt, daily repentance.

Four basic attitudes prevail regarding this ultimate reckoning:

• Attitude 1: Many dismiss it outright as in “when a man [is] dead, that [is] the end thereof”² along with the fatal conclusion that “every man [fares] in this life according to the management of the creature.”³ In short, do what you want, live it up, take all you can, and when you die, it’s over.
• Attitude 2: Allowing for the existence of a higher being, some espouse a rather depressive view of our final judgment as expressed by Jonathan Edwards (considered one of the greatest theologians in the early 1700s) in which “the God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider . . . , abhors you . . . ; his wrath towards you burns like fire . . . ; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight.”⁴
• Attitude 3: Opposite of that extreme just mentioned are those from the “eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God”⁵ camp with their fallacious conclusion that ultimately and magically “it shall be well with [them],”⁶ regardless of them ignoring His commandments.
• Attitude 4: There is a group among the imperfect but striving sons and daughters of God who “rejoice in the day when [their] mortal shall put on immortality, [when they] shall stand before him . . . [to] see his face with pleasure”⁷ with full confidence that “[God] will raise [them] up at the last day, to dwell with him in glory”⁸—all in joyful anticipation of “the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead.”⁹

The first attitude can be ignored because it’s not really an option at all. Whether anyone believes it or not, one day “all shall bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess to him who sits upon the throne forever and ever.”¹⁰ As Elder Neal A. Maxwell noted:

[Because] one day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, why not do so now? For in the coming of that collective confession, it will mean much less to kneel down when it is no longer [even] possible to [remain standing]!¹¹

The second attitude isn’t much better as it reflects a catastrophic misunderstanding of the character of God by ignoring that the very purpose for His existence is “to bring to pass [our] immortality and eternal life.”¹² As Nephi taught, “[God] loveth his children”¹³ and “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world.”¹⁴

Jonathan Edward’s extreme view of a vengeful God is doctrinally worse than false, so much so that my wife said I should leave it out. But I kept it because I really wanted to use my little spider friend visual aid. [Holding up a large fake spider.] Thankfully, Elder Patrick Kearon reminded us that “our Father’s beautiful plan, even His ‘fabulous’ plan, is designed to bring you home, not to keep you out,” and that “God is in relentless pursuit of you.”¹⁵

The third attitude—the eat, drink, and be merry but fear God a little philosophy—on the other hand, betrays a lopsided view with the perfect love of a perfect Father for His imperfect children magically superseding His scriptural requirement of obedience to His laws and commandments. This “baseless notion” is what President Russell M. Nelson recently called “one of the most absurd lies in the universe.”¹⁶ It fails to recognize—as I’ve heard my wife teach many times—that it is not God’s love for us that is on trial but our love for Him, no matter the cost. As President Dallin H. Oaks has taught about this misunderstanding, “Some seem to value God’s love because of their hope that His love is so great and so unconditional that it will mercifully excuse them from obeying His laws.”¹⁷

The fourth attitude, finally, is the natural and unsurprising consequence for all imperfect but striving souls who ultimately learn to love the Lord and His practical Atonement more than anything or anyone else in this life. It is the attitude of those who in process of time “live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God”¹⁸ and who “believe all the words which [He] hast spoken” until they “have no more disposition to do evil.”¹⁹ In short, it is those who over time progress from mere expressions of faith in Christ generally to faith in Christ unto obedience and repentance.²⁰

Is it possible, then, for us to know today, within ourselves and by the Spirit, that our current offerings and spiritual trajectory will confidently and surely land us in the welcoming embrace of our Father? Or are we resigned to waiting for the final, testing center–like tallying of all the demands of justice in juxtaposition to the bowels of mercy before we get our final score?

The truth is, regardless of where we currently are on the covenant path, all of us are weak, all of us are fallen, and none of us are as converted as we wish to be nor as good as we want or pretend to be. We know it, and we know that the Lord knows it.

So, I ask, “What think ye of Christ?”²¹ Few of you, if any, doubt His atoning sacrifice two thousand years ago, but how emphatically and specifically could you respond to the question of what Christ is still able to do for you today and, as importantly, what you are willing to allow Him to do for you every day?

“Costly Grace”: The Savior’s Atonement

If you are being completely honest, does Christ ever seem to you too distant, too inaccessible, and too impersonal to ever move from being a picture on the wall or a statue or a name in the scriptures to becoming your personal, practical, and daily Savior?

Let’s see if we cannot close this unnecessary gap by reviewing what we know and what we can appropriately conclude from scripture and prophetic utterances regarding our association with the premortal Christ and how that knowledge can help us today in our relationship with Him.

• We know “that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children” and that “in the premortal realm, [we were] spirit sons and daughters [of God].”²²
• We know that we were “among the noble and great ones”²³ and that we “received [our] first lessons in the world of spirits.”²⁴
• We know, as President Nelson taught, that “our Heavenly Father has reserved many of His most noble spirits—perhaps, I might say, His finest team—for this final phase. Those noble spirits—those finest players, those heroes—are you!”²⁵
• We know, as Elder Neil L. Andersen taught, that “our individual identity is stamped in us forever. In ways we don’t fully understand, our spiritual growth there in the premortal world influences who we are here.”²⁶
• We know that to become like our heavenly parents, we had to leave their presence. The plan of redemption was presented and accepted by some and rejected by others. Jesus Christ stepped forward and said, “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.”²⁷
• We know, as a result, that a war in heaven ensued in which “Michael [the premortal Adam] and his angels [all of us] fought against the dragon . . . and his angels”²⁸ and that we “overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of [our] testimony.”²⁹
• We know that we, Heavenly Father’s most valiant and trustworthy children, “turned our backs on the adversary and aligned ourselves with the forces of God, and [that] those forces were victorious.”³⁰
• We know that by comparison to the Lord’s other countless creations, our little blue planet in the Milky Way galaxy is a most challenging place because, as the Lord testified to Enoch, “among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren.”³¹ What do we learn here about our earth compared to all others? It is most wicked. Why? Well, perhaps because the greatest premortal evil, the greatest darkness in the universe, was cast down to this very earth, along with all those who followed him.³²
• We know that to allow for opposition in all things, the greatest good and the greatest light in the universe was then also sent down to this particular earth in the form of Jesus Christ and all those who followed Him—all of us.
• We know that as some of the most noble and faithful among Heavenly Father’s spirit children, we were chosen to come here with Jesus Christ in these last days—strongest soldiers to the front, so to speak. Is it possible that we felt a little anxious being assigned to this particularly wicked place? If so, to calm our fears, can we not imagine the Father putting His arm around His Son and saying to us, “My children, don’t you worry now. Look whom I will be sending with you! Jesus, He who loves you and whom you love, is coming along.”

I like to picture in my mind what must have been the Savior’s joyful anticipation that we, His trusted premortal disciples and friends, would continue to be loyal to His cause while here on earth. We are therefore not surprised that Christ would later testify to His disciples that “ye are they whom my Father hath given me; ye are my friends.”³³ This declaration of affection, I believe, naturally extends to all of us.

Next came the promise that owing to our premortal loyalty and obedience, we would one day have the potential to become members of the house of Israel through Father Abraham’s lineage due to our spiritual disposition to hear and heed God’s voice and by entering into sacred covenants with God.³⁴ As members of the house of Israel, we would be entitled to covenant blessings and responsibilities such as Christ’s promise expressed to the Nephites: “The Father having raised me up unto you first . . . because ye are the children of the covenant.”³⁵

You and I are marked—indeed, earmarked—because of our premortal loyalty and obedience. Having already stood firmly with our Savior once, including during the War in Heaven, we are now called to enlist once more in this final battle, with the War in Heaven continuing, as it were, on this side of the veil along the same battle lines of good versus evil, light versus darkness, and truth versus falsehood.

I hope you sense that Jesus Christ was then and is now our Friend, our Guide, our Great Physician, our Counselor, and, above all, our Savior, Redeemer, and Advocate with the Father. You may have mistakenly declared yourself as too weak and broken to be deserving of His love.

Well, even “if [you] can no more than desire to believe” that He cares about you personally, “let this desire work in you”³⁶ and give Christ the benefit of the doubt—or, rather, the benefit of your “faith unto repentance,”³⁷ the benefit of your best effort.

If you were indeed close to Him premortally—and I believe you were—if He really suffered and died for you—and He did—if His atoning sacrifice is meant for you individually and specifically—and it is—if the remission of sins and incremental growth line upon line in this life is why you are here in the first place—and it is—you can perhaps understand why the Father’s anger is kindled against those who “will not understand [His] mercies which [He] hast bestowed upon them because of [His] Son.”³⁸

So, with whom is the Lord angry? He tells us his “anger is kindled against the wicked and rebellious,”³⁹ the hard-hearted and deliberately disobedient,⁴⁰ or anyone squandering the gift by not repenting at all. But what of us, the imperfect yet well-intentioned middle of the pack, salt of the earth Latter-day Saints who somehow fail to understand and enjoy fully His mercies for which He paid the ultimate price? What of those among us who strive to repent but struggle to then receive the joy of the remission of sins into our hearts and minds even after it has been offered? Or perhaps those who consider themselves a perpetual disappointment to Him just because perfection is still pending?⁴¹

Let’s not forget, my dear friends, that the Savior is less upset over our sins and shortcomings than He is over our seeming indifference to do something about them in the right way.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident, taught:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, . . . [forgiveness] without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.⁴²

Bonhoeffer described “cheap grace” as “grace without price; grace without cost!”⁴³ Next, he contrasted cheap grace with “costly grace”:

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow . . . Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.⁴⁴

This good man was hanged in April 1945 by the Gestapo. “What has cost God [so] much cannot be cheap for us”! My dear friends, the Savior’s Atonement must not be cheap; instead, it should mean everything to us.

“Be of Good Cheer, for I Will Lead You Along”

It has been said that “we all must suffer one of two pains [in this life]: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. . . . Because disciplines weigh ounces; regrets weigh tons.”⁴⁵

The ultimate regret of the lukewarm and indifferent will one day be hearing the words “O [my son, O my daughter,] . . . how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.”⁴⁶

For what doth it profit a man [in the end] if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift.⁴⁷

On the other hand, those of us who love God and give our heart and will over to Him should do so rejoicing in both the giver of the gift, Jesus Christ, and the gift itself—His infinite, personal, and practical Atonement—so that there should be no more sorrow in our souls.⁴⁸

Ongoing repentance is therefore meant to be a joyful experience as we access the Savior’s Atonement and therefore the remission of sins. The adversary, on the other hand, would have us believe that repentance is a hopeless, self-deprecating exercise—nothing more than a constant reminder of our never-ending imperfections while an impersonal ruler of the universe keeps moving the target. He would have you believe that two steps forward and one step backward isn’t really progress at all.

Please remember that the Savior’s Atonement and free-will offering not only protects us from our sins but also from our weaknesses. Have faith that the Savior is perfect at distinguishing between our weaknesses and our premeditated, intentional sins. One of His servants, President Jeffrey R. Holland, taught, “Surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.”⁴⁹

Assuming we are doing the best we can to be good boys and good girls and love Him enough to repent, instead of complaining that we don’t get everything we want in this life, we should then be grateful that, because of costly grace, we don’t ultimately get what we truly deserve, considering our perpetual shortcomings. The Lord says of us:

Ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;

And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.⁵⁰

My dear friends, He has nothing more to give; that’s everything! Are these not the longings of a loving heavenly parent who wants nothing more than for you and me to want to walk up to His celestial front door one day?

To put this into perspective, have you ever loved a little child so much that you just want to burst? A daughter, a son, a nephew, a younger sibling, or, in my case, a grandson? For now, let’s imagine a little five-year-old girl whom you love more than life itself. From where you are sitting, you are observing this beautiful child in the corner by a little table totally engrossed in drawing a picture for you—as children love to do. Imagine her little tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates intently. She’s really working hard.

Now imagine her walking toward you, hesitantly pausing and wondering whether her offering will make the cut. You notice immediately that this is neither a perfect horse nor a house. Yet her big, expectant eyes meet yours. What do you say?

Well, you are not going to express disappointment. You are not going to point out every flaw, are you? You are not going to remind her that her older brother did a better job at her age, are you? Instead you will praise and hug that little girl, and then you will laminate her picture and put it on the fridge. Right? Why? Because even in your flawed, mortal condition, you instinctively know that what that little sweetheart did for you at this stage in her life today represents the best she could do, and you are good with that.

So why, I ask, would we ever even imagine our loving and perfect Heavenly Father, upon receiving our daily and by default flawed offerings, putting them straight into a celestial shredder, whacking us over the head with a disappointed look, and sending us off to do better? Let’s not do that. That’s hurtful and offensive to Him.

I have heard it suggested that it is better to be ten miles from hell heading away from it than to be a hundred miles from hell heading toward it. It’s all about trajectory—about our desires and our real intent.

The degree of our love for the Savior—or lack thereof—ranges from wholehearted “What lack I yet?”⁵¹ and “What wilt thou have me to do?”⁵² to outright indifference and rebellion. While some of us work diligently over time to “draw ever nicer pictures” with His help, others unfortunately refuse to even pick up a crayon even after covenanting to have faith unto repentance. Regarding the latter, we read, “I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days.”⁵³ Mocking the Lord is denying or making light of the sacred. It is refusing to accept the full implications of the Savior’s life, sacrifice, and commandments. It is loving ourselves more than loving Him. It is replacing His standards with our own while erroneously thinking that unconditional love and “cheap grace” will somehow satisfy the demands of justice without transformational repentance.

To the worldly this may seem the more comfortable path, but it comes with devastatingly uncomfortable consequences. The uphill covenant path can be exhaustingly tiring at times, but the joyous view from the top of the mountain will be what ultimately takes your breath away.

Brothers and sisters, thinking that the covenant path won’t be hard is like going to the gym and hoping there won’t be any weights there.

Let’s remember that at baptism we take upon ourselves the name of Christ, and during the endowment in the house of the Lord, we symbolically put on Christ even as it were a covering. The combined implication of these covenants and ordinances—along with the blessings of the Father pertaining to priesthood ordinances that both men and women receive in the house of the Lord—implies a willingness, a sacred commitment on our part, to make His will ours, to want what He wants, and to become as He is. That’s hard!

Let’s also not forget that the sacred nature of these covenants doesn’t provide for time-outs or day passes to the great and spacious building; nor does it provide for sitting at the table of the Lord and the table of the devil.⁵⁴ Instead, our covenants with the Lord imply that Zion and Babylon cannot mix in any degree. They signify that we have left neutral ground forever—if there ever was such a thing—and that we have now placed our integrity, good name, and honor on the altar of sacrifice and consecration before mortal and immortal witnesses.

That’s hard! It’s so hard that without the Savior’s help, without drawing upon the redeeming and enabling power of His Atonement, it’s game over.

Therefore, my dear friends, in the “process of time”⁵⁵ and “line upon line, precept upon precept,”⁵⁶ as we activate the remission of sins by sincerely and quickly repenting every day and becoming holy, letting “God prevail”⁵⁷ and “thinking celestial”⁵⁸ must and will find reflection in our very nature, character, and being: in our heart, might, mind, and soul;⁵⁹ in our thoughts, words, and deeds; in our desires, dreams, and hopes; in our intentions, choices, and goals; in the way we dress; in what we do or don’t enjoy; in what we think is or isn’t funny; in how faithfully we wear the holy garment; in the sincerity with which we love and serve our neighbor; in our refusal to rationalize or justify our wrong behavior; in the company we keep or refuse to keep; in our willingness to stand alone at times; in the urgency with which we remember our baptismal, priesthood, and temple covenants; in our willingness to choose prophets over social media posts; and so on. You get the idea.

So, assuming you mean business, assuming you really want to be better and more converted to the Lord and to feel at home in His Church, when confronted with your sins and weaknesses, consider Alma’s counsel to Corianton, who, as we know, had some serious issues: “I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance.”⁶⁰ Please note that feeling bad, disappointed, or troubled after falling short of our covenants and promises is designed to lead us unto repentance—not to depression, discouragement, or any other destructive thoughts and feelings.

Regarding these moments, Elder Neal A. Maxwell once differentiated between feeling disdain for self, which is unhelpful, and feeling “divine discontent,”⁶¹ the spiritually healthy and uplifting yearning for the Savior’s “costly grace” that He so generously and conditionally offers. And because the consequences of our actions affect their probability of occurring again, let’s be sure that the consequences of even our wrong acts lead us closer to the Savior through repentance and not away from Him and to the adversary.

My dear friends, the battle between our spirit self and our natural man is always on. Therefore, before closing with my testimony, I cannot not get on my little soapbox. What airplanes are to Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, exercising is to me. It is, of course, one of the great mysteries of the universe why so many in the world somehow live happy, healthy, and productive lives without ever exercising, but I have learned that exercising and commanding your body into submission to your spirit by sheer willpower and discipline can also help you keep the other commandments. I have learned that while exercising, “the Spirit can [actually] drive the flesh [far] beyond where the body first agrees to go,”⁶² and sweat and pain at that moment are indeed weakness leaving the body. And just as there are plenty of rationalizations or excuses not to keep the commandments of God, the same is true for not exercising.

Therefore, I’m grateful for what my now eighty-four-year-old father always taught: “There’s never bad weather; there’s only insufficient clothing”—or, in the words of the wise Master Yoda, “Do . . . or do not. There is no try.”⁶³

Accordingly, I challenge any of us identifying as a cell-phone-clutching couch potato to put our spirit in charge of our body, to set some meaningful long-term exercise and dietary goals, to get out of our current comfort zones, and to enjoy increased physical, mental, and emotional blessings. Mind over mattress, spirit over body.

Brothers and sisters, I testify of the Savior’s reality and of His practical Atonement. I testify that in His hospital, He is the Great Physician, Chief Surgeon, and Healer. I testify that He specializes in healing the weakest of the weak and in bringing relief to those who least expect it. I testify that all hospital and outpatient fees were paid for by Him in a garden and on a cross. I testify that you are welcome there for routine spiritual checkups as well as for lifesaving emergency operations. He is open for business 24/7, and there is always a room and a bed for you.

The only deductible is your love for Him, your real intent, your full-hearted discipleship and willingness to strive to be a covenant keeper—in short, your broken heart and contrite spirit.⁶⁴

In the words of President Russell M. Nelson, who testified to us during this recent general conference:

There is no limit to the Savior’s capacity to help you. His incomprehensible suffering in Gethsemane and on Calvary was for you! His infinite Atonement is for you!

I urge you to devote time each week—for the rest of your life—to increase your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.⁶⁵

From now on, when looking at the Y on the mountain, on a T-shirt, or on a bumper sticker, be grateful indeed that you get to study here. But starting today, let the Y also stand for yes when He asks if you “will have him to be [your] God,”⁶⁶ yes when asked if you “will give away all [your] sins to know [Him],”⁶⁷ yes when asked if your love for Him is sufficient to seek costly grace, yes when invited to take the Lord’s side on every issue, yes to His voice being the same as the voice of His prophets and apostles, and therefore yes to Him being your Judgment Day advocate with the Father.

If you can say yes to these and similar questions and mean it, if for you it is the kingdom of God or nothing, you can and should have covenant confidence as you prepare for Judgment Day that “it is [indeed] well, it is well with [your] soul”⁶⁸ because of Him!

So in closing, “may God grant . . . that [you] might be brought unto repentance and good works, that [you] might be restored unto grace for grace, according to [your] works”⁶⁹ so that you can “look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands . . . , having the image of God engraven upon your countenances.”⁷⁰ In the sacred name of your Friend and Master Healer, even Jesus Christ, amen.

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