Was It Worth It?

by John Draney

I devote this post to a translation of certain portions of the April 1, 2012 General Conference address, Was It Worth It? given by Elder David A. Evans of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Evans:

… Within our homes we should follow the pattern given by Nephi when he said:

“We labor diligently … to persuade our children … to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God. …

“… We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:23, 26).

Translation:

I am pleasantly surprised and very much intrigued by Elder Evans’ selective editing of 2 Nephi 25:23, and his concatenation of the most misinterpreted verse in the canon of the Restoration to one of the most messianic, 2 Nephi 25:26.

Given the way we mistakenly interpret 2 Nephi 25:23, Elder Evans rightly omits its concluding statement, “[F]or we know that it is be grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” I suspect that he carefully trims Nephi because the erroneous commingling of what we do and what Jesus does gets in the way of the plain and precise invitation to come to Christ.

I take it that Elder Evans has no particular desire to teach his children that they must meet Jesus halfway (or somewhere else) along the road that leads to salvation. I infer that Elder Evans is not an enthusiastic proponent of the doctrine of best efforts. I speculate that, deep down, he does not believe in a shared, cooperatively realized salvation.

What is remarkable about his constructed quotation is how closely it now resembles Ephesians 2:8-9.

What is significant about his address is how carefully it avoids the language of legalism.

Stripped of impossibly ponderous baggage, the message of Jesus becomes beautiful, brings hope, and makes us whole again.

This is the Jesus of 2 Nephi 25:23-26, rightly interpreted.

This is the Jesus I teach my children.

This is the Jesus to whom we come to receive a fullness of grace and salvation.

This is the Jesus whom we approach through agency on the pleasant path of the attainable gospel.

This is the Jesus who saves us by condescension, not contract.

Perhaps someone in the Seventy knows the same Jesus I know.

For a more comprehensive discussion of the Jesus who saves us, the Jesus of the Restoration, see Chapter 4: Distinguishing the Cause from the Conditions and Chapter 8: Saved by Grace in the book Redeeming Grace in the Canon of the Restoration (Amazon CreateSpace and Kindle).