“It is Expedient That There Should Be a Great and Last Sacrifice”

George Reynolds, Janne M. Sjodahl

To the end that all men should be delivered from the effects of the Fall of Adam, which Fall brought woe to all mankind, a Sacrifice is necessary which will atone for, and blot out, every vestige of Adam’s Fall. All evil and its transgressions will be done away with by this great and last Sacrifice. Amulek contrasted this Sacrifice with the sacrifices enjoined by the Law of Moses. It will “not be a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal Sacrifice.” There is no man, Amulek argued, that can have his own blood shed, or “that can sacrifice” it to amend totally for the sins of another. A man can in no way expiate, or make complete satisfaction for—atone for—the offenses of others. There is among us, a law, he said, which is just; it requires that a man who murdereth, forfeit his own life in expiation therefore, but it will not demand in reconciliation of that offense the life of his brother. For that reason, and we may be sure for it alone, a sacrifice which is all-inclusive; that is, a sacrifice “which will suffice for the sins of the world.”

Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 4

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