I want you to think for a moment of these names. Several of them are men who have already passed away; some of them are almost legendary in the Church for their statures spiritually or intellectually or as effective ministers and leaders. But they are not so far away from you and me. I served a mission with Elder Haight’s granddaughter. President Faust’s son is one of my current file leaders in the public affairs department of the Church. I have exchanged letters with Pres. Packer, met and interviewed with Elder Wirthlin, met and talked with Elder Ballard and Elder Oaks, and even met President Monson. Marhee [my wife] was once hugged by President Monson and was told by him that she had one of the loveliest singing voices he had ever heard. Both the compliment and the warmth of his awesome bear hug are memories she cherishes.
My point is that these men are not distant figures.
Many regular members of the Church have not only met, but have close associations with these special witnesses of Jesus Christ. They are as real and ordinary and almost as accessible as your local branch and stake leaders. They also are not professional ministers. They don’t have divinity degrees or special collars to identify their callings. They consist of former lawyers, doctors, a pilot, a printer, teachers, businessmen and artists. They are men who have lived and worked in the real world, have loved their wives, children and grandchildren, and, like all of us who are members of the Church, were once taught the Gospel, were baptized, received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and thereafter served in whatever callings they were given. Some served missions, and some did not.
What sets them apart is not their education, work experience or social status; it is not even necessarily their faithfulness.
In Doctrine and Covenants section 18 verse 27, Jesus declares that the apostles are his disciples, “who shall desire to take upon them my name with full purpose of heart.” There are many members of the Church who are as faithful and spiritual, who follow Jesus Christ and take upon them the titles “Christian” and “Latter-day Saint” with full purpose of heart. In fact, an article issued by the Church on-line states that when an apostle is selected, he may be selected from amongst the other General Authorities or from amongst any of the general membership of the Church.
What sets apart an apostle is his calling, or, in other words, his duties.
The primary duty of an apostle is to be a special witness of Jesus Christ.
The Prophet Joseph Smith once said,
The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it. |
“The Living Christ” is the most contemporary, carefully considered declaration of the testimony of the apostles of our day regarding
who Jesus Christ is,
what He has done, and
why we should follow Him.
You will sometimes hear other Christians claim that we are not Christians because we believe, quote-unquote, in a different Christ. Sadly, the truth is, that when compared with some of their views on Christ, we do.
There are many people today who are called Christian who, despite what the Bible and other ancient Christian writings tell us, do not believe that Jesus Christ was literally the Son of God, or that He remains so to this day. They confuse Him with the Father; and they confuse the Father with some impersonal and amorphous concoction of spiritual energy and power that creates and/or pervades all things in the universe. Some also deny the literalness of the scriptural stories of either or both of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some do not believe that He sacrificed Himself for the sins of others, or that His death was more than merely symbolic in its effects. They deny that He continues to live today in a resurrected, glorified body of flesh and bone, or that He is directly interested and active in the contemporary affairs of humanity, providing revelation and inspiration in accordance with His grace and good will, to guide us to a better way of living.
We, on the other hand, believe all those things.
As the apostles of ancient and modern days have testified:
We believe that Jesus Christ pre-existed with the Father as his Firstborn son in eternity, and was the creator of this world under the Father’s direction. |
We believe He lived a sinless life and went about in obedience to His Heavenly Father’s commandments and example, doing good, healing the sick, the blind and the lame, raising the dead, and teaching the truths of eternity and the principles of peace, happiness and godliness.
We believe that He was falsely accused, tried and sentenced to death, as a result of which He was killed upon a cross on Calvary outside Jerusalem, and that this concluded His great atoning sacrifice which began with His prayer and agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood and an angel attended Him to comfort Him.
We believe that through that atonement, He bore the weight, sorrow and suffering of every sin, of every sorrow and of every sickness, that has ever and will ever be experienced by any man or woman; and that because of this sacrifice, although we die, we shall each be resurrected with eternal and glorified bodies; and though we sin, we are saved from our sins on conditions of repentance and obedience to His commandments; and that there is no other way nor any other name by which we can obtain salvation and eternal life.
We believe that He will come to earth again, that He not only came in visions to the Prophet Joseph Smith, to open this dispensation of the Gospel and re-establish His Church on the earth, but that He will return in person, in power and glory on a future day to assume His rightful place as sovereign of all of the world.
And we believe that in the end each of us will stand before the judgment bar of Christ to be judged as to whether we are worthy of a greater or lesser kingdom of glory, and that those who in this life have been valiant in the testimony of Jesus Christ will be enabled to enter into an existence like His, as joint-heirs with Him on the throne which our Heavenly Father gives to Him.
I believe all those things.
I recognize they seem foolish or fantastic to many people; that there are many powerful, respected and well-educated people in the world who would call these statements of faith fairy-tales and accuse us of believing them out of fear or foolishness or both.
I don’t really care what they say.
I cannot pretend to have the same personal witness as the apostles. I have not seen Jesus Christ, nor am I a witness to his life, ministry or the miracles performed by Him that are recorded in the scriptures. But I am a witness to the power of those scriptures. I have felt the power of the Holy Ghost pour over me and burn within me at times when testifying of or discovering about the reality of Jesus Christ through them and because of them. Because of my experiences of His presence and power in my life and the witnesses the Lord has given to me, and due to my confidence in the wisdom and truth of His teachings, I am convinced of His reality, of His divinity, or His love and good will. Even if God did not make Him my Judge, I would choose Him as my Judge. There is no other person whose wisdom, love, integrity, honesty and intelligence I would trust as greatly as I do His.
I am grateful for the testimony I have of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the words of past and living prophets and apostles, in the scriptures, and in modern day testimonial declarations like The Living Christ, that teach and inspire me and help to open my mind and heart to the certainty that only the Holy Spirit can provide. The testimony of the apostles, from Peter, James and John, to the present day, and the testimony of the prophets both ancient and modern, are unanimous in their declarations of Jesus Christ’s divine Sonship and saving grace.
Each of us is entitled and able to receive this testimony. Each of us has access to God through prayer in the name of Christ, through faith in His willingness to answer. If you haven’t done so, I invite you to test His promises and seek His testimony.
Another apostle of our days who passed away some 31 years ago, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, said this:
[T\he third greatest heresy in all Christendom… is that revelation has ceased, that God’s mouth is closed, that the Holy Ghost no longer inspires men, that the gifts of the Spirit were done away with after the death of the ancient apostles, and that we no longer need to follow the course they charted. |
The third greatest truth [revealed by the Restored Gospel\ is that the Holy Spirit of God is a revelator and a sanctifier, that he is a personage of spirit, that his assigned ministry and work in the eternal Godhead is to bear record of the Father and of the Son, to reveal them and their truths to men. |
…After Jesus had been teaching the Nephites as a resurrected person, giving them as much truth as in his wisdom he felt they could absorb at one time, he counseled them to go to their homes, and to ponder in their hearts the things he had said, and to pray to the Father in his name to find out if they were true, and then to come again on the morrow and he would teach them more. McConkie, Bruce, "The Seven Deadly Heresies," June 1, 1980 (BYU Speeches) |
I testify that I have sought this testimony from the Lord, and that God has revealed to me, by and through the power of the Holy Ghost, in a variety of ways and experiences, that the apostles’ testimony of Jesus Christ is true, that He was born of the virgin, Mary and our Heavenly Father, that during His mortal life He ministered in love and faith to all who would receive Him, and that He ultimately gave up His life, His comfort, and His peace, so that we, through His sacrifice, might have all those things.
I pray that if you have not had this experience, you will; and that if you have, you will remember it and continue to live in faith because of it. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.