Quotes for Classes Jan 26-Feb 1

 FOUNDATIONS OF THE RESTORATION: THE BOOK OF MORMON

Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel

James E. Talmage
“A natural effect of [Jesus’s] immortal origin, as the earth-born Son of an immortal Sire, was that He was immune to death except as He surrendered thereto. The life of Jesus the Christ could not be taken save as He willed and allowed. The power to lay down His life was inherent in Himself, as was the power to take up His slain body in an immortalized state” (Jesus the Christ, 3rd ed. [1916], 418).

Elder Morrison
“It was love for all of God’s children that led Jesus, unique in His sinless perfection, to offer Himself as ransom for the sins of others. … This, then, was the consummate cause which brought Jesus to earth to ‘suffer, bleed, and die for man’ [“’Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love,” Hymns, no. 176]. He came … to atone for our sins, that He, being raised on the cross, might draw all men unto Him (see 3 Ne. 27:14)” (“For This Cause Came I into the World,” Ensign, Nov. 1999, 26).


Frederic Farrar: What was crucifixion like?

“Death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of horrible and ghastly—dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame, long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds—all intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The unnatural position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries—especially of the head and stomach—became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made the prospect of death itself—of death, the awful unknown enemy, at whose approach man usually shudders most—bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release.
“Such was the death to which Christ was doomed” (Frederic W. Farrar, The Life of Christ [1964], 641).

Elder Holland:

“When the uttermost farthing had then been paid, when Christ’s determination to be faithful was as obvious as it was utterly invincible, finally and mercifully, it was ‘finished’ [see John 19:30]. Against all odds and with none to help or uphold Him, Jesus of Nazareth, the living Son of the living God, restored physical life where death had held sway and brought joyful, spiritual redemption out of sin, hellish darkness, and despair. With faith in the God He knew was there, He could say in triumph, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit’ [Luke 23:46]” (“None Were with Him,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 88).

Elder Hales:

“Jesus chose not to be released from this world until He had endured to the end and completed the mission He had been sent to accomplish for mankind. Upon the cross of Calvary, Jesus commended His spirit to His Father with a simple statement, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30). Having endured to the end, He was released from mortality.

“We too must endure to the end” (“The Covenant of Baptism: To Be in the Kingdom and of the Kingdom,” Ensign, Nov. 2000, 6).