guadium # 99,995

Sitting in the temple this morning, remembered this from Elder Bruce C. Hafen:

A wonderful place to gain greater insight about the atonement is in the temple. In moses 5:11 we read:

“Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and they joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”

This insight is a central message of the temple endowment, taught to us through the story of Adam and Eve.

He goes on:

, “A friend once said, “if the temple is our holiest place of worship and learning, shouldn’t it teach the Atonement, our most sacred and central doctrine? And to do that, shouldn’t the endowment focus on the life of Christ rather than on the lives of Adam and Eve?”

The temple endowment does teach the atonement, but it focuses on Adam and Eve to teach the story of receiving the Atonement. The Savior’s life is the story of giving the Atonement. We who must receive the Atonement can identify with the lost feelings and the sorrows of Adam and Eve so fully as to say, “That is the story of my life.”

When we see how much their story is our story, perhaps we too will exclaim, “Blessed be the name of God” Because Christ came mortality is not my enemy—it is precisely because of my mortality that, in this life, I shall find joy, understanding, and even the presence of God.”

This is because the Atonement is fundamentally a doctrine of human development, not a doctrine that simply erases black marks.

--from The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships