Saturday, December 13, 2014

The Greatest Gift Ever Given

The MormonAd from yesterday's blog post says that Jesus Christ is "the greatest gift ever given," but I'm not sure how doctrinally accurate that is. I seem to recall a scripture or two saying that Eternal Life is the greatest of all the gifts of God.
And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.
D&C 14:7
Or is it Salvation?
If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation.
D&C 6:13
Or the fruit from the tree in Lehi's vision of the Iron Rod and the Tree of Life?
Wherefore, the wicked are rejected from the righteous, and also from that tree of life, whose fruit is most precious and most desirable above all other fruits; yea, and it is the greatest of all the gifts of God. And thus I spake unto my brethren. Amen.
1 Nephi 15:36
How can all of those things be "the greatest of all the gifts of God" and Jesus Christ still be "the greatest gift ever given?"

Maybe they all go together. I understand that there's a slight difference between "salvation" and "eternal life," and that it's possible to have salvation and not have eternal life, but it's not possible to have eternal life and not also have salvation, and it's not possible to have either of them without Jesus Christ. The tree in Lehi's dream was "a representation of the love of God" (1 Nephi 11:25), which would make the fruit of the tree a representation of the fruit (product or result) of the love of God. Make of that what you will, but I imagine that it's strongly connected to either Jesus Christ or the many other blessings we receive from God, including salvation and eternal life.

Jesus Christ may or may not be the greatest gift ever given. If He isn't, He is at least the means by which we gain the greatest of all the gifts of God, and if He is the greatest gift ever given, that's probably because He enables us to gain the greatest of all the gifts of God. Whichever way you look at it, God has unbelievable blessings in store for the righteous, and we get them by following Jesus Christ.

No comments: