President Ezra Taft Benson wrote:
- As a church we are in accord with an ancient prophet who said, “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23) Grace consists of God’s gift to His children wherein He gave His Only Begotten Son in order that whosoever would believe in Him and comply with his laws and ordinances would have everlasting life. . . .
- By His grace and by our faith in His atonement and our repentance of our sins, we receive the strength to do the necessary works that we otherwise could not do by our own power. By His grace we receive an endowment of blessing and spiritual strength that may eventually lead us to eternal life if we endure to the end. By His grace we become more like His divine personality.
- Yes, it is “by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” What is meant by the phrase “after all we can do”? “After all we can do” includes extending our best effort. “After all we can do includes living His commandments. “After all we can do” includes loving our fellow men and praying for those who regard us as their adversary.
- “After all we can do ” means clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and giving “succor [to] those that stand in need of [our] succor (Mosiah 4:16), remembering that what we do unto one of the least of God’s children, we do unto Him (Matthew 25:40).
- “After all we can do” means leading chaste, clean, pure lives, being scrupulously honest in all our dealings and treating others the way we would want to be treated.
- As I contemplate the glorious atonement of our Lord, which extended from Gethsemane to Golgotha, I am led to exclaim with reverence and gratitude:
I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, Confused at the grace that so fully He proffers me; I tremble to know that for me he was crucified, That for me a sinner He suffered, he bled and died.
I marvel that he would descend from His throne divine To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine;
That he should extend his great love unto such as I, Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify,
Oh , it is wonderful that he should care for me, Enough to die fore me! Oh it is wonderful, wonderful to me! (Hymns, no. 193)
Ezra Taft Benson, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002) 111-12
