One evening after work, years ago, I boarded my usual bus home to New Jersey from New York City. The woman I happened to sit next to noticed what I was writing on my computer and asked, “You believe in … Christ?” I said, “Yes, I do!” As we talked, I learned she had just moved to the area from her beautiful Asian country to work in New York’s highly competitive information technology sector.

Naturally, I asked her, “Do you know why I as a Christian believe in Jesus Christ?” She too responded normally and invited me to tell her. But as I went to speak, I had one of those moments where many thoughts flood your mind. This was the first time I would explain the “why” of Christianity to someone very unfamiliar with it and highly intelligent. I couldn’t simply say, “I follow Jesus Christ because He willingly suffered and died for my sins.” She might wonder, “Did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t God simply forgive and cleanse us of our sins if we asked Him to?”

How would you have responded in a few minutes? How would you explain this to a friend? Children and youth: would you please ask your parents or a leader later on, “Why did Jesus have to die?” And, brothers and sisters, I have a confession to make: despite all I thought I knew about Church doctrine, history, policy, and so on, the answer to this central question to our faith did not come so easily. That day I decided to focus more on what matters most to eternal life.

Well, I informed my new friend¹ that we have a spirit in addition to a body and that God is the Father of our spirits.² I told her we lived with our Heavenly Father before our births into this mortal world.³ Because He loves her and all His children, He made a plan for us to receive a body in the image of His glorified body,⁴ be part of a family,⁵ and return to His loving presence to enjoy eternal life with our families⁶ like He does with His.⁷ But, I said, we would face two main obstacles in this necessarily fallen world:⁸ (1) physical death—the separation of our bodies from our spirits. Of course, she knew we would all die. And (2) spiritual death—our separation from God because our sins, mistakes, and flaws as mortals distance us from His holy presence.⁹ She related to this too.

I informed her that this was an effect of the law of justice. This eternal law demands that an eternal penalty be paid for every one of our sins, or violations of God’s laws or truth, or we could never return to live in His holy presence.¹⁰ It would be unjust, and God “cannot deny justice.”¹¹ She understood this but easily grasped that God is also merciful, loving, and eager to bring to pass our eternal life.¹² I informed my friend that we would also have a cunning, powerful adversary—the source of evil and lies—opposing us.¹³ Therefore, someone with infinite godly power to overcome all such opposition and obstacles would need to save us.¹⁴

I then shared with her the good news—the “good tidings of great joy … to all people”¹⁵—that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”¹⁶ I testified to my friend, and I witness to you, that Jesus Christ is that Savior, that He had to suffer, die, and rise again—His infinite Atonement—to redeem all humanity from physical death¹⁷ and to give eternal life with God and our families¹⁸ to all who would follow Him. The Book of Mormon declares, “Thus God … gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men … ; being filled with [mercy and] compassion … ; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice.”¹⁹ Ensign, May 2023, p119  For Elder Corbitt’s complete talk click. . . . Do You Know Why I as a Christian Believe in Christ?