Call Upon His Holy Name

One of the most important passages about the atonement of the Savior in the Book of Mormon is found in Alma 34:5-16 in which Amulek testified that “the great and last sacrifice” would be the Son of God, “infinite and eternal.” One of his points was that man cannot sacrifice for or atone for the sins of another, and so it had to be something infinite, not mortal, that would offer this last sacrifice to be able to satisfy for the sins of the world. He taught, “And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance. And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety.” I don’t claim to fully understand this, but for me the important message is that if we want mercy in our lives, if we want help and compassion and support, we need Him. As much as we might claim we want things to be fair, what we really want is for mercy from Him who gave a sacrifice to satisfy the demands of justice so that He could help us. Because of this, Alma taught, we must exercise faith unto repentance or else what we will get is justice—and that is not really what we want.

               I was struck today by the message from Amulek of what this great and last sacrifice of the Son of God should lead us to do. Directly after teaching about the Savior’s sacrifice he gave this invitation, “Therefore may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name, that he would have mercy upon you.” If we want the power of the Savior in our lives we must exercise faith unto repentance—no surprise there since these are the first principles of the gospel. But how do we do that? We pray. We pray for mercy. We pray over our fields and flocks. We pray in our houses. We pray over our families, morning, mid-day, and evening. We pray for power over our enemies. We pray for strength against the devil. We pray for our livelihood. And we “pour out our souls in [our] closets , and [our] secret places, and in [our] wilderness.” And when we can’t pray directly, we have our hearts “drawn out in prayer unto him continually for [our] welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around [us]” (Alma 34:17-27). When we understand the atonement of Jesus Christ it should lead us to do the most simple and powerful act of devotion: pray with faith.  

                I hear sometimes in our Church meetings that we should “apply the atonement of Christ in our lives.” For some reason something about this invitation doesn’t sit quite right for me. It is like we are talking about the atonement as a special coupon we need to make sure that we obtain and apply to life to get a better deal or a superior sunscreen we need to make sure we apply on us for protection. The idea of the phrase is scriptural, but as I read that passage again today it seems to me that we are actually not the ones who will “apply” the atonement. After King Benjamin’s incredible discourse, his people prayed these words to the Father: “O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men” (Mosiah 4:2). Here the faithful Nephites prayed to God that He would apply the atonement of His Son in their behalf to give them mercy. It is the Father who will “apply the atoning blood of Christ” to give us mercy. What are we to do? The answer is so simple we can easily overlook it if we talk in too esoterically about the atonement: we need to pray for mercy! That’s what the people of King Benjamin were doing. And that’s what Amulek invited the Zoramites to do after teaching them about the Savior’s great and last sacrifice. We need not over-complicate things or feel lost that we don’t know how to “apply the atonement” in our lives. We just need to pray in faith to the Father, believing in His Son and asking for His mercy and help and strength in our lives. And, following Amulek’s invitation, we need to pray again and again and again. Then God will bless us and strengthen us and give us mercy more than we deserve because of His Son’s sacrifice.