Rocks and the Death of Christ

One of the prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite about what would happen at the time of the death of Christ was this: “The earth shall shake and tremble; and the rocks which are upon the face of the earth, which are both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up” (Helaman 14:21).  Likewise in the vision that Enoch saw of the Savior’s death, this same prophecy was mentioned: “He looked and beheld the Son of Man lifted up on the cross…; and the earth groaned and the rocks were rent” (Moses 7:56).  The fulfillment of this prophecy on the American continent was recorded in the Book of Mormon: “And behold, the rocks were rent in twain; they were broken up upon the face of the whole earth, insomuch that they were found in broken fragments, and in seams and in cracks, upon all the face of the land” (3 Nephi 8:18).  Its fulfillment was also alluded to in the New Testament: “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.  And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent” (Matt. 27:50-51).  So what is the significance of the rocks being “rent” and “broken up”?  I see it as a physical representation of the fact that the death and subsequent resurrection of the Savior broke the barriers of physical and spiritual death that otherwise would have stopped our progression.  As Abinadi liked to put it, we have “eternal life through Christ, who has broken the bands of death” (Mosiah 15:23).  Christ told us in the Pearl of Great Price that “things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me" (Moses 6:63).  And so rocks are one such item in the earth that bears record of the Savior and the atonement.  When we see rocks broken up in nature we should be reminded of how the Savior broke the chains of death and hell to provide a way for our salvation.