Vicarious Work

Yesterday I watched The Mountain of the Lord, the Church film from many years back about the building of the Salt Lake Temple.  In it Wilford Woodruff was explaining doing ordinance work for the dead and he suggested that all Christians are already familiar with vicarious work because that’s what Christ did for us.  His sacrifice that paid the price for our sins was a vicarious sacrifice because He stood in our place and took the penalty for each of us so that we wouldn’t have to.  I typically don’t think of it that way, but perhaps there are a lot of similarities between doing temple work for our ancestors and Christ’s atonement for us.  Obadiah spoke about how “saviors shall come up on mount Zion” and the Prophet Joseph Smith said of this scripture, “But how are they to become saviors on Mount Zion? By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them.” 

So as we go to the temple for others in proxy, doing for them what they cannot do for themselves, we should be reminded that the Savior went before and in a similar manner did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.  We typically think of the gift of the Savior as coming in two parts.  One was the gift of the Resurrection, and that was an unconditional gift to all.  Without it we simply would not be able to rise again from the grave as Jacob taught: “Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more” (2 Nephi 9:7).  The other part of the atonement was to free us from the price of our own sins with the Savior telling us, “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent” (D&C 19:16).  Like baptisms for the dead and other vicarious temple work, this only benefits us if we do what is necessary to accept it, “For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift?” (D&C 88:33)

There are I think other examples of vicarious work that are common to even those who are not religious.  The most obvious perhaps is what parents do for their babies and young children.  From birth to many years later, parents do things every day for their children that their children cannot do for themselves.  Without that sacrifice of their parents, no child would survive.  Another example is that of military service—countries send soldiers to fight for the freedoms of all.  They make sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, to protect those back at home, most of whom could not physically do what is needed to defend themselves from enemies.  The service of soldiers fighting to protect their country thus becomes a vicarious sacrifice for all of us who don’t have to face the dangers of the battlefield.  I think we could similarly extend this idea to others in our community who serve in behalf of us, from elected officials to police officers to even those who grow food. 

Perhaps the message for us is simply, as John Donne put it, “no man is an island.”  We simply cannot go it alone—we need the Savior and His atonement first and foremost, and we also need others around us.  In our life we will have the opportunity to do for others what they cannot do for themselves such as in the temple experience, but more often than not we will receive from others what we cannot do for ourselves.  As Paul taught us, “The body is not one member, but many.”  We simply cannot say of others—especially of Christ—“I have no need of thee” (1 Corinthians 12:14, 21).