Adam & Eve are the First Christians

The purpose of the Atonement of Jesus Christ was because Adam and Eve brought sin and death into the world so that humanity could exist. Is it not logical that they would look forward to redemption through the Messiah?

Jesus is the Messiah. Adam and Eve knew about it, and this is what this article is about. Jesus committed no sins of His own of which to repent, making it possible for Him to suffer for our sins. He did not deserve to die and could live forever; all the elements honor Him and hearken to His commands. The significance of understanding these statement have eternal consequences. The reason why Christ could suffer for our sins is: He was, and is, free of personal sin. In effect, because He had no sin of his own for which to suffer, He did not deserve to receive the wages of sin, death.

As a partner in this great plan of salvation that Father authored, Jesus executed His part so that man could live again. Adam secured mortality so that humankind would be tried and tested, again, with the opportunity to live again in the presence of God because Jesus Christ overcame death and hell and the devil!

In 2 Nephi chapter 9, we're instructed that Christ’s sacrifice "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." [2 Nephi 9:7]

This duration of which Nephi speaks refers to the state of Adam and Eve's sentence of death. He continues to explain that

...this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. [2 Nephi 9:51]

Nephi revealed an awful alternative had the atonement of Christ not been infinite, eternal--for no man could pay for another man's sins with sins of his own for which he must pay. The elements of the universe would honor no such being as mortal man, seeing as how those beings did not, and do not, honor the commands of Jehovah/Jesus Christ.

The elements would not remain bound together to support the created-of-dust humankind. The atomic bonds forming the bodies of all people eventually fly apart to rise no more cooperating for the mortal lives of humans or animals, what happens now with death and disease. The elements do not operate in a manner that supports life at its optimal level for most of humanity in perpetuity. The elements obey God's original command to produce life, but they also obey the original command to end in death because of the Fall from Eden. Death became a side-effect of Adam and Eve partaking of the fruit in direct disobedience to the Creator.

The atonement of Jesus Christ must encompass all the sins of humanity from Adam to the last person born. It must be infinite. Nephi continues teaching that if our bodies crumble because the sacrifice was not infinitely accepted by the elements who honor Christ and, therefore, do not fly apart at our first sin that "our spirits must have become like unto him [Lucifer], and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself!" [2 Nephi 9:20]

Why devils? Devils have no bodies other than spirits. God's purpose is to clothes the spirits of men and women in bodies so that all could have the chance to be glorious and powerful as promised in the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the grace of Jesus. As spirits alone, with no power to rise, we would all be consigned to a state of eternal mourning and suffering without the grace given by the miracle of forgiveness.

Life without the perfect and eternal atonement of Jesus Christ suffering for the penalty of death brought upon humanity by Adam and Eve after partaking of the fruit would amount to naught!

Without Christ in the partnership with Adam and Eve, all would suffer the same fate as the one-third cast down on Earth to tempt humanity away from God's plan. Mortal men and women would become demons and devils and be damned and disembodied forever!

Those who endure mortality would suffer greater than the one-third who rebelled with Satan in the pre-mortal life because those who kept their first estate and did not rebel against God know the joy of having a physical body and all the nuances that come along with it!

For eternity, they would know that they would never taste, touch, or enjoy marital connection again because the means to do so is a physical body. That would be worse than demons in misery!

Nephi instructs that humanity would become like the devil, the Serpent, "that being who beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness!" [2 Nephi 9:9]

Notice how Nephi speaks in reminders that this fate would not occur because Christ would keep His part of the partnership with Adam and Eve. He did keep His part and effected the atonement so that all humankind would not suffer for our sins if we would accept Him and follow His teachings.