Prerequisite Three: God Has Established Laws as Part of His Plan (Part Three)

God’s Law Reveals God’s Nature

You may have read this heading and said, “Now, hold on. What does knowing God’s nature have to do with our salvation?” The answer to your question is, “Everything.” Jesus Christ defined eternal life―salvation―just before He suffered in Gethsemane and on Calvary: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” John 17:3. God has promised eternal life to the faithful. That is, He has promised to reveal them His nature, His attributes, His character, His face, and even Himself. If we don’t know who He is, we will never live forever in His presence. And ultimately, we will never know him until He parts the veil that separates Him from us, shows us His face, and speaks with us as one friend speaks to another.

And God, to a modern prophet, revealed how we can know Him: “This is eternal lives—to know the only wise and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. I am he. Receive ye, therefore, my law.” D&C 132:24. So by receiving God’s law, we will know Him.

How will we know Him? You’ve heard the saying, or something similar, “If you want to know a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” By keeping the Law, we walk in God’s footsteps, we walk in His shoes. That’s because each commandment is an expression of Divine Nature:

And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature [those who disobey the Law], or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; . . .

Alma 41:10-11. Therefore, those who live contrary to the Law live contrary to God’s nature. So God’s nature is the Law. Thus, God doesn’t worship idols. He doesn’t use profanity. He honors the Sabbath day. God does not murder. Nor does He violate the laws of chastity. He doesn’t steal. He doesn’t lie. And He doesn’t covet. He obeys the law of sacrifice. He loves all His children. He is just. And He is merciful. He is Perfect.

And Jesus Christ demonstrated that it is God’s nature to obey the Law. Although He was tempted in all things, Jesus never violated the Law. Hebrews 4:15. He even kept the commandments that would not serve Him. The perfect example of this is Jesus’ decision to be baptized. Baptism is for the remission of sins, and those who are “whole need no physician.” Moroni 8:8. Yet even though He had no sins, the Whole submitted His will to the will of the Father to “fulfill all righteousness.” Matt. 3:15; 2 Ne. 31:5-6. Jesus was baptized because God had commanded that every accountable person must be baptized. That was enough for Him. He didn’t ask, “Why?” He didn’t say, “I don’t need baptism. I’m perfect.” Rather, He said, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” Matt. 3:15.

And Jesus’ righteousness both pleased God and revealed God’s nature to us. In all that He did, Jesus showed us the Father. John 14:9-12. If God the Father had been in Jerusalem and Galilee instead of Jesus Christ, nothing would have changed. He would have healed the sick, raised the dead, caused the lame to walk, given sight to the blind, rebuked sin, forgiven sinners, blessed the children, suffered for our sins, died, and been resurrected. He would have fulfilled all righteousness by observing and obeying the Law.

So if we want to know God―want to have eternal life―we need to obey the Law. All of it! Even the commandments that we don’t like and those we think will not serve us. It’s the only way to know Him.