The newest member of the First Presidency issued an invitation Tuesday to Brigham Young University students to follow Jesus Christ by confidently sacrificing “the lesser for the greater.”
The lesser is the fallen mortal world and the greater is the salvation Christ prepared during his condescension from heaven, said President D. Todd Christofferson, second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Condescension means to descend voluntarily from a higher rank or dignity to a lower level or status,” he said at the Marriott Center to 11,189 BYU students, faculty and staff. “The great Jehovah of the Old Testament, the premortal Jesus Christ, voluntarily condescended to leave his divine throne above to live in a mortal state on the very earth that, under the direction of the Father, he had created.”
President Christofferson said BYU students should see themselves as engaged in their own personal condescension.
“Prior to your birth, you lived in a higher state — you lived in the presence of God, your Heavenly Father," he said. “His plan to help you achieve your highest and happiest destiny entailed your voluntary condescension or descent from that ‘first estate’ to a lower, ‘second estate.’ Your birth was a spiritual death, removing you from the presence of God. Now, just as Jesus, you are passing through a mortal experience in a fallen world.”
An angel showed Christ’s birth to the prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon after asking him, “Knowest thou the condescension of God?”
“Nephi then understood that the Son of God would come to earth to rescue fallen man,” President Christofferson said.
“As you celebrate Christmas and Easter each year,” he said, “I invite you to reflect on the mortal life and mission of Jesus Christ, his condescension to save you. I invite you to think of your own condescension, its purpose and how you, too, having descended into a fallen world, may with ‘good cheer’ rise above and overcome the world with Christ ... the God of our redemption.”
President Dallin H. Oaks became the church’s 18th president and prophet in October and called President Christofferson as his second counselor.
President Christofferson quoted President Oaks landmark talk from 2000 talk about becoming the person God wants.
“The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts — what we have done," President Oaks said. “It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts — what we have become.... The commandments, ordinances and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.”
President Christofferson said salvation does not require perfection. Instead, it requires entering the covenant path and repentance.
He quoted the most recent general conference talk of Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “We know that our efforts alone cannot make us celestial. But they can make us loyal and committed to Jesus the Christ, and he can make us celestial.”
President Christofferson listed a number of ways that Christ’s condescension is a model for personal condescension.
- “Jesus condescended to experience life in a physical body with all its miraculous powers, but with its ailments and pains as well. The same is true for you.”
- “He condescended to experience temptation and overcome sin. So did you.”
- He condescended to learn to exercise agency by faith and to submit in all things to the will of the Father.... So it is for you."
- “Jesus condescended to serve and minister to his brothers and sisters, and so did you.”
- “Above all, the Savior voluntarily condescended to leave his throne on high to rescue mankind from sin and death. You are here, first, to apply his divine gift of repentance in your life and by his grace overcome sin and death, and second, to bring others to Christ to receive this same gift of repentance and life eternal.”
- “Remember that for his condescension to achieve its full purpose, Jesus Christ had to endure to the end (in Gethsemane and on the cross).... For our condescension to achieve its full purpose in our lives, you and I also must endure to the end.”
The significance of enduring to the end, President Christofferson said, is doing more than simply believing in Christ. It is developing the character of Christ.
“It is about what we are becoming,” he said.
The process includes personal progress through the process of repenting, he said.
“Christ’s gift of repentance allows us to begin anew and continue forward each day, to progress from grace to grace, to confidently sacrifice the lesser for the greater, to overcome and with him gain immortality and eternal life,” President Christofferson said.
He added that, “as long as we are serious about it, there is no quota, no limit on the number of times we can repent, seek forgiveness and move forward on his path.”
Latter-day Saints celebrate Christmas because it was the beginning of a life and mission that hold ultimate and eternal significance for each person, President Christofferson said.
“This birth manifested the supreme love of God for all his children,” he said, “a love that the Book of Mormon calls ‘the most joyous to the soul.’”
President Christofferson’s grandson, Scott Christofferson, a BYU freshman from Idaho Falls, Idaho, gave the opening prayer.
