The gospel, when introduced and preached to Adam after the fall, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, placed him in a position not only to have victory over death, but to have within his reach and to possess the perpetuity, not only of earthly, but of heavenly life; not only of earthly, but also of heavenly dominion; and through the law of that gospel enabled him (and not him alone, but all his posterity) to obtain, not only his first estate, but a higher exaltation on earth and in the heavens, than he could have enjoyed if he had not fallen; the powers and blessings associated with the atonement being altogether in advance of and superior to any enjoyment or privileges that he could have had in his first estate. Hence, he and his partner became the father and mother of lives—lives temporal, lives spiritual, and lives eternal, and were placed in the position to become Gods, yea, the sons and daughters of God, and to the increase and extent of their dominion there was to be no limit; worlds without end.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Saturday, February 14, 2026
Not incidentally, that kind of living breathes irreplaceable strength into the social interests of our culture.
We first learn the temple’s teachings about marriage in the story of Adam and Eve—the primal story of the temple. A friend once asked me, “If Christ is at the center of the gospel and the temple, why doesn’t the temple endowment teach the story of Christ’s life? What’s all this about Adam and Eve?”
As I have thought about his question, I have come to believe that the life of Christ is the story of giving the Atonement. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of receiving the Atonement—because they were the first people to receive it—amid the sometimes formidable oppositions of mortality.
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We find a second significant implication for marriage in a later scene from the Adam and Eve story. When they left the garden, the Lord directed them to build an altar and offer animal sacrifices. After many days an angel asked Adam why he offered sacrifices.
He said, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me.”
So the angel told him, “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten.”34 The lambs they sacrificed symbolized and pointed them toward the Father’s future redemptive sacrifice of His Son. The angel then taught Adam and Eve that Christ’s sacrifice and the plan of redemption gave meaning and purpose to all of their opposition—from leaving Eden to Eve’s lamentation over her sons.
Many of us go to the temple today the way Adam and Eve did at first—simply because we are commanded, without knowing why. And simple obedience is certainly better than not performing the ordinances at all. But the Lord, who sent that angel, must have wanted them to know why—and I believe He wants us to know why.
Are today’s temple ordinances also “a similitude . . . of the Only Begotten”? Think of how the temple’s altars are, like the altar of Adam and Eve, altars of prayer, sacrifice, and covenants. Think of the dimensions of sacrifice in all the covenants of the endowment. Since Christ completed His atoning mission, we no longer offer animal sacrifices, but we do covenant to sacrifice. In what way? Christ taught the Nephites, “Ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit.”35
Animal sacrifices symbolized the Father’s sacrifice of the Son, but the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit symbolizes the Son’s sacrifice of Himself. James E. Talmage wrote that Jesus “died of a broken heart.”36 In similitude, we now offer ourselves—our own broken hearts—as a personal sacrifice.37 As Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “Real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!”38
With these ideas on my mind, some months ago I was about to seal a young couple in the St. George Temple. As I invited them to the altar, he took her by the hand, and I realized that they were about to place upon that altar of sacrifice their own broken hearts and contrite spirits—a selfless offering of themselves to each other and to God in emulation of Christ’s sacrifice for them. And for what purpose? So that through a lifetime of sacrificing for each other—that is, living as He did—they might become ever more as He is. By trying to live that way every day, they would each come closer to God, which would also bring them closer to each other. Thus, living the covenants of the sealing ordinance would sanctify not only their marriage but also their hearts and their very lives.
But when we offer in our marriage a broken heart and a contrite spirit in similitude of the Good Shepherd, we will give our lives for the sheep of our covenant, a day or even an hour at a time. That process invites us to take selflessly upon ourselves both the afflictions and the joys of our companion, emulating in our own limited way how the Savior takes upon Himself our afflictions. “Be you afflicted in all his afflictions,”40 said the Lord to Peter Whitmer about his missionary companion Oliver Cowdery. Isaiah echoed that phrase in describing Christ and those He redeems: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, . . . and he . . . carried them all the days of old.”41
Not long ago I asked some temple workers what they thought it would mean to live the life of a broken heart and a contrite spirit in marriage, to treat one’s spouse as Christ Himself would treat us.
One of them said, “It means choosing to be kind—all the time.”
Another said, “It is placing our own broken hearts on the altar as we sacrifice enough so the Savior can heal us.”
Another, “Trying to care more about someone else’s needs than you do your own.”
And another, “I will offer not only my heart but also my arms and my hands.”
And, “It’s the sacrifice of learning to give up the natural man within me.”
And finally, “It takes a broken heart and a contrite spirit for me to overcome my pride and forgive enough to receive the Atonement.”
Another temple worker lost his wife after she had suffered a debilitating illness for several years. After her funeral he told me, “I thought I knew what love was—we’d had over fifty blessed years together. But only in trying to care for her in these last few years did I discover what love is.” By going where he had to go, in being afflicted in her afflictions, this man discovered wellsprings of compassion deep in his own heart that a hireling will never know exist. The accumulation of such discoveries produces the sanctifying process of becoming like the Good Shepherd—by living and giving as He does. Not incidentally, that kind of living breathes irreplaceable strength into the social interests of our culture....
I bear witness that the order of marriage that God gave to Adam and Eve is worth whatever it takes—to find it, to build it, and to keep it in our lives. I also testify that husbands and wives who try to live like the Good Shepherd will discover and will give to each other the abundant life of authentic joy.
Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple, Bruce C. Hafen, Emeritus General Authority Seventy
why Adam and Eve didn’t return to the Garden of Eden after they were forgiven.
Well, I hope this brief look at legal history might whet your appetite to think more deeply about such family-related questions. And for the sake of our families, our friends, and our own marriages, I also hope this historical context will help explain why today’s culture no longer understands marriage in the way God intended it. Building a good marriage isn’t easy. It isn’t supposed to be easy. But when a confused culture confuses us about what marriage means, we may give up on ourselves and on each other much too soon. Yet the gospel’s eternal perspective, as taught in the scriptures and in the temple, can help us transcend the modern chaos until our marriages become the most satisfying and sanctifying—even if also the most demanding—experiences of our lives.
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Because of that Atonement we can learn from our experiences without being condemned by them. And receiving the Atonement, as Adam and Eve did, is not just a doctrine about erasing black marks; it is the core doctrine that allows human development. That is why Adam and Eve didn’t return to the Garden of Eden after they were forgiven. Rather, they held onto each other and moved forward, together, into the world in which we now live. And there they kept growing, together, as a couple. The temple’s primal story is quite consciously the story of a married couple who help one another face continuous mortal opposition. For only in that sometimes-miserable opposition could they learn to comprehend true joy.
Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple, Bruce C. Hafen, Emeritus General Authority Seventy
Eve's Perspective
Eve’s perspective on that opposition.
[Marie:] Adam and Eve were the first people to receive the Atonement. They were also the first parents to know the love a new child brings, the soul-stretching sacrifices of raising a child, and the agony of watching children unwisely use their agency.
What I have to share with you will feel like an abrupt change in tone, but this poem by Arta Romney Ballif (a sister, by the way, of President Marion G. Romney, one of the founding fathers of BYU Law School) takes us into the heart of marriage and family life as they began on this earth. Take a deep breath and come with me into Eve’s world as she probably saw it. The poem is called “Lamentation.”
And God said, “BE FRUITFUL, AND MULTIPLY—”
Multiply, multiply—echoes multiply
God said, “I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY THY SORROW—”
Thy sorrow, sorrow, sorrow—
I have gotten a man from the Lord
I have traded the fruit of the garden for the fruit of my body
For a laughing bundle of humanity.
And now another one who looks like Adam.
We shall call this one “Abel.”
It is a lovely name, “Abel.”
Cain, Abel, the world is yours.
God set the sun in the heavens to light your days,
To warm the flocks, to kernel the grain.
He illuminated your nights with stars.
He made the trees and the fruit thereof yielding seed.
He made every living thing, the wheat, the sheep, the cattle,
For your enjoyment.
And, behold, it is very good.
Adam? Adam
Where art thou?
Where are the boys?
The sky darkens with clouds.
Adam, is that you?
Where is Abel?
He is long caring for his flocks.
The sky is black and the rain hammers.
Are the ewes lambing
In this storm?
Why your troubled face, Adam
Are you ill?
Why so pale, so agitated?
The wind will pass
The lambs will birth
With Abel’s help.
Dead?
What is dead?
Merciful God!
Hurry, bring warm water
I’ll bathe his wounds
Bring clean clothes
Bring herbs.
I’ll heal him.
I am trying to understand.
You said, “Abel is dead.”
But I am skilled with herbs
Remember when he was seven
The fever? Remember how—
Herbs will not heal?
Dead?
And Cain? Where is Cain?
Listen to that thunder.
Cain cursed?
What has happened to him?
God said, “A FUGITIVE AND A VAGABOND”?
But God can’t do that.
They are my sons, too.
I gave them birth
In the valley of pain.
Adam, try to understand
In the valley of pain
I bore them
fugitive?
vagabond?
This is his home
This the soil he loved
Where he toiled for golden wheat
For tasseled corn.
To the hill country?
There are rocks in the hill country
Cain can’t work in the hill country
The nights are cold
Cold and lonely, and the wind gales.
Quick, we must find him
A basket of bread and his coat
I worry, thinking of him wandering
With no place to lay his head.
Cain cursed?
A wanderer, a roamer?
Who will bake his bread and mend his coat?
Abel, my son, dead?
And Cain, my son, a fugitive?
Two sons
Adam, we had two sons
Both—Oh, Adam—
multiply
sorrow
Dear God, Why?
Tell me again about the fruit
Why?
Please, tell me again
Why?
[Bruce:] Eve. Mother Eve. Your sorrow and your faithful questions bring a hush across my heart.
Father Lehi gives us the doctrinal context for understanding Eve’s experience. He tells us that if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the tree of knowledge they “would have remained in the garden of Eden” and “they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery”—experienced parents will see a little connection here: no children, no misery!—and further, “doing no good, for they knew no sin. . . . Adam fell that men might be [mortal]; and men are [mortal] that they might have joy.”32 So, paradoxically, sin, misery, and children create the context for learning what joy means—a process made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple, Bruce C. Hafen, Emeritus General Authority Seventy
Monday, December 1, 2025
Beware the Second Temptation
A couple of years ago, when I turned 12, I was invited to attend my first Aaronic Priesthood quorum overnight camp. This was a long-awaited invitation, as my father was a quorum leader and often went camping with the boys in the ward, while I was left at home.
When the day came, I was excited. And I must admit that I desperately wanted to fit in with the older boys. I was determined to prove myself. In that effort it wasn’t long before I was tested to see if I would play along and be part of the group.
My assigned task was to get my father’s car keys so a prank could be pulled on the leaders. I don’t remember exactly what I said to convince my dad, but I soon ran to the group of boys with keys in hand, proud of my accomplishment.
Then came the next assignment. I was to unlock the car door and wedge a stick between the driver’s seat-back and the car horn. And I was to lock the door so the horn would blare into the evening without any way for the leaders to access the car to remove the crude device.
Now, this is where the story turns painfully embarrassing for me. Once I secured the stick in place, I locked the door and ran as fast as I could to hide in a nearby patch of bushes. As I crouched down to the ground, I felt a searing pain. In the darkness and in my haste, I had sat upon a prickly pear cactus.
The remainder of that night, I lay on my stomach in a tent while my father, using pliers, removed the cactus spines from my … well, let me just say that I did not sit comfortably for several days afterward.
I have reflected on that experience many times. I can now laugh at the folly of my youth, even as some underlying principles have become clear to me.
Many patterns in human behavior seem to be common in the natural man—the desire to fit in, the desire to prove oneself, the fear of missing out, and the compelling need to hide so we avoid consequences. It is this final behavior I will focus on today—hiding after we do something that we should not.
Now, I am not equating my childish prank with grievous sin, but we can draw some parallels that may prove useful as we are tested in our mortal sojourn.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had an idyllic circumstance—an abundance of food, the incomparable beauty of the garden—not only a garden of beauty but a garden with neither weeds nor prickly pears.
However, we also know that garden life limited their needed progression. The garden was not a final destination but a test, the first of many that would prove, prepare, and allow them to progress to their final destination of returning to the presence of the Father and the Son.
You will remember that there was opposition in the garden. Lucifer was allowed to try Adam and Eve. He first tempted Adam to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Remembering the commandment not to partake thereof, Adam resisted. Then came blessed Eve, who chose to partake of the fruit, convincing Adam to do likewise.
Later, Adam and Eve declared that this decision was necessary to fulfill Heavenly Father’s plan. But by partaking of the fruit, they had transgressed the law—a law given them directly from the Father. The resulting and crushing understanding of good and evil must have left them in anguish when they heard the voice of the Father announcing His return to the garden. They realized they were naked, for they were indeed without clothing, having lived in a state of innocence. But perhaps more painful than their being without clothing in that moment, they were now exposed for their transgression. They were defenseless and vulnerable. They were naked in every sense of the word.
Ever the opportunist, Lucifer, knowing their exposed and weakened state, tempted them yet again—this time to hide from God.
This temptation—I will call it the “second temptation”—is the temptation that may bring the greatest consequence if we succumb. Surely, to avoid all first temptations to break God’s law is optimal, but we know that all will succumb to a variety of first temptations here on earth. As we progress in our maturity and understanding, we hope that our strength to avoid first temptations will continually improve as we strive to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Some might attempt to hide from God because they don’t want to be discovered or exposed, and they feel shame or guilt. However, numerous scriptures teach us that hiding from God is impossible. I’ll share just a few.
The Lord teaches Jeremiah through the following questions: “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth?”
And Job is taught:
“For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings.
“There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.”
The psalmist David most poetically exclaims:
“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
“Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. …
“For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. …
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.”
New Converts
For those who have recently joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the second temptation may seem particularly challenging. Through your baptism you have covenanted to take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ, which for many includes a needed change of lifestyle. Changing one’s lifestyle is not easy. Often it requires you to change habits and practices and even associations to progress toward your loving Heavenly Father.
The adversary knows that you may be vulnerable to his subtle attacks. He will make your past life, which left you unsatisfied in so many ways, now seem unrealistically attractive. The accuser, as he is called in the book of Revelation, will tempt you with thoughts that sound like this: “You aren’t strong enough to change your life; you can’t do this; you don’t belong with these people; they will never accept you; you are too weak.”
If these thoughts seem to ring true to you who are newly planted on the covenant path, we plead with you not to heed the accuser’s voice. We love you; you can do it; we accept you; and with the Savior, you will have strength to do all. At a time when you need our love and support the most, don’t be deceived into thinking that we will reject you if you take a step back into your prior lifestyle. Through the matchless power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, you can be made whole again. But if you hide from Him and distance yourself from your newfound faith community, you distance yourself from the very source that can and will give you the strength to overcome.
A dear friend of mine, a recent convert, shared how difficult it is to sustain faith in isolation. There is great strength in becoming and remaining part of a supportive community—all stumbling yet progressing while blessed by the love of Jesus Christ.
President Russell M. Nelson has taught that “overcoming the world is not an event that happens in a day or two. It happens over a lifetime as we repeatedly embrace the doctrine of Christ. We cultivate faith in Jesus Christ by repenting daily and keeping covenants that endow us with power. We stay on the covenant path and are blessed with spiritual strength, personal revelation, increasing faith, and the ministering of angels.”
If you incur a physical injury, your condition will deteriorate and may become life-threatening if you don’t seek proper medical attention. That is true for spiritual wounds as well. Only, untreated spiritual wounds may threaten your eternal salvation. Don’t hide from those who will love and support you; rather, run to them. Good bishops, branch presidents, and leaders can help you access the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
To those who may be in hiding, we implore you to come back. You need what the gospel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ offer, and we need what you offer. God knows your sins; you cannot hide from Him. Reconcile yourself before Him.
As His Saints, each of us must foster a culture of belonging in the Church that is loving, accepting, and encouraging of all who desire to progress along His path.
Beware this second temptation! Follow the counsel of prophets both ancient and modern and know that you cannot hide from a loving Father.
Instead, avail yourself of the miraculous healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This is the very purpose of our existence—to obtain a weakened and mortal body that is “subject to all manner of infirmities” and that will succumb to, sadly, many first temptations; to progress even when we fall to these temptations; and to seek divine help after doing so, that we might become more like our Savior and our Father in Heaven. It is His way. It is the only way. Of these truths I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Because of that Atonement we can learn from our experiences without being condemned by them.
Because of that Atonement we can learn from our experiences without being condemned by them. And receiving the Atonement, as Adam and Eve did, is not just a doctrine about erasing black marks; it is the core doctrine that allows human development. That is why Adam and Eve didn’t return to the Garden of Eden after they were forgiven. Rather, they held onto each other and moved forward, together, into the world in which we now live. And there they kept growing, together, as a couple. The temple’s primal story is quite consciously the story of a married couple who help one another face continuous mortal opposition. For only in that sometimes-miserable opposition could they learn to comprehend true joy.
Bruce C. Hafen
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-c-hafen/marriage-family-law-and-the-temple/
Monday, October 21, 2019
Adam and Eve made it possible for each of us to come to earth, receive a body, and prove that we would choose to stand up for Jesus Christ now, just as we did premortally.
Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel