Rather, these two dimensions of the Atonement are connected and complementary they both need to be operational during all phases of the journey of life. I am not suggesting that the redeeming and enabling powers of the Atonement are separate and discrete. Help from the Savior is available for the entire journey of mortality-from bad to good to better and to change our very nature. And the Atonement provides help for us to overcome and avoid bad and to do and become good. The gospel of the Savior is not simply about avoiding bad in our lives it also is essentially about doing and becoming good. We may mistakenly believe we must make the journey from good to better and become a saint all by ourselves, through sheer grit, willpower, and discipline, and with our obviously limited capacities. I am not so sure, however, that we know and understand that the Atonement is also for saints-for good men and women who are obedient, worthy, and conscientious and who are striving to become better and serve more faithfully. Most of us clearly understand that the Atonement is for sinners.
The Savior has paid the price and made it possible for us to become clean through His redeeming power. Most of us know that when we do wrong things, we need help to overcome the effects of sin in our lives. But we also need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us-not only to direct us but also to empower us. It is one thing to know that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us-that is fundamental and foundational to the doctrine of Christ. I suspect that many Church members are much more familiar with the nature of the redeeming and cleansing power of the Atonement than they are with the strengthening and enabling power. This second part of the journey, this process of going from good to better, is a topic about which we do not study or teach frequently enough nor understand adequately. Second-“becometh a saint.” This phrase describes the continuation and second phase of life’s journey to make “good men better” or, in other words, to become more like a saint. But we can increase our capacity to overcome the desires of the flesh and temptations “through the atonement of Christ.” When we make mistakes, as we transgress and sin, we can repent and become clean through the redeeming power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The very elements out of which our bodies were created are by nature fallen and ever subject to the pull of sin, corruption, and death.
In mortality we all are tempted by the flesh. First-“putteth off the natural man.” The journey from bad to good is the process of putting off the natural man or the natural woman in each of us. I draw your attention to two specific phrases. King Benjamin teaches about the journey of mortality and the role of the Atonement in navigating successfully that journey: “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord” ( Mosiah 3:19 emphasis added). The Book of Mormon is our handbook of instructions as we travel the pathway from bad to good to better and strive to have our hearts changed.
McKay (1873–1970): “The purpose of the gospel is … to make bad men good and good men better, and to change human nature.” 1 Thus, the journey of mortality is to progress from bad to good to better and to experience the mighty change of heart-to have our fallen natures changed (see Mosiah 5:2). The grand objective of the Savior’s gospel was summarized succinctly by President David O.