The Gospel is About Our Unworthiness

Alma teaches his son Shiblon that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about our unworthiness and not our goodness, righteousness or obedience.

"Do not say: O God, I thank thee that we are better than our brethern; but rather say: O Lord, forgive my unworthiness, and remember my brethern in mercy--yea, acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times" (Alma 38:14).



Our attempts to establish our own righteousness, come as a result of having a zeal but not according to knowledge. Paul said: "Brethern, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Romans 10:1-4 emphasis added).

The Lord teaches us that man cannot be righteous because righteousness requires both omniscience and omnipotence to know what should be done and to have the power to do it. So righteousness is of God, never of man. The gospel of Jesus Christ is about how to obtain the righteousness of God, and to either choose the righteousness of God (Good) or everything else (Evil), which is the definition of Good and Evil in the scriptures, and why I use a capital "G" and a capital "E" in describing Good and Evil. Human goodness (with a small "g") is flawed goodness and we can never be good enough to live our way back to His presence. That is why Christ reminds us that "there is none good but one, that is God;..." (Matt 19:17; Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19), and why we "look to God and live" (Alma 37:47).

So the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about our nothingness and His goodness, and until we come to recognize this, and experience it, we will put our trust in men and make flesh our arm, and confuse righteousness with performing ecclesiastical duties, and go about to establish our own righteousness.

The formula of His goodness and our nothingness is the basis for both faith and repentance, which is what both Paul and Mormon describe as godly sorrow. (2 Cor. 7:17; Mormon 2:13) This is the subject matter of King Benjamin's discourse, which was not his actually, but the words of God delivered to him by an angel.

Let me illustrate further. The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is about self righteousness and unworthiness, and after the Publican went back to his house justified, what would you, as his bishop, require of him following that experience? Would you be tempted to make him into a Pharisee by measuring his worth based on his worthiness, or would you trust the Lord to do the same the next week and the next, as long as the Publican was humble and recognizing his unworthiness? Remember that this parable was given to the Pharisees who "trusted in themselves that they were righteousness" (Luke 18:9-14).

And said another way by C.S. Lewis: "How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. 

They theoretically admit themselves to to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them, and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. ...  

Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good--above all, that we are better than someone else--I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil" (Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis p. 96).

And the two major concerns of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young when it came to members of the Church? Self-righteousness and covetousness.

"...yea, acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times" (Alma 38:14).