Answering the Great Question: What Think Ye of Christ?

The vision described in Doctrine and Covenants 76 emphasizes key truths about Jesus Christ:

• “The Lord is God, and beside him there is no Savior” (verse 1).

• He is “merciful and gracious unto those who fear [him], and delight[s] to honor those who serve [him] in righteousness” (verse 5).

• “He came into the world … to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness; that through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him” (verses 41–42).

• And Jesus Christ ultimately “wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood” (verse 69).

Joseph and Sidney boldly testify of the reality and significance of Jesus Christ:

“He lives!

“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—

“That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (verses 22–24).

Jesus Christ will save “all except [the sons of perdition]” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:44). They have fully answered the question “What think ye of Christ?” by rejecting the Holy Spirit and denying and defying Jesus Christ and His power after He was revealed to them (see verse 43). In doing so, they have “crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame” (verse 35).

How do those in the telestial kingdom answer the question “What think ye of Christ?” They choose to reject the gospel and “the testimony of Jesus” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:82, 101), and they reject His commandments, being “liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers” (verse 103).

Nevertheless, they receive a resurrection and a degree of glory that “surpasses all understanding” (verse 89). They abide at least one law of the telestial kingdom (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:36) requiring all to “bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess to him who sits upon the throne forever and ever” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:110).

How do those in the terrestrial kingdom respond to the question “What think ye of Christ?” While they have a “testimony of Jesus,” they are “not valiant” in it; “wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God” (verse 79). They are blessed to “receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father” (verse 77).

Jesus Christ and His everlasting gospel challenge us not just to know but also to do and to become. To receive the fulness of the Father and the Son, one must receive temple ordinances and be faithful to those covenants. The Prophet Joseph Smith clarifies: “If a man gets a fulness of the priesthood of God, he has to get it in the same way that Jesus Christ obtained it, and that was by keeping all the commandments and obeying all the ordinances of the house of the Lord.” Terrestrial beings are unwilling to receive the fulness of the Father.

How do those in the celestial kingdom respond to the question “What think ye of Christ?” They receive “the testimony of Jesus”; they believe “on his name;” they are “baptized after the manner of his burial, being buried in the water in his name” (verse 51). They keep “the commandments [that] they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power” (verse 52). They “overcome by faith [in the Lord Jesus Christ], and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise” (verse 53). They are “made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood” (verse 69).

Jesus Christ understands His role in Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). No one receives celestial glory or the fulness of the Father without accepting all that the Savior offers through His Atonement (see Doctrine and Covenants 84:37–38): His love, power, mercy, goodness, servants, justice, commandments, ordinances, and covenants.

President Russell M. Nelson emphasizes the role of Jesus Christ’s Church in helping God’s children receive eternal life: “The long-standing objective of the Church is to assist all members to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Atonement, to assist them in making and keeping their covenants with God, and to strengthen and seal their families.”

President Nelson has encouraged us to make the celestial kingdom our eternal goal, “carefully considering where each of [our] decisions while here on earth will place [us] in the next world.” By responding to this invitation, we will be prepared to answer the great question “What think ye of Christ?”

The vision of the degrees of glory assures us not only that agency is real but also that choices truly matter. It also reminds us that, because of Jesus Christ, we “are redeemed from the fall” and “have become free forever … to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death” (2 Nephi 2:26–27). What will we choose? Our future in this life and our eternal destiny are as bright as our faith in Jesus Christ.