The Man Adam

ElderBruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve wrote: “Christ and Mary, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and a host of mighty men and equally glorious women comprised that group of ‘the noble and great ones,’ to whom the Lord Jesus said: will go down, for there is space there, and will take of these materials, and will make an earth whereon these may dwell.’ (Abr. 3:22–24; emphasis added.)

We believe that Adam and Eve went into the Garden of Eden to fall, that their actions helped “open the way of the world,” and that the Fall was as much a part of the foreordained plan of the Father as was the very Atonement. “Adam did only what he had to do,” President Joseph Fielding Smith said. “He partook of that fruit for one good reason, and that was to open the door to bring you and me and everyone else into this world, for Adam and Eve could have remained in the Garden of Eden; they could have been there to this day, if Eve hadn’t done something.”

Elder Bruce R. McConkie noted that “the holy priesthood will be used in eternity as well as in time. It is not only the power and authority to save men here and now; it is also the power by which the worlds were made and by which all things are. It also could well be that Christ, of course, in the ultimate sense holds the keys of the resurrection and of raising souls in immortality, but, as we also know, it is his practice to operate through his servants, and righteous persons will, in due course, participate in calling their loved ones forth in the resurrection.”

"The Man Adam" Robert Millet