Vicarious Work Principle
See original article “We Believe in Vicarious Salvation” here: gospelstudy.us/we-believe-in-vicarious-salvation
Return to Home“I was surprised to watch a show the other night where the mayor of the town announced that he was going to perform a vicarious wedding ceremony. One of his duties was to perform marriages for military personnel who were in areas with no chaplain. The ceremony was carried out with two people standing in for the real couple who couldn’t be there. Each person held up a photo of the face of the person they represented and the whole wedding was broadcast over the Internet where the two real people could watch from their different locations. This was a legal marriage. Vicarious salvation is based on the same principle.
We perform ordinances in our temples, like baptism, for those who are now dead. Someone living performs the ordinance for and in behalf of someone who is deceased. It is done the same way the ordinance is done for a living person. The proxy, the person standing in for the deceased person, goes down into the water, and is baptized for and in behalf of the person who is dead. This gives the person who died without the opportunity to be baptized the ability to accept baptism without ever having had the chance in mortality.
I used to be a little uncomfortable with the idea that we could stand in and perform a baptism for someone else and have the Lord accept that as valid. That was before I realized that vicarious work is what salvation is all about.
The Atonement Is Vicarious
Every Christian knows that Christ is the key to being saved. Why? Because he performed a work, an atonement, a payment for us that we could not do or pay for ourselves. He stood in our place and paid for our sins. Our salvation comes only because we, as Christians, believe in vicarious works for and in behalf of others.
The vicarious work we perform in our temples for those who have lived without the opportunity to know or accept Christ’s gospel is the only way they will ever be able to receive those saving ordinances. Christ said that we could not go back to God without baptism.
Organizing the Work
During the time between Christ’s death and resurrection he was in the world of the spirits organizing his missionary forces. After his resurrection those missionary forces went into the spirit prison and began to preach the gospel of Christ to those who had died from the days of Adam down to the time of Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 15:29 Paul asked why the members of the Church were performing baptisms for the dead if the dead were never going to be resurrected. He said, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?”
Missionary work among the dead has been going on ever since that time. There are billions who are just waiting for their work to be done for them so they can move on to paradise and prepare for their resurrection.
Final Thoughts
We don’t normally talk about the fact that our own salvation is a vicarious act, but it is. The act of redemption on the Savior’s part could have only been done by him. We do not have the ability to do it. If we did have the ability to save ourselves there would be no need for Christ.
By us going into the temples of our God and doing vicarious work for our ancestors, we become “saviors on Mount Zion,” performing saving ordinances for those who can no longer do it for themselves.