“I, God, Have Suffered These Things for All, That They Might Not Suffer If They Would Repent”
Doctrine and Covenants 19:15–20
15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.
16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;
17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;
18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—
19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
20 Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.
President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:
“The unrepentant are to be sorely punished. This is evident from the words of the Lord in this revelation [see D&C 19:15–19]. Our Father in Heaven is very merciful, long-suffering, and forgiving. He has promised to forgive the repentant sinner. Never has greater love been manifest than that by our Father in sending His Son, and by that Son in coming to the earth, to die for man. But one of the immutable, or eternal laws of God is that the unrepentant sinner must suffer even as Christ suffered [see D&C 19:15–18], for the blood of Christ will not cleanse those who will not repent and in humility accept the free gift which comes from God.”
(Church History and Modern Revelation, 2 vols. [1953], 1:88.)
