Concerning our Lord's foreordination as the Redeemer and Savior, He has given us personal testimony with which the utterances of prophets who lived before His birth and apostles who taught after His death are in harmony. Twenty-two centuries before the meridian of time, the then unembodied Christ revealed Himself to a Book of Mormon prophet, saying: "Behold I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold I am Jesus Christ." (Book of Mormon, Ether 3:14). Unto Moses the Father spake, saying: "Thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten, and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior." (Pearl of Great Price, p. 2). These Scriptures are in accord with Peter's testimony of Christ as "a Lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world." (1 Peter 1:19-20). As the Eternal Father's Only Begotten Son in the flesh, Christ possessed the inborn power to withstand death indefinitely, and this just as naturally as that He, being the offspring of a mortal mother, should derive the ability to die. Jesus Christ inherited through the operation of the natural law of heredity the physical, mental, and spiritual attributes of His parents--the Father immortal and glorified, the mother human. He could not be slain until His hour had come, the hour in which He would voluntarily give up His life, and permit His own decease as an act of will. How else are His definite asseverations concerning Himself to be construed? Consider for example this: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." (John 10:17-18). And further: "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." (John 5:26). Christ died, not as other men have died or shall die, because of inability to escape death, but for a special purpose by voluntary surrender. Thus, the atoning sacrifice was no usual death of an ordinary man, but the decease of One who had the power to live. It was a sacrifice, indeed! [1] As a sinless Man Christ was exempt from the dominion of Satan; and was sublimely conscious of His own perfect probity. He challenged assailants with the pertinent demand "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John 8:46); and in the hour of His entrance into Gethsemane solemnly averred: "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." (John 14:30).