Difference between revisions of "The Roles of Justice, Sacrifice and Mercy in the Atonement of Christ"

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There are many different, yet correct, ways to look at and think about the Atonement. I am inclined to think of it as one more way of looking at and illuminating the Lord’s infinite and eternal sacrifice, which is like a jewel too vast for us to comprehend fully. Hence, each explanation looks at it from a different angle, and each has merit. Not one single explanation is necessarily the best or final explanation.
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There are many different, yet correct, ways to look at and think about the Atonement. I am inclined to think of the following as just one more way of looking at and illuminating the Lord’s infinite and eternal sacrifice, which is like a jewel too vast for us to comprehend fully. Hence, each explanation looks at it from a different angle, and each has merit. Not one single explanation is necessarily the best or final explanation.
  
 
Here is one way of looking at the Atonement:
 
Here is one way of looking at the Atonement:

Revision as of 16:36, 18 February 2020

by Mike Clark © 2020


Note that this article is written in accordance with my understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I am a member. The contents of the article are my own work, and does not necessarily represent the view of the Church.


There are many different, yet correct, ways to look at and think about the Atonement. I am inclined to think of the following as just one more way of looking at and illuminating the Lord’s infinite and eternal sacrifice, which is like a jewel too vast for us to comprehend fully. Hence, each explanation looks at it from a different angle, and each has merit. Not one single explanation is necessarily the best or final explanation.

Here is one way of looking at the Atonement:

Due to your disobedience to God's laws, you have caused a implacable barrier to be placed between yourself and God the Father. Further, that disobedience has placed you into a condition of imbalance with respect to Justice. You have sinned, and in order for the scales of justice to be tipped back into alignment, you will have to be punished; there is no escape from it. After you are punished, you will be back in balance ("at one") with Justice, and nothing further will be required of you on that score, but you will remain forever apart from God, because your sin has irrevocably placed you out of balance with Him, who is Sinless. Unless a way is found, you can't go where He is, and will never be able to go there.

This is because God can’t simply let bygones be bygones. Because not even God can avoid the demands of Justice. Alma taught, “What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit” (Alma 42:25.)

There is only one way to avoid this situation and that is to be cleaned of your sin; merely suffering for it is insufficient. You must be placed back in balance with both Justice and God. But who can do this for you? You cannot do it for yourself, because paying for your own sins by your own suffering does not remove the stain of those sins.

Fortunately, but also by design, along comes Jesus Christ, who was born into mortal life like you, but due to his disparate parentage (a literal child of God and of Man) he inherits the ability to sin from his mortal mother, but from his eternal Father he inherits both the ability to resist committing sin, and the ability to resist death. So he resists both sin and death until his time comes, and then he voluntarily takes on the punishment which is required of all those who have sinned. Having done this, he has placed himself not out of balance with Justice, but Justice has been placed out of balance with Him! Justice is now in debt to the Christ! And the depth of the debt is Infinite, as Nephi said in 2 Nephi 9:7:

“Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement…”

Because the depth of Justice’s debt to Christ is infinite (see my essay on The Mathematics of Christ’s Atonement), Christ has the right to dispense mercy, and to overpower Justice’s claim on the sinner. As Amulek said in Alma 34:15:

“And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice…”

But Christ does not dispense that mercy universally, without condition. He requires faith that leads to repentance, as Amulek says further:

“…and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.”

What Christ requires of us who sin is that we repent of our sins. Note that this does not buy our salvation from sin! We cannot earn that salvation, but this is what He nevertheless requires of us. Amulek continues:

“And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.” (Alma 34:15–16, italics added.)

In further words, Christ is the master of mercy; He can dispense it or withhold it at His sole discretion. This is one of the reasons why we call Christ "the Master".

Because Christ is the master of mercy, He is entitled to dispense it to all whom He will dispense it to. As He says:

“I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive…” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:10)

And this is why Christ is our Savior! He does not require that we BE perfect (which is mortally impossible), He requires only that we WANT to be perfect, and that we demonstrate this desire by our actions in showing our Faith in Him by repentance, baptism of water, and baptism of fire (in other words receiving the Holy Ghost).

By his great redeeming sacrifice, Christ “hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men” (Moroni 7:27.)