Atonement of Christ

Atonement of Christ

Bruce R- McConkie

Mormon Doctrine, 60-65

Nothing in the entire plan of salvation compares in any way in importance with that most transcendent of all events, the atoning sacrifice of our Lord. It is the most important single thing that has ever occurred in the entire history of created things; it is the rock foundation upon which the gospel and all other things rest. Indeed, all “things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it,” the Prophet said. (TP JS, 121.)

The doctrine of the atonement embraces, sustains, supports, and gives life and force to all other gospel doctrines. It is the foundation upon which all truth rests, and all things grow out of it and come because of it. Indeed, the atonement is the gospel. In recording the Vision, the Prophet wrote: “And this is the gospel, the glad tidings, which the voice out of the heavens bore record unto us - That he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness; That through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him.” (D&C 76:40-42.) To the Nephites the resurrected Lord spoke similarly: “Behold I have given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto you - that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross.” (3 Nephi 27:13-14.)

Salvation comes because of the atonement. Without it the whole plan of salvation would be frustrated and the whole purpose behind the creating and populating of the earth would come to naught. With it the eternal purposes of the Father will roll forth, the purpose of creation be preserved, the plan of salvation made efficacious, and men will be assured of a hope of the highest exaltation hereafter. (Doctrines of Salvation, volume I, 121-138.)

“Redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah,” Lehi taught, “for he is full of grace and truth. Behold he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered. Wherefore, how great the importance Ito make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise. Wherefore, he is the first fruits unto God, inasmuch as he shall make intercession for all the children of men; and they that believe in him shall be saved.” (2 Nephi 2:6-9.)

One of the greatest sermons of all the ages, preached by an angel from heaven on the subject of the atonement, includes these words: “As in Adam, or by nature, they fall, even so the blood of Christ atoneth for their sins. And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. For behold he judgeth, and his judgment is just ... salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his Father.” (Mosiah 3:16-19.)

A knowledge of two great truths is essential to an understanding of the doctrine of the atonement: (1) The fall of Adam; and (2) The divine Sonship of our Lord.

Adam's fall brought spiritual and temporal death into the world. Spiritual death is to be cast out of the presence of the Lord (2 Nephi 9:6) and to die as pertaining to things of righteousness, or in other words things of the Spirit (Helaman 14:15-18). Temporal death or natural death is the separation of body and spirit, the body going back to the dust from which it was created and the spirit to a world of waiting spirits to await the day of the resurrection.

To atone is to ransom, reconcile, expiate, redeem, reclaim, absolve, propitiate, make amends, pay the penalty. Thus the atonement of Christ is designed to ransom men from the effects of the fall of Adam in that both spiritual and temporal death are conquered; their lasting effect is nullified. The spiritual death of the fall is replaced by the spiritual life of the atonement, in that all who believe and obey the gospel law gain spiritual or eternal life – life in the presence of God where those who enjoy it are alive to things of righteousness or things of the Spirit. The temporal death of the fall is replaced by the state of immortality which comes because of the atonement and resurrection of our Lord. The body and spirit which separated, incident to what men call the natural death, are reunited in immortality, in an inseparable connection that never again will permit the mortal body to see corruption (Alma 11:37-45; 12:16-18). Immortality comes as a free gift, by the grace of God alone, without works of righteousness. Eternal life is the reward for “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” (Article of Faith 3.)

“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy,” Lehi says. “And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall” (2 Nephi 2:25-26). “The atonement,” King Benjamin explains, “was prepared from the foundation of the world for all mankind, which ever were since the fall of Adam, or who are, or who ever shall be, even unto the end of the world.” (Mosiah 4:7.)

And Moroni taught that God “created Adam, and by Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man. And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the presence of the Lord; yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed, because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection, which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep, from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound; and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar, being redeemed and loosed from this eternal band of death, which death is a temporal death. And then cometh the judgment of the Holy One upon them; and then cometh the time that he that is filthy shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be righteous still; he that is happy shall be happy still; and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still.” (Mormon 9:12-14.)

And thus the Lord says that because of the atonement, and following the “natural death,” man is “raised in immortality unto eternal life, even as many as would believe; And they that believe not unto eternal damnation; for they cannot be redeemed from their spiritual fall, because they repent not.” (D&C 29:43-44.)

If there had been no atonement of Christ (there having been a fall of Adam!), then the whole plan and purpose connected with the creation of man would have come to naught. If there had been no atonement, temporal death would have remained forever, and there never would have been a resurrection. The body would have remained forever in the grave, and the spirit would have stayed in a spirit prison to all eternity. If there had been no atonement, there never would have been spiritual or eternal life for any persons. Neither mortals nor spirits could have been cleansed from sin, and all the spirit hosts of heaven would have wound up as devils, angels to a devil, that is, as sons of perdition.

Jacob, brother to righteous Nephi, has left us these inspired words: “For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfill the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of the Lord. Wherefore it must needs be an infinite atonement save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself.” (2 Nephi 9:6-9; D&C 29:39-41.)

Children and others who have not arrived at the years of accountability are automatically saved in the celestial kingdom by virtue of the atonement. “Little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin,” the Lord says, “wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them.” (Moroni 8:8; D&C 29:46-50; Mosiah 15:25; TPJS, 107.) The curse of Adam includes both temporal and spiritual death, and accordingly neither of these is binding upon children and those who have “no understanding” (D&C 29:50), that is, those who are not accountable. All such will be raised in immortality and unto eternal life.

Christ is the only person ever to be born in the world who had power to bring to pass the resurrection of himself or anyone else and to atone for the sins of any living being. This is because he had life in himself; he had the power of immortality by divine inheritance. The atonement came by the power of God and not of man, and to understand it one must believe that our Lord was literally the Son of God (an immortal Personage) and of Mary (a mortal woman). From his mother he inherited mortality, the power to lay down his life, to die, to permit body and spirit to separate. From his Father he inherited the power of immortality, the power to keep body and spirit together, or voluntarily having permitted them to separate, the power to unite them again in the resurrected state.

This power he exercised becoming the first fruits of them that slept, and in a way incomprehensible to mortal man, he had the power to pass the effects of this resurrection on to all living creatures. “I lay down my life, that I might take it again,” he said. “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. This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10:17-18.)

Amulek bore this testimony: “I do know that Christ shall come among the children of men, to take upon him the transgressions of his people, and that he shall atone for the sins of the world; for the Lord God hath spoken it. For it is expedient that an atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish; yea, all are hardened; yea, all are fallen and are lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement which it is expedient should be made. For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice. Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. ... Therefore there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world.” (Alma 34:8-12.)

When the prophets speak of an infinite atonement, they mean just that. Its effects cover all men, the earth itself and all forms of life thereon, and reach out into the endless expanses of eternity. “The word atonement,” it is written in the Compendium, “signifies deliverance, through the offering of a ransom, from the penalty of a broken law. The sense is expressed in Job 33:24: ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.’ As effected by Jesus Christ, it signifies the deliverance, through his death and resurrection, of the earth and everything pertaining to it, from the power which death has obtained over them through the transgression of Adam. Redemption from death, through the sufferings of Christ, is for all men, both the righteous and the wicked; for this earth, and for all things created upon it.” (Compendium, 8-9.)

Because of the atonement and by obedience to gospel law men have power to become the sons of God in that they are spiritually begotten of God and adopted as members of his family. They become the sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ of the fulness of the Father's kingdom. (D&C 39:1-6; 76:54-60; Romans 8:14-17; Galatians 3:1-7; 1 John 3: 1-4; Revelation 21:7.) Now our Lord's jurisdiction and power extend far beyond the limits of this one small earth on which we dwell. He is, under the Father, the Creator of worlds without number (Moses 1:33). And through the power of his atonement the inhabitants of these worlds, the revelation says, “are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24), which means that the atonement of Christ, being literally and truly infinite, applies to an infinite number of earths.

Those who have ears to hear, find this doctrine taught in the following scripture: “And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness,” the Prophet says in recording the Vision, “And saw the holy angels, and them who are sanctified before his throne, worshiping God, and the Lamb, who worship him forever and ever. And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father - That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” (D&C 76:20-24.)

In addition to the plain meaning of this passage, we have an explanation of it given by the Prophet Joseph Smith. He paraphrased, in poetical rhyme, the entire record of the Vision [D&C 76], and his words covering this portion were:

I beheld round the throne holy angels and hosts,

And sanctified beings from worlds that have been,

In holiness worshipping God and the Lamb,

For ever and ever. Amen and amen.

And now after all of the proofs made of him,

By witnesses truly, by whom was known,

This is mine, last of all, that he lives; yea, he lives!

And sits on the right hand of God on his throne.

And I heard a great voice bearing record from heav'n,

He's the Saviour and Only Begotten of God,

By him, of him, and through him, the worlds were all made,

Even all that careen in the heavens so broad.

Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last,

Are sav'd by the very same Saviour of ours;

And of course, are begotten Gods daughters and sons

By the very same truths and the very same powers

(Millennial Star, volume 4, 49-55.)