The Atonement: What is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?

The living prophet and the apostles of Jesus Christ have published their solemn testimony of the Savior and his Atonement. In part, they state:

“We solemnly testify that His life…is central to all human history…. We offer our testimony of the reality of His matchless life and the infinite virtue of His great atoning sacrifice. None other has had so profound an influence upon all who have lived and will yet live upon the earth.” 1

Definition of 'Atonement'

The word Atonement means: “amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong,” 2 or in other words “to reconcile or to restore to harmony.” 3 Often the word Atonement is defined by its phonetic parts: at-one-ment, suggesting the Savior’s immeasurable ability to make us at one with God.

The Savior’s Atonement is central to Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can live again and become reconciled and restored to harmony with our Heavenly Father. Despite our most hideous wrongdoings, we can be “made perfect through Jesus.” 4

The Atonement announced by Heavenly Father

Before the world was created, Heavenly Father called his children to a great council and presented them his Plan of Salvation. This plan provided that his “spirit children might advance and progress and become like him.” 5 Jesus Christ volunteered to carry out Heavenly Father’s plan. Because Jesus’ Atonement is central to the Plan of Salvation the plan became known as the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Plan of Salvation and the Atonement

The Plan of Salvation consists of these essential elements:

1. Free moral agency—freedom of choice, meaning “the privilege to be given to every soul to choose for himself ‘liberty and eternal life’ through obedience to the laws of God, or ‘captivity and death’ as to spiritual things because of disobedience.” 6
2. A Savior—to “make intercession for all the children of men…[that] they that believe in him shall be saved.” 7. The scriptures speak of the Savior’s ability to save as essential elements of his Atonement:
   • He saves us from physical death through his resurrection.
   • He saves us from sin because he suffered and paid the penalty for our sins.
   • He saves us by providing an authorized way that we can be born again (through baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost), which leads to a mighty change of heart and the increased capacity to know and live the truth.
   • He saves us in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom where God dwells.
3. Guaranteed blessings through obedience— Heavenly Father decrees that obeyed laws must result in blessings. 8 We can claim all blessings from God, including salvation and eternal life “by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” 9

The two plans and the Atonement

Besides these essential elements, the Plan of Salvation provided for two necessary but seemingly opposing plans:

1. The Plan of Justice
2. The Plan of Mercy

Only the Savior by means of his Atonement, could implement the Plan of Salvation and reconcile the consequences of justice with the blessings of mercy.

The Plan of Justice and the Atonement

Justice means that laws must exist. Order, progression, and civilization depend on the presence of just laws that are enforced by a higher authority. Obeying laws demands blessings; breaking laws demands consequences. Any higher authority would fall from his position and cause chaos if he were to show favoritism or if he were to interrupt the blessings and the consequences of laws.

God’s laws are higher than man’s laws. Because God is a perfect and eternal being his words and laws are also perfect and eternal. Therefore, his obeyed laws demand eternal blessings and his disobeyed laws demand eternal consequences.

Two immutable realities are associated with the Law of Justice:

1. Physical death—we will all die. Our spirits will separate from our bodies.
2. Spiritual death—we will all sin. We distance ourselves from God every time we disobey one of his laws.

Without Jesus' Atonement--his resurrection and his paying the price of the eternal consequences of our sins--these two deaths would be of eternal duration. Otherwise, according to law, “God would cease to be God.” 10

The Plan of Mercy and the Atonement

Mercy means “compassionate treatment, especially of those under one's power; clemency. Mercy means to be kind and forgiving.” 11 Although Heavenly Father must create and enforce laws, he wants to show mercy or clemency. To show compassionate, kind, forgiving mercy is his desire.

But mercy cannot rob justice, 12, otherwise God's laws would be meaningless.

Therefore, to implement the Plan of Salvation, a Savior was needed—a sinless mediator who could stand between man and God having satisfied the demands of justice by carrying sin’s full weight. Then, having redeemed us through his own suffering, he could sanctify us by raising us up to become perfect and immortal, capable of living with God forever.

Therefore, the Savior, Jesus Christ, volunteered to accomplish the Atonement “for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.” 13 Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and by our obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, the Plan of Mercy taks effect, and the eternal consequences of our mortal condition and sins are interrupted and satisfied forever. Because of Jesus' Atonement we will resurrect, never again to suffer a physical death; we will be completely forgiven and purified, never again to suffer a spiritual death.

Justice and mercy, then, are completely reconciled and come into perfect balance through the Savior’s Atonement.

Reconciling Justice with Mercy through the Atonement

Accepting Jesus Christ, his Atonement, and the laws and ordinances of the gospel bring about “mercy which overpowereth justice…thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice and encircles them [us] in arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice….” 14

Because God is eternal, every primary law of God is eternal and has an eternal blessing and an eternal punishment. The first laws and ordinances of the gospel are:

• first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
• second, repentance
• third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins
• fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.” 15

The eternal blessing for obeying these first laws and ordinances of the gospel is complete and eternal remission of sins-- “…though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” 16 As explained above, obedience to these first laws and ordinances provides eternal safety from the demands of justice--we are, by law, "encircled in arms of safety."

On the other hand, the consequence for not obeying these laws and ordinances is suffering the full price of our sins without the help of the Savior or his Atonement.

Only Jesus Christ has the power to balance the demands of justice with his mercy. We do not have the power to do this without his help. Only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ can justice be satisfied without robbing mercy. We, then, the beneficiaries of the Savior's Atonement, are mercifully freed from the demands of justice by exercising our moral agency and choosing to obey God's laws.

The Savior is Our Only Hope. We Need the Atonement.

“He was arrested and condemned on spurious charges, convicted to satisfy a mob, and sentenced to die on Calvary's cross. He gave His life to atone for the sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.” 17

Only the Savior qualified to save us from physical and spiritual death, sin, discouragement, despair, and every affliction and disease that man can suffer. As a consummate act of love, he volunteered to endure all our pains and sorrows whether or not they were the result of our bad choices or imposed upon us.

Elder Gerald N. Lund said, “[The Savior] “stood before the justice of God and paid as though he were guilty of every sin and every transgression ever committed. We cannot begin to quantify or comprehend the vastness of the requirements of that suffering.” 18

As the words to a favorite hymn state: “There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only (only He) could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.” 19

In a real way, the Savior overpaid the debt of our transgressions so that the demands of justice could never lay claim to us. In the Atonement, Jesus took our place and paid justice's price for every broken law of God. The Savior was the only one who qualified to implement the Father’s conditions for the Plan of Salvation. The Savior was and is our only hope that we might survive the necessary experiences of this world and that we might qualify for eternal life.

Questions about 'The Atonement: What is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?'

• What does the word "atonement" mean?
• Through the Atonement, what can the Savior do for us?
• Who announced the Atonement, and for what purpose? What was the setting? Who volunteered to accomplish the Atonement?
• Because Jesus’ Atonement is central to the Plan of Salvation, the plan became known as the gospel of Jesus Christ. What are the essential elements of the Plan of Salvation?
• What is moral agency?
• Why do we need a Savior and his Atonement?
• What is guaranteed if we obey God's laws?
• What are the two seemingly opposing plans included in the Plan of Salvation that must be reconciled?
• The Plan of Justice calls for laws for order, progression and civilization. What consequences, good and bad, are attached to every obeyed or disobeyed law?
• What are the two immutable realities associated with the Law of Justice? Are the effects temporary or eternal?
• What are Physical Death and Spiritual Death?
• How did the Savior overcome the otherwise eternal effects of these deaths?
• While Heavenly Father desires to be merciful, kind and compassionate, can mercy rob justice?
• Who, then, was needed to implement the Law of Mercy?
• The Law of Mercy is a law of God with eternal blessings and consequences. What are the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, and what is the merciful eternal blessing for obeying them? What is the consequence for not obeying the first principles and ordinances of the gospel?
• Are we capable of satisfying the demands of God’s justice with mercy without the help of the Savior?
• Why is the Savior our only hope to overcome physical and spiritual death and qualify to return to God?
• Is there anyone else who could help us?

References for 'The Atonement: What is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?'

1. (see "The Living Christ")
2. (see American Heritage Dictionary, "Atonement")
3. (see True to the Faith, p 14)
4. (D&C 76:69) – These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood.
5. (Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, October 1970, p.126).
6. (2 Nephi 2:27) – Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
7. (2 Nephi 2:9)
8. (D&C 130:20-21) – There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
9. (see Articles of Faith: 3)
10. (Alma 42:13) – Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.
11. (American Heritage Dictionary, "Mercy")
12. (Alma 42:13-15) – Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God. And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence. And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.
13. (Alma 42:15)
14. (Alma 34:14-16)
15. (Articles of Faith: 4)
16. (Isaiah 1:18)
17. ("The Living Christ")
18. (Selected Writings of Gerald N. Lund: Gospel Scholars Series, p.164)
19. (Hymns, "There is a Green Hill Far Away")