Today I read the following book
W. Cleon Skousen, Days of the Living Christ (2d ed.; Salt Lake City: Ensign Publishing Co., 2018), 669 pp. + xxviii.
As with anything by Cleon Skousen, there is very little to commend it to readers so one can put it on the “avoid” list. Notwithstanding, as I did invest money into it (hopefully, so others will not), so here are the few places where the book had decent-ish material:
Commenting on the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness as well as other temptations he experienced in mortality, Skousen writes the following which parallels much of the yetzer hara (“the evil impulse”) that was a doctrine held by some Jews at the time of Jesus (see Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil [University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011]; see also The Yetzer Hara in the Book of Mormon?), even if he weakens the force of Satan’s tempting of Jesus:
The Real Temptation of Jesus Came from Within Himself
It would seem that for all practical purposes, the three temptations concocted by Satan were not temptations in the real sense of the word. Jesus dispatches each of them almost casually and indifferently.
Nevertheless, Jesus did have the normal roster of genuine temptations as he went through life. These were the same temptations that confront all human beings. As we shall see in a moment, they came primarily from within himself.
The physical body has certain built-in proclivities that are necessary for survival. We call them instincts. However, these instincts are so powerful that a person can be virtually mesmerized into being obnoxiously selfish, vindictive, vengeful, greedy, covetous, avaricious, lustful, hateful, venal, sadistic, mercenary, gluttonous, drunken, a robber, a vandal, a thief, or even a murderer.
Every normal human being struggles throughout his or her life trying to keep these appetites of the flesh under control. Our God-given instincts are necessary for survival, but they are “an enemy to God if they go beyond the parameters clearly defined by God’s law. As one prophet wrote: “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 enticing 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 3:19).
These instinctive forces, by their nature, provide the major temptations in life. We know this is painfully true for ourselves, and the scripture says it was equally true for the Savior.
The prophet Alma wanted his people to know that even though the Savior was the Son of God, he would be required to endure all of the normal frailties of the flesh. He said: “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sickness of his people” (Alma 7:11).
The Apostle Paul verified that in order for Jesus to pass through moral life “without sin,” he had to demonstrate that he could do in spite of all the worst temptations that confront ordinary human beings. He said: “Jesus the Son of God . . .was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:14-15). (pp. 104-5)
While Skousen’s theory of atonement is problematic (putting it nicely [see Blake Ostler's Critique of Cleon Skousen on the Atonement, he correctly rejects the penal substitutionary understanding of Christ’s atonement:
Some people like to think of Christ’s suffering as undergoing the punishment that men and women should be receiving themselves because of their sins—sort of like paying another’s person’s debts. This is called the “balancing of the books.” Others call it the “compensatory” doctrine of quid prop quo, or “this much suffering for that much sin.”
The concept of balancing the books is attractive because it is simple and therefore easy to understand. Gospel scholars have occasionally used this symbolism in order to make a point without going into the more precise but complex aspects of the Atonement.
Nevertheless, as we mature in our understanding of the Gospel, we come to realize that Jesus could not pay for our sins the way someone might pay another person’s debt. The scripture says that approach would be immoral and unjust.
As one prophet points out, it would never satisfy the demands of justice to have Jesus try to compensate for the wrongs committed by someone else. A sinner could not approach the gates of heaven and claim he was pure or guiltless because Jesus had paid the debt or suffered the penalty for sins which the sinner should have paid for himself.
The great Amulek explained the fallacy of this approach by saying: “Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay. But the law requireth the life of him who hath murdered” (Alma 34:11-12).
So one person cannot pay for the sins of another the way one might pay for the debts of another. Amulek is simply saying that where sin is concerned, the punishing of one person for the offenses of another would not satisfy anyone’s sense of justice. (p. 664)
