Friday, June 28, 2019

Owen K. Peterson on the Nature of Christ's Infinite Atonement


In a volume on Latter-day Saint soteriology, one author, instead of opting for a “penal”/forensic understanding of the atonement, “hit the nail on the head” so to speak about the nature of the atonement and Christ’s sufferings:

It is important to recognize that an infinite atonement is, by definition, unlimited. The Father did not add up the debt incurred by each of his children for each of their sins on each of his “worlds without number,” past, present and future, and then ask his Beloved Son to suffer for them on a tit-for-tat basis. Rather, the price paid far exceeded the debt owed, for the price paid was infinite. Because of it we do not need to worry about how much of a burden our individual sins may have added to Christ’s suffering—infinite plus or minus n is still infinite. We need only be grateful that his sacrifice was sufficient to cover all of the sins of all men belonging to the family of our Heavenly Father, worlds without number. He suffered so we won’t have to suffer. All he requires is what we feel sorry for those things we have done or have failed to do that have brought pain and suffering and injustice to others, and to love him and to love one another, and to accept his gift of forgiveness and redemption through faith and repentance.

Some have imagined that in bearing our sins Christ somehow experienced each of our sins individually in some mystical, omniscient way. We believe what he experiences was the consequence of our sins—or of anyone’s sins, and not our sins themselves. It seems to us that to experience, even vicariously, anger or hate or covetousness or lust is to be angry, hateful, covetous or lustful. Whereas, to experience the consequence of such sins is to experience the pangs of conscience and alienation, and the withdrawal of violating the royal law of love. In Jesus’ case, that involved descending below all things, even to the lowest hell, by experiencing complete abandonment and withdrawal of the powers of heaven. (Owen K. Peterson, The Joy of our Redemption: An LDS Scriptural Journey [4th rev.; 2017], 69 n. 1)