[T]he Godhead are one God in the sense that they are of exactly the same mind and heart in everything they do with us here on earth. The concept of unity or oneness is foundational in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the basic and essential message inherent in the otherwise abstract English word atonement, “at-one-ment,” or the idea of becoming one. So much alike are the three members of the Godhead that if we know one, we know the others. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one God (2 Nephi 31:21; Alma 11:44; 3 Nephi 11:36; D&C 20:28).
D. Kelly Ogden, Andrew C. Skinner, Verse by Verse, the Book of Mormon Volume 1: First Nephi - Alma 29. pg 31
1. We all know sin. We are inescapably moral by nature in that we cannot evade the question that finally comes into all reflection: "Am I justified?" We have eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and find the self of action tragically divided against the self of belief.
These are things we all know about. And if we are Christians we also know something about a claim which is incredible to most men —the claim that these estrangements can uniquely be healed through the Atonement of Christ. Atonement —a word whose pronunciation disguises its meaning, which is literally at one ment, a bringing to unity, a reconciliation of that which is estranged: man and man, man and God, or man and himself. That Atonement re- mains, as Paul described it, "unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." We have no greater need than that there be a force of healing in all our public and inner strife: that there be some source of forgiveness and change for the oppressor as well as help for the oppressed; that there be something large enough in love to reach past the wrongs we each have done and can never fully make restitution for; that there be hope in the possibility that any man can be renewed by specific means to a life of greater justice and mercy toward others. But for most men the claim that such a possibility truly exists is scandalous.
The scandal to humanistic man is the idea that man cannot go it alone —that his reason will not save him. Knowing what is right is not enough; there must be power to do what is right, and men (as the appalling organized evil of this century has reminded us), no matter how sophisticated or civilized they become, continue to act against what they know is right — their additional knowledge and merely efficient reason capable of becoming, in fact, more powerful means of doing evil. The scandal to the non-Christian is that God would take the necessary reconciliation upon himself, but is somehow unable to do it except by descending below all men into particular events in the history of the Jews and finally into the particular body and life of one man, Jesus of Nazareth —and that as a man he would enter the full range of human experience, including the very thing he was to save us from, estrangement itself. The scandal to the non- Mormon is the claim by a contemporary church of special insight into the meaning and means of the Atonement and of special authority in making it efficacious in the lives of men. (ENGLAND: The Gift of Atonement/142 & 143)
2. The Atonement is a necessary, but not sufficient, factor in men's
salvation from sin —necessary because no one else can fully motivate the process in the free agent, man, and insufficient because man must respond and complete the process. There is no reason to imagine God being unable to forgive. The question is what effect will the forgiveness have; the forgiveness is meaningless unless it leads to repentance. T h e forgiveness extended in the dramatic events of the Atonement is that kind of forgiveness uniquely capable of bring- ing "means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance." In other words, the forgiveness must be accepted in order to be efficacious: "For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he received not the gift" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:33) . As Paul Tillich has pointed out, the most difficult thing for man to do is accept his acceptance, to accept the fact that God accepts him, loves him —freely —even in his sins. Man's usual nature in his dealings with other men and, most important to my point here, in his dealings with himself, is to demand satisfaction before he can accept, to demand justice before he can forgive. This is not Christ's way and therefore his love (and the love which he tells us we can develop in response to that love) is redemptive. It has a quality of mercy which allows us to be at one with ourselves and thus gain the strength to be the new person that our sense of justice in the first place demanded that we be. We do not repent in order that God will forgive us and atone for our sins, but rather God atones for our sins and begins the process of forgiveness, by extend- ing unconditional love to us, in order that we might repent and thus bring to conclusion the process of forgiveness. And the center of the experience somehow is Christ's ability to break through the barrier of justice, in those men who can somehow freely respond, with the shock of eternal love expressed in Gethsemane. It comes to us only through our deep knowledge of that event and our involvement in the process of sustaining that knowledge in our lives, through the continual reminding of ourselves of the event and recommitment to the implications of it which occurs in the ordinances of the Gospel. The process is a complex one, an ongoing one. It may be triggered by particular events and have climaxes, but essentially it is a lifelong process —one beautifully described towards the end of the Book of Mormon in these words from the prophet Mormon to his son Moroni:
. . . repentance is unto them that are under condemnation and under the curse of a broken law. And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which comforter filleth with hope and perfect love. . . . (Moroni 8:24-26)
3. About 600 years before Christ was born, a young man living in Jerusalem, seeking confirmation of his father's spiritual experiences, was given a remarkable vision:
. . . I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin. . . . And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdst thou? And I said unto him: a virgin most beautiful and fair above all other virgins. And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things. And he said unto me: Behold the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh. . . . And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father. (I Nephi 11:13-21)
After further explanation by the Angel, Nephi continues,
"And the angel said unto me again: Look and behold the condescension of God! And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my Father had spoken" (I Nephi 11:26-27).
We have here an important insight into the Atonement of Christ, an insight preserved by this young man and his people in their religious history as they journeyed to America and until their descend- ants six hundred years later welcomed Christ there after his death and resurrection. The word chosen by Joseph Smith in his translation is crucial: condescension — descending with. Christ is the descending of God with man into all that man experiences, including his estrangement, and this is somehow the heart of the power of the Atonement.
Many years after this group of people had arrived in America, one of their great prophet-kings named Benjamin, approaching old age and death, gathered his people together to declare to them a great revelation of understanding that had come to him. After re- minding them in very colorful terms of the implications of their human tendency to sin and the effects of guilt upon a man —"which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of God, and doth fill his breast with guilt, pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever" — King Benjamin tells them of a vision that had come to him of an event still
125 years in the future:
For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay. . . .
And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, fatique, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death: for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.
And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.
And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name (Mosiah 3:5,7-9)
Here for the first time chronologically in all known scripture we have a clear reference to what seems to be the central experience of that part of Christ's Atonement that concerns our individual sins: "Behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people." This is not a description of what occurred on the cross, but of what occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane in that night when Christ participated fully in the fearful loneliness that lies at the extremity of human experience — participated somehow in the anguish of estrangement. Christ descended, through capabilities which only he had as the literal Son of God, into the fullness, both in depth and breadth, of human guilt. We begin to get clearer insight into what occurred in that Garden through a revelation given by the Lord Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith in 1830.
Therefore 1 command you to repent — repent, lest . . . your sufferings be sore —how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For Behold, I , God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent: But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit — and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink — Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. (Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-19)
Although we certainly can't begin to understand all that happened in Gethsemane, especially how it happened, we can begin to feel the impact in our hearts of the divine love expressed there.
Jesus Christ has somehow created the greatest possibility we can imagine: that our common lot of meaninglessness and alienation can be redeemed, that we might not suffer if we would repent. The God who planned and created and who directs our earth experience, who sent us here into tragic risk and suffering because only here could we experience further growth in his likeness, has sent his son, not only to guide and teach us through his revelations and his life, but to enter willingly into the depths of man's life and redeem him —not offering solutions without knowing the pain of the problem and not setting prior conditions, but taking into himself the fullness of pain in all human estrangement in some awful awareness of the full force of human evil. Because the love is unconditionally offered and comes freely from the same person who gives us our standard of right and will eventually judge us, it has the power to release man from the barrier of his own guilt and give him the strength to repent.
The effect of King Benjamin's revelation on his people was immediate and dramatic. After hearing his words,
. . . they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come. . . . And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceeding great joy. And we are willing to enter ito a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments and all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days. . . . (Mosiah 5:2-5)
King Benjamin responded,
Ye have spoken the words that I desired; And, now, because o£ the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually be- gotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name. . . . And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye shall be obedient unto the end of your lives. (Mosiah 5:6-8)
A great thing is occurring here —the formation of a Christian community in 125 B.C. as a group of people respond in faith to the possibility that they can be at one with themselves through means provided by Christ. Struck to the heart by the meaning of God's love extended to them in the midst of their estrangement from him and themselves, they experience a mighty change which leads them into a covenant and the covenant sustains a process of development through continual repentance toward the image of Christ. (ENGLAND: The Gift of Atonement/145-148)
Talmage, James E. (1915) Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to the Holy Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern. Chapter 3: “The Need of a Redeemer”
Through the atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ—a redeeming service, vicariously rendered in behalf of mankind, all of whom have become estranged from God by the effects of sin both inherited and individually incurred—the way is opened for a reconciliation whereby man may come again into communion with God, and be made fit to dwell anew and forever in the presence of his Eternal Father. This basal thought is admirably implied in our English word, “atonement,” which, as its syllables attest, is at-one-ment, “denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into agreement of those who have been estranged.”v The effect of the atonement may be conveniently considered as twofold:
1—The universal redemption of the human race from death invoked by the fall of our first parents; and,
2—Salvation, whereby means of relief from the results of individual sin are provided.
The victory over death was made manifest in the resurrection of the crucified Christ; He was the first to pass from death to immortality and so is justly known as “the first fruits of them that slept.”w That the resurrection of the dead so inaugurated is to be extended to every one who has or shall have lived is proved by an abundance of scriptural evidence. Following our Lord’s resurrection, others who had slept in the tomb arose and were seen of many, not as spirit-apparitions but as resurrected beings possessing immortalized bodies: “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”
Talmage, James E. (1919) The Articles of Faith: A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lecture IV, “The Atonement, and Salvation. 1-3, Page 77
The Atonement of Christ is taught as a leading doctrine by all sects professing Christianity. The expression is so common a one, and the essential point of its signification is so generally admitted, that definitions may appear to be superfluous; nevertheless, there is a peculiar importance attached to the use of the word atonement, in a theological sense. The doctrine of the atonement comprises proof of the divinity of Christ's earthly ministry; and the vicarious nature of His death, as a fore-ordained and voluntary sacrifice, intended for and efficacious as a propitiation for the sins of mankind, thus becoming the means whereby salvation may be obtained.
The New Testament, which is properly regarded as the scripture of Christ's mission among men, is imbued throughout with the doctrine of salvation through the work of atonement wrought by the Savior; and yet the word atonement, occurs but once in the whole record; and in that single instance, according to the opinion of most biblical authorities, it is confessedly misused. The instance referred to is found in the words of Paul addressed to the saints at Rome:—"But we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."[191] The marginal rendering gives, instead of atonement, reconciliation, and of this word a related form is used in the preceding verse. A consistent translation, giving a full agreement between the English and the Greek, would make the verse quoted, and that immediately preceding it, read in this way:—"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation."[192] The term atonement occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament, and with marked frequency in three of the books of the Pentateuch, viz.: Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers; and the sense in which it is employed is invariably that of a sacrifice of propitiation, usually associated with the death of an acceptable victim, whereby reconciliation was to be effected between God and His creatures.
The structure of the word in its present form is suggestive of this, the true meaning; it is literally at-one-ment, "denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into agreement of those who have been estranged."[193] And such is the significance of the saving sacrifice of the Redeemer, whereby He expiated the transgression of the Fall, through which came death into the world, and provided ready and efficient means for man's attainment of immortality through reconciliation with God.
Riddle, Chauncey C. (1989) Doctrines for Exaltation: The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants, “The New and Everlasting Covenant.” Page 234, 241-242
When we examine the etymological roots of the word atonement, we find that in Old English there was a regular expression used to say that people became “at one.” This was sometimes spelled as two words, sometimes as one. The concept was a bringing together, an arranging of agreement, a uniting of hitherto estranged parties. The process by which this uniting was achieved was in English appropriately denominated “at-one-ment.” When a word was desired to express what our Savior accomplishes in our behalf, no better word could be found than the word “at-one-ment,” which we have come to pronounce atonement. This English word is the transaltion of the Hebrew kaphar, which means, among other things, to cover, and the Greek word katallag, which means to change in an intensive way and also to reconcile. The Savior’s atonement does cover our sins, and change our nature, and reconcile us to the Father.
My understanding is that our Savior’s atonement is the general descriptive term that covers all of his labors to exalt mankind from the moment he said, “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever,” to the great and last day when he will present his children spotless before Father for Father’s acceptation unto exaltation. As it is the task of men to learn to love God with all their heart, might, mind, and strength, so we can see that it is the task of our Savior’s atonement to enable men to love God with all their heart, might, mind, and strength.
…
Human beings may be saved only by binding themselves to Christ. It is as if our task were to stand straight and tall before Father, but because of the Fall, we are broken and twisted. The Savior is our straight and tall splint. If we bind ourselves to him, wrap strong covenants around us and him that progressively draw us up into his form and nature, then we can become righteous as he is and can be saved. But without him we are nothing…
If a human being endures to the end in the new and everlasting covenant, until he is literally transformed into the stature of Christ in heart, might, mind, and strength, then he may love God with all of his heart, might, mind, and strength. And if he then endures to the end of mortal life in that same condition, unfailingly enacting that same love, that new nature will become his eternal nature. He becomes one with God, part of God, also to work for the immortality and eternal life of man forever, as gods.
Thus the purpose of the new and everlasting covenant is to provide a means whereby every human being may come to be able to fulfill the first covenant, to do all things whatsoever their God commands them. But the first covenant cannot be fulfilled by one who has sinned. Therefore it is only through living vicariously in Christ that any mortal fulfills the first covenant and thereby is enabled to become exalted. Thus Christ wrought eternal life for us in love by satisfying justice for us vicariously. He extends mercy to all who will learn to love until their love can satisfy the demands of Father’s justice. The new and everlasting covenant is our detour whereby our Savior strengthens us until we can tread the narrow way of justice and mercy on our own.
Thus the new and everlasting covenant is a special case of the first covenant, that which enables sinners to yet claim the blessing of exaltation in eternity, even though they themselves, by themselves, do not merit such blessings and are at first unable to receive such blessings. Only in and through Christ may they inherit, through his worthiness.
Our Savior kept the first covenant and was exalted by it. Had he sinned, there could have been no one to at-one him with Father. Because of his faithfulness in the first covenant, the second, or new and everlasting, covenant was made possible, that all of us may share his blessings with him for all eternity.
“The literal meaning of the word atonement is self-evident: at-one-ment, the act of unifying or bringing together what has been separated or estranged. The atonement of Christ was indispensable because of the separating transgression, or fall, of Adam, which brought death into the world. In the words of Moroni, “By Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ…; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man. And because of the redemption of man,…they are brought back into the presence of the Lord.” (Mormon 9:12-13)
Holland, J. R. (2006). Chapter Ten: The Atonement. In Christ and the new covenant (pp. 195). Deseret Book Co.
"To help his sons and daughters remember their promises to him--and certainly to help them remember his promises to them--God has directed that the nature and significance of those covenants be recorded. In that process, the texts and documents preserving such promises have also been called 'covenants.' In fact, the words 'testament' and 'covenant' are virtually synonymous in their theological usage, the Latin definition of 'testament' being 'a covenant with God, holy scripture.' Thus, the Old and New Testaments, as we commonly refer to them, are written testimonies or witnesses (the Latin 'testis' meaning 'witness') of the covenants between God and man in various dispensations. Furthermore, such covenants always deal with the central issue between perfect, immortal God and imperfect, mortal man--why they are separated and how they can again unite. The Latin root for 'covenant' is 'convenire,' 'to agree, unite, come together.' In short, all covenants, all testaments, all holy witnesses since the beginning have essentially been about one thing--the atonement of Jesus Christ, the 'at-one-ment' provided every man, woman, and child if they will but receive the witness, the 'testi'-mony of the prophets and apostles, and honor the terms of that coming together, that 'convenire,' or covenant, whose central feature is always the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God himself."
Holland, J. R. (2006). Chapter One: "The New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon." In Christ and the new covenant (pp. 8). Deseret Book Co.
“This allegory as recounted by Jacob is from the outset intended to be about Christ. …
“Even as the Lord of the vineyard and his workers strive to bolster, prune, purify, and otherwise make productive their trees in what amounts to a one-chapter historical sketch of the scattering and gathering of Israel, the deeper meaning of the Atonement undergirds and overarches their labors. In spite of cuttings and graftings and nourishings that mix and mingle trees in virtually all parts of the vineyard, it is bringing them back to their source that is the principal theme of this allegory. Returning, repenting, reuniting—at-one-ment—this is the message throughout.
“… At least fifteen times the Lord of the vineyard expresses a desire to bring the vineyard and its harvest to his ‘own self,’ and he laments no less than eight times, ‘It grieveth me that I should lose this tree.’ One student of the allegory says it should take its place beside the parable of the prodigal son, inasmuch as both stories ‘make the Lord’s mercy so movingly memorable.’
“Clearly this at-one-ment is hard, demanding, and, at times, deeply painful work, as the work of redemption always is. There is digging and dunging. There is watering and nourishing and pruning. And there is always the endless approaches to grafting—all to one saving end, that the trees of the vineyard would ‘thrive exceedingly’ and become ‘one body; … the fruits [being] equal,’ with the Lord of the vineyard having ‘preserved unto himself the … fruit.’ From all the distant places of sin and alienation in which the children of the Father find themselves, it has always been the work of Christ (and his disciples) in every dispensation to gather them, heal them, and unite them with their Master” (Christ and the New Covenant [1997], 165–66).
"[M]ortal life, glorious as it is, was never the ultimate objective of God’s plan. Life and death here on planet Earth were merely means to an end—not the end for which we were sent.
That brings us to the Atonement. Paul said, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The Atonement of Jesus Christ became the immortal creation. He volunteered to answer the ends of a law previously transgressed. And by the shedding of His blood, His and our physical bodies could become perfected. They could again function without blood, just as Adam’s and Eve’s did in their paradisiacal form. Paul taught that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; … this mortal must put on immortality.”
Meaning of Atonement
With this background in mind, let us now ponder the deep meaning of the word atonement. In the English language, the components are at-one-ment, suggesting that a person is at one with another. Other languages employ words that connote either expiation or reconciliation. Expiation means 'to atone for.' Reconciliation comes from Latin roots 're-', meaning 'again'; '-con', meaning 'with'; and 'sella', meaning 'seat.' Reconciliation, therefore, literally means 'to sit again with.'
Rich meaning is found in study of the word atonement in the Semitic languages of Old Testament times. In Hebrew, the basic word for atonement is 'kaphar,' a verb that means 'to cover' or 'to forgive.' Closely related is the Aramaic and Arabic word 'kafat,' meaning “a close embrace”—no doubt related to the Egyptian ritual embrace. References to that embrace are evident in the Book of Mormon. One states that 'the Lord hath redeemed my soul … ; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.' Another proffers the glorious hope of our being 'clasped in the arms of Jesus.'
I weep for joy when I contemplate the significance of it all. To be redeemed is to be atoned—received in the close embrace of God with an expression not only of His forgiveness, but of our oneness of heart and mind. What a privilege! And what a comfort to those of us with loved ones who have already passed from our family circle through the gateway we call death!"
Nelson, Russel M. (1996). "The Atonement." October General Conference
"How the Atonement was wrought, we do not know. No mortal watched as evil turned away and hid in shame before the light of that pure being.
All wickedness could not quench that light. When what was done was done, the ransom had been paid. Both death and hell forsook their claim on all who would repent. Men at last were free. Then every soul who ever lived could choose to touch that light and be redeemed.
By this infinite sacrifice, through this atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.
Atonement is really three words: At-one-ment, meaning to set at one, one with God; to reconcile, to conciliate, to expiate.
But did you know that the word atonement appears only once in the English New Testament? Only once! I quote from Paul’s letter to the Romans:
'Christ died for us. …
'We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
'And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement' (Rom. 5:8, 10–11; italics added).
Only that once does the word atonement appear in the English New Testament. Atonement, of all words! It was not an unknown word, for it had been used much in the Old Testament in connection with the law of Moses, once only in the New Testament. I find that to be remarkable."
Packer, Boyd K. (1988). "Atonement, Agency, Accountability." April General Conference.
"The Atonement was the foreordained but voluntary act of the Only Begotten Son of God in which He offered His life and spiritual anguish as a redeeming ransom for the effect of the Fall of Adam upon all mankind and for the personal sins of all who repent.
The literal meaning of the English word Atonement is self-evident: at-one-ment, the bringing together of things that have been separated or estranged. The Atonement of Jesus Christ was indispensable because of the separating transgression, or Fall, of Adam, which brought two kinds of death into the world when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Physical death brought the separation of the spirit from the body, and spiritual death brought the estrangement of both the spirit and the body from God. As a result of the Fall, all persons born into mortality would suffer these two kinds of death. But we must remember the Fall was an essential part of Heavenly Father’s divine plan. Without it no mortal children would have been born to Adam and Eve, and there would have been no human family to experience opposition and growth, moral agency, and the joy of resurrection, redemption, and eternal life."
Holland, Jeffrey R. (2008). "The Atonement of Jesus Christ." March Liahona
"The basic doctrines of the holy Atonement relate first to the transgression of Adam and Eve and to our personal sins. The Fall subjected Adam and Eve and their children to death, sin, and other characteristics of mortality that separated them from God. To allow mankind again to be “at one” with God, divine justice required compensation for these consequences of the Fall. God’s mercy allowed the Savior to make that compensation through the great 'at-one-ment.'"
"Life is a school, a place for us to learn and grow. We, like Adam and Eve, experience 'growing pains' through the sorrow and contamination of a lone and dreary world. These experiences may include sin, but they also include mistakes, disappointments, and the undeserved pain of adversity. The blessed news of the gospel is that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can purify all the uncleanness and sweeten all the bitterness we taste.
We might think of the degree of our personal fault for the bad things that happen in our lives as a continuum ranging from sin to adversity, with the degree of our fault dropping from high at one end of the spectrum to zero at the other. At the “sin” end of the continuum, we bear grave responsibility, for we bring the bitter fruits of sin fully upon ourselves. But at the other end of the spectrum, marked by 'adversity,' we may bear no responsibility at all. The bitterness of adversity may come to us, as it did to Job in the Old Testament, regardless of our actual, conscious fault.
Along this fault-level continuum, between the poles of sin and adversity, lie such intermediate points as unwise choices and hasty judgments. In these cases, it may be unclear just how much personal fault we bear for the bitter fruits we may taste or cause others to taste. Bitterness may taste the same, whatever its source, and it can destroy our peace, break our hearts, and separate us from God. Could it be that the great 'at-one-ment' of Christ could put back together the broken parts and give beauty to the ashes of experience such as this?
I believe that it does, because tasting the bitter in all its forms is a deliberate part of the great plan of life. This consequence of the Fall was not just a terrible mistake; rather, it gives mortality its profound meaning: 'They taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good.' (Moses 6:55; italics added.)"
"The purpose of the endowment of charity is not merely to cause Christ’s followers to engage in charitable acts toward others, desirable as that is. The ultimate purpose is to transform his followers to become like him: 'he hath bestowed [this love] upon all who are true followers of his Son, … that when he shall appear we shall be like him.' (Moro. 7:48.) 'At-one-ment' thus seems to mean not only being with God, but also being like God."
"People are usually surprised to learn that atonement, an accepted theological term, comes from neither a Greek nor a Latin word, but is good old English and really does mean, when we write it out, “at-one-ment,” denoting both a state of being “at one” with another and the process by which that end is achieved.
The word atonement appears only once in the New Testament (Rom. 5:11 in the King James Version), and in the Revised Standard Version it does not appear at all, the translators preferring the more familiar word reconciliation. (See also footnote to Rom. 5:11 in the LDS edition of the King James Version.) Reconciliation is a very good word for atonement there, since it means literally to be seated again with someone (re-con-silio)—so that atonement is to be reunited with God, just as Paul said: “[The Lord] sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High.”
The Greek word translated as “reconciliation” is katallagein. It is a business term, which the lexicon tells us means “exchange, esp. of money; … change from enmity to friendship, reconciliation; … reconciliation of sinners with God.”2 It is the return to the status ante quo, whether as a making of peace or a settlement of debt.
The monetary metaphor is by far the most common, being the simplest and easiest to understand. Hence, frequently the word redemption literally means “to buy back”—that is, to reacquire something you owned previously. Thus, Moses said: “But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh.” (Deut. 7:8.)"
In Semitic languages, where one root can have many meanings, the first rule is always to look for the basic or literal meaning of the word, which in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic usually takes us back to early days and simple homely affairs of life in the desert or the countryside. One simple physical act often triggers a long line of derivatives—meanings which are perfectly reasonable if one takes the most obvious steps from one to the next, but which can end up miles from the starting-place.
The basic word for atonement is kafar, which has the same basic meaning in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic—that being “to bend, arch over, cover; 2) [to pass over with one’s palm &c., to wipe out, rub] … to deny, … to forgive, … to be expiated, … renounce.”3
The Arabic kafara puts the emphasis on a tight squeeze, such as tucking in the skirts, drawing a thing close to oneself. Closely related are Aramaic4 and Arabic kafata,5 meaning a close embrace, which are certainly related to the Egyptian hpt,6 the common ritual embrace written with the ideogram of embracing arms. Hpt may be cognate with the Latin capto7 and the Persian kaftan,8 a monk’s robe and hood completely embracing the body.
Most interesting is the Arabic kafata,9 as it is the key to a dramatic situation. It was the custom for one fleeing for his life in the desert to seek protection in the tent of a great sheik, crying out, “Ana dakhiluka,” meaning “I am thy suppliant,” whereupon the host would place the hem of his robe over the guest’s shoulder and declare him under his protection. In one instance in the Book of Mormon we see Nephi fleeing from an evil enemy that is pursuing him. In great danger, he prays the Lord to give him an open road in the low way, to block his pursuers, and to make them stumble. He comes to the Lord as a suppliant: “O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies!” (2 Ne. 4:33.) In reply, according to the ancient custom, the Master would then place the hem of his robe protectively over the kneeling man’s shoulder (kafata). This puts him under the Lord’s protection from all enemies. They embrace in a close hug, as Arab chiefs still do; the Lord makes a place for him (see Alma 5:24) and invites him to sit down beside him—they are at-one.
This is the imagery of the Atonement—the embrace: “The Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.” (2 Ne. 1:15.)
“Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.” (Alma 5:33.)
This is the hpt—the ritual embrace that consummates the final escape from death in the Egyptian funerary texts and reliefs, where the son Horus is received into the arms of his father Osiris.
In Israel, when the sacrifices and sin offerings were completed on the Day of Atonement, the high priest went to the door of the kapporet to receive assurance from the Lord that He had accepted the offerings and repentance of the people and forgiven them their sins: “At the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee.” (Ex. 29:42.) The kapporet is usually assumed to be the lid of the ark of the covenant, yet it fits much better with the front, since one stands before it.10 The Septuagint, the old Greek text of the Bible, makes the verse clearer: I will meet you at the “door of the tent of the testimony in the presence of the Lord, on which occasion I shall make myself known to you that I might converse with you.”
The setting is clarified in the Gospel of Luke when Zacharias, a direct descendant of Aaron (as was also his wife), entered behind the veil into the Holy of Holies (naon tou kuriou, the skene or tent of the Old Testament) while people waited on the outside. (See Luke 1:9–10.) He did not meet the Lord, but rather his personal representative, a messenger of the Lord standing beside the altar, who identified himself as “Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.” (See Luke 1:11, 19.)
The news was about a great at-one-ment that was to take place in which the children would “turn to the Lord their God” while the “hearts of the fathers” would be turned again [epistrepsai] “to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:16–17.) It is all a preparation for a great bringing together again through the ordinance of baptism after they had been separated by the Fall: “I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and … Aaron and his sons, … and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and be their God.” (Ex. 29:44–45.) They will all be one happy family forever.
It must be admitted that other societies seem to share the tradition. The most notable is the grasp of the situation by the Greek dramatists, whose plays in fact were religious presentations, the main theme of the tragedies being the purging of guilt. No one ever stated the problem of man’s condition more clearly than the great Greek dramatists. They show us what life is without the Atonement, for their view of life, like that of all the ancients, is a profoundly tragic one.
The standard tragedy begins with something gone very wrong. After all, that is the way the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants also begin—in the one case, that “great city Jerusalem [is about to] be destroyed” (1 Ne. 1:4); in the other, “peace [is about to] be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion” (D&C 1:35). Things are not as they should be in the world; nothing short of immediate destruction is in the offing. Someone must be responsible. Why? Because things don’t just happen; therefore, appeal must be made to the oracle. Long before Aeschylus’s The Suppliant Maidens (the earliest Greek tragedy), in which Danaus seeks favor at the altars of the Pelasgian gods as an enemy approaches, we find the same dramatic scene as Moses stands before the people and cries out, “Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” (Ex. 32:30.) For the people had turned to the golden calf and were smitten with the plague.
But who is guilty? Not just one person, certainly; society has its part to play in making us what we are and do. Should all the society be punished, then? How do we apportion the blame when all share in it? We cannot. The law of Moses insists with great strictness that every individual man, woman, and child above age twenty, rich and poor, shall pay “ransom for his soul” of exactly the same amount—one-half shekel, no more, no less. (See Ex. 30:11–16.) Just as sweeping is the provision that God “commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent” (3 Ne. 11:32) and to keep repenting as long as our days are extended for that express purpose. We are all in it together.
To satisfy both offended justice and offended Deity, something must be done. Appeasement, payment, settlement—call it what you will—it must restore the old unity of the heavenly and the human order; it must bring about at-one-ment of the two. And what payment or sacrifice is sufficient to do that? The usual practice throughout the ancient world was to sacrifice the king, who after all took credit for victory and prosperity and was answerable when they failed.
Joseph Smith took the gospel of Christ back even before Abraham to Adam and beyond, revealing the Atonement as “the plan of redemption … prepared from the foundation of the world” (Alma 12:30)—that is, when it was approved at the Council in Heaven. This event is often mentioned in the earliest Christian and Jewish literature, one of the most notable texts being the “Discourse on Abbaton” by Timothy, Archbishop of Alexandria (circa A.D. 380). When the plan was voted on, according to this account and others, it was turned down. The earth herself complained, as in the Book of Moses and other Enoch literature, of the defilement it would bring upon her, knowing the kind of inhabitants to come (see Moses 7:48–49); and the heavenly host objected to a plan that would cause such a vast amount of sin and suffering.
The Only Begotten broke the deadlock by volunteering to go down and pay the price. This opened the way; the plan could go forward; and the sons of God and the morning stars all sang and shouted for joy (see Job 38:7) in a great creation hymn that has left an indelible mark in ancient literature and ritual. The Lord had made it all possible, leaving men their agency, and obeying the Father in all things. But Satan and his followers refused to accept the majority vote; for that, Satan was deprived of his glory in a reversal of the ritual endowment and was cast out of heaven, which was the reverse of at-one-ment.
Only in such a context does the Atonement, otherwise so baffling, take on its full significance. There is not a word among those translated as “atonement” which does not plainly indicate the return to a former state or condition; one rejoins the family, returns to the Father, becomes united, reconciled, embracing and sitting down happily with others after a sad separation. We want to get back, but to do that, we must resist the alternative: being taken into the community of “the prince of this world.” (John 12:31.)
Jacob, contemplating our possibilities here on earth both for dissolution and salvation, breaks out into an ecstatic cry of wonder and awe: “O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace!” (2 Ne. 9:8.) For God has provided the resurrection as the first step to a physical at-one-ment, a resurrection which is indispensable to saving our spirits as well—they, too, must be atoned, for when Adam yielded to the adversary at the Fall (the common experience of all who become accountable), it was the spirit that committed the act of disobedience and independence, and the spirit could not undo that which was done. In the next verse Jacob gives a concise summary of the situation:
“And our spirits must have become like unto him [Satan], and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God [for no unclean thing can dwell in his presence, and being shut out is the utter reverse of at-one-ment], and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who … transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.” (2 Ne. 9:9.)
The part about the angel of light is important to let us know that Satan is with us as a regular member of the group; he does not show himself as a Halloween horror—that point is vital in establishing the reality of the scene.
What is the justification for Jacob’s alarming statement of total loss without atonement? For the answer, look around you! In the next verse Jacob describes our condition as Homer does that of his heroes—“all those noble spirits” caught like rats in a trap16—doomed ahead of time, but for the Atonement: “O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape [we are caught!] from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.” By this atonement, “the temporal, shall deliver up its dead”—that is, from the grave—but more important, “the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead.” That is the death that really is hell—“which spiritual death is hell.” So now we have them both, body and spirit, brought together—another at-one-ment, “restored one to the other.” (2 Ne. 9:10–12.)
And how, pray, is this all done? Not by a syllogism or an argument or an allegory or even a ceremony; “it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.” (2 Ne. 9:12.) Thus, another outburst from Jacob: “O how great [is] the plan of our God!” (2 Ne. 9:13; italics added.)
The law leads us back home; the at-one-ment takes place when we get there. In other words, the law is all preparation. Everything we do here is to prepare for the Atonement:
“Therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state … which is after the resurrection of the dead.” (Alma 12:24.)
The early Christians also taught that, as this life is a preparation for the next, so in the premortal existence we had to prepare for this one.1 To reach a stage in which the test would be meaningful—the plan itself being “prepared from the foundation of the world,” well ahead of time and well understood by those who accepted it there—angels were sent to remind men of that preparation. (See Alma 12:28–30; Alma 13:2–5.)
Before approaching the tabernacle or tent covering the ark, Aaron and his sons would be washed at the gate (see Ex. 29:4); then they would be clothed with the ephod, apron, and sash (Ex. 29:5), and a mitre, a flat cap or pad which may have been meant to support the weight of a crown, was placed on their heads (Ex. 29:6). The priests were also anointed with oil (Ex. 29:7) and consecrated or set apart (Ex. 29:9). Then they put their hands upon the head of a bullock (Ex. 29:10), transferring their guilt to the animal, which was slain. Its blood was put upon the horns of the altar (Ex. 29:12), which represented the four corners of the world. Two rams were then slain, and their blood was sprinkled on the altar as an atonement for all; then blood from the second ram was placed upon the right ear and right thumb of Aaron. (See Ex. 29:15–20.) The blood was also sprinkled over the garments of the priests (Ex. 29:21), who then ate parts of the ram with bread, Aaron and his sons “eat[ing] those things wherewith the atonement was made” (Ex. 29:22–24, 32–33). Each day for seven days, a bullock was offered for atonement. (Ex. 29:36–37.) Then the Lord received the high priest at the tent door, the veil (in Lev. 16:17–19, the high priest alone enters the tabernacle), and conversed with him (Ex. 29:42), accepting the sin offering, sanctifying the priests and people, and receiving them into his company to “dwell among the children of Israel, and [to] be their God” (Ex. 29:45).
This order is clearly reflected in D&C 101:23: “And prepare for the revelation which is to come, when the veil of the covering of my temple, in my tabernacle, which hideth the earth, shall be taken off, and all flesh shall see me together.” What an at-one-ment that will be!
In Latter-day Saint doctrine, the Atonement of Christ is far from being a merely theological, philosophical, or psychological exercise. At-one-ment fulfills the measure of man’s creation and is the culmination of the plan of salvation. As such, it requires more than our casual attention as we live out our days on earth. No detached intellectualism; no frenzied quick-fixes; no “cheap grace,” as Bonhoffer put it. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. … Costly grace is … the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. … It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”15
The “only true life” requires a lifetime of obedience (see Matt. 7:21) and cleanliness before God (see 3 Ne. 27:19). It is specifically a matter of covenants, to which one must be true and faithful before overcoming this world and finding at-one-ment in the world to come. (See Rev. 3:21.)
Being guilty of the blood and sins of your generation, you may not “have a place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white.” (Alma 5:24.) This is nothing less than the yeshivah, literally “sitting down” in the presence of God.16
Note that there are two kinds of blood-stained garments here—the one showing the blood and sins of this world, the other attesting (for Alma expressly states that “these things testify”) that Aaron and his sons have completed the sacrifice of the Lamb and thus cleansed the people of their defilements, and their garments are white. The blood that washes garments clean is not the blood that defiles them, just as the serpent that healed the people in the wilderness was not the serpent that killed. (See Num. 21:9.)
It is on that principle of paradoxical opposites that Satan’s participation in our lives is to be explained. If we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of [God’s] love” (2 Ne. 1:15), we can also be “encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction” (Alma 5:7); and if we can be perfectly united in the at-one-ment, we can also be “cast out” (Alma 5:25), separated and split off forever—our names “blotted out, that the names of the wicked … shall not be mingled with the names of my people” (Alma 5:57).
If we would have God “apply the atoning blood of Christ” (Mosiah 4:2) to our case, we can also reject it. We can take advantage of it, or we can refuse it. The Atonement is either dead to us or in full effect. It is the supreme sacrifice made for us, and to receive it, we must live up to every promise and covenant related to it—the Day of Atonement was the day of covenants, and the place was the temple.
We cannot keep ourselves chaste in a casual and convenient way, nor can we accept chastity as St. Augustine did, as to be operative at some future time—“God give me chastity and continency, only not yet.”1 We cannot enjoy optional obedience to the laws of God, or place our own limits on the law of sacrifice, or mitigate the charges of righteous conduct connected with living the gospel. We cannot be willing to sacrifice only that which is convenient to part with, and then expect a reward. The Atonement is everything; it is not to be had “on the cheap.” God is not mocked in these things; we do not make promises and covenants with mental reservations. Unless we keep our covenants, Satan has power over us—a condition we can easily recognize by the mist of fraud and deception that has enveloped our whole society.
Atonement is both individual and collective. That is what Zion is—the people must be “of one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18), not only one with each other, but one with the Lord. So in 3 Nephi 11, after the Lord had contact with every member of the multitude personally, “one by one” (3 Ne. 11:15), “when they had all gone forth and had witnessed for themselves, they did cry out with one accord, saying: Hosannah! Blessed be the name of the Most High God! And they did fall down at the feet of Jesus, and did worship him” (3 Ne. 11:16–17). That was a true at-one-ment.
For the pre-neo-Darwinist Korihor, the Atonement was nothing but wishful thinking, “the effect of a frenzied mind.” (Alma 30:16.) But as Lord Raglan has shown at length, such a doctrine is the last thing in the world that a seeker for an easy and blissfully happy land would invent.4 The rigorous terms of the Atonement, which demands the active participation of all its beneficiaries and passes the bitter cup of sacrifice to all of them, has made it unpopular to the point of total rejection by the general public—hardly a product of wishful thinking or human invention!
But is that other world—the world of at-one-ment with God—any more real? It is the standard by which we judge this one. It is hard to argue with the voices that keep telling us that we are strangers here, that there must be some better place. Whence this nostalgia, the “intimations of immortality” of which Wordsworth spoke,5 the yearning for the good, true, and beautiful, the ideal which we recognize in Plato’s anamnesis? It is so vivid and compelling that we must actually fight to suppress it.
Many birds and animals have a powerful and mysterious homing instinct that drives them for thousands of miles. This is real. When we feel overpowering nostalgia, can it be ignored as utterly meaningless? Our growing revulsion to this mad world is matched by a growing yearning for another that can become very real for us. We can recognize the pieces of a more complete and perfect order surviving in the wreckage around us. From all of this, we can easily reconstruct or imagine a more perfect antetype. We would not come down here unless something was to be done; the work is not finished, the story is not over. There is something very powerful at work beyond our world and our ken.
In matters of atonement, the scriptures engage us in a very serious, thoughtful, and lifelong project; but the minimal involvement which makes for popular religion plainly shows that something has been removed which has caused the Gentiles to stumble. It was known from the beginning that “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehend[eth] it not.” (John 1:5.) “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” (John 1:10–11.)
So why bother with this hopelessly unpopular doctrine? Because there are always some who do accept it: “But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12–13.)
That makes them the children of God before they lived in the flesh, and what more consummate at-one-ment than to resume their status as sons of God? For their sake, it was all worth it.
And what greater thing could we possibly “lay hold upon” than the eternal life that all the prophets have sought? It is the faith and the power that Moroni spoke of that are able to bring one into the embrace of the Lord, to be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Ne. 1:15) and to return and “have a place” in the presence of the Father (see Alma 5:24). It is at this point that the atonement of Christ is operative in one’s life. This is the true at-one-ment. As to the ordinances on earth—and in the spirit of Article of Faith 8 [A of F 1:8] (“We believe the Bible … as far as it is translated correctly”), a few words in the text deserve new treatment—the Lord was clear in his prayer just prior to his suffering in Gethsemane: “While I was with them in the world, I [tested] them in thy name [by which thou didst endow me]; those that thou gavest me [have] kept [the secret], and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” (John 17:12.) “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of [do not come out of] the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:14.) “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me” (John 17:22–23), that we may be endowed (initiated, completed) to make one, “so have I also sent them into the world” (John 17:18).
"To engage in the ethics of discourse properly is to address our existence from within the I-Thou relationship, to move and have our being in God. To enter into ethics of the divine discourse is to enter the temple, to belong to Zion, to be reconciled as at-one-ment with God--to be as God is."
FEW TO GAIN "AT-ONE-MENT" WITH GOD. We often hear the word atonement defined as being "at-one-ment" with God. That is a very small part of it. In fact, the great majority of mankind never becomes one with God, although they receive the atonement. "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." We do not all become "at one" with God, if we mean that we are brought back again and given the fulness of life which is promised to those who keep the commandments of God and become sons and daughters of God. (pp. 78)
Understanding what we can of the Atonement and the Resurrection of Christ helps us to obtain a knowledge of Him and of His mission. Any increase in our understanding of His atoning sacrifice draws us closer to Him. Literally, the Atonement means to be “at one” with Him. The nature of the Atonement and its effects is so infinite, so unfathomable, and so profound that it lies beyond the knowledge and comprehension of mortal man. I am profoundly grateful for the principle of saving grace. Many people think they need only confess that Jesus is the Christ and then they are saved by grace alone. We cannot be saved by grace alone, “for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
Some years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley told “something of a parable” about “a one room school house in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough no teacher had been able to handle them.
“Then one day an inexperienced young teacher applied. He was told that every teacher had received an awful beating, but the teacher accepted the risk. The first day of school the teacher asked the boys to establish their own rules and the penalty for breaking the rules. The class came up with rules, which were written on the blackboard. Then the teacher asked, ‘What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?’
“‘Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on,’ came the response.
“A day or so later, … the lunch of a big student, named Tom, was stolen. ‘The thief was located—a little hungry fellow, about ten years old.’
“As Little Jim came up to take his licking, he pleaded to keep his coat on. ‘Take your coat off,’ the teacher said. ‘You helped make the rules!’
“The boy took off the coat. He had no shirt and revealed a bony little crippled body. As the teacher hesitated with the rod, Big Tom jumped to his feet and volunteered to take the boy’s licking.
“‘Very well, there is a certain law that one can become a substitute for another. Are you all agreed?’ the teacher asked.
“After five strokes across Tom’s back, the rod broke. The class was sobbing. ‘Little Jim had reached up and caught Tom with both arms around his neck. “Tom, I’m sorry that I stole your lunch, but I was awful hungry. Tom, I will love you till I die for taking my licking for me! Yes, I will love you forever!”’”
President Hinckley then quoted Isaiah:
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. …
“… He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”
These fundamental principles are grounded in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The word Atonement “describes the setting ‘at one’ of those who have been estranged, and denotes the reconciliation of man to God. Sin is the cause of the estrangement, and therefore the purpose of atonement is to correct or overcome the consequences of sin.” I believe it is also possible to become estranged from God for many reasons other than overt sin.
The world is sick and most of us are sick—perhaps all of us are sick in some way or another. We need to be healed, to be made whole.
We are sick because we are not whole: we feel separated, we feel incomplete.
To us who believe, the Lord is the healer, the one who makes us whole.
Then why do we not feel whole? Why do we not feel at one?
In the first weeks of life we still respond to our mother’s heartbeat because it is the one that we know; then we lose our remembrance of that response. We lose still further when we are weaned, for we are separated still further. We separate ourselves further yet by learning to crawl, to walk, and so it goes on. Do we ever naturally feel whole again after birth? And does our mother? Does she not long to go on being one with her child?
Husband and wife yearn to be one with each other always and in all ways. Do we ever completely succeed?
Does the family feel at one? Is it not always struggling, even in its goodness, with the trammels of its badness?
Are we at one with our brethren? We have been told, “If ye are not one, ye are not mine.” What about the barriers of environment, race, creed, education, fortune? Can we be at one in a society that is not at one? How can we be at one with ourselves when we are aware all the time of the imperfections of society and our unfulfilled duty to help remove them?
Are we at one inside ourselves? Most of us feel more than one aspect of separation from others: the sense of inferiority, jealousy, fear, guilt, of evil, of suffering, of death, all of them symptoms of separation. We have a sense of limitation, and wonder whether it is our mind or our body or both that limit us. We feel pulled in several directions at once, we feel the need of having to choose the lesser of two evils. We are sick in body and mind—we have so much illness because we are not at one with ourselves. The number of illnesses regarded by the experts as having to do with attitude of mind—the psychosomatic illnesses—increases steadily.
And are we at one with God? How can we be at one with him unless we are at one with our family, with society, and with ourselves? And how can we be at one with ourselves, and with father, mother, brother, sister, husband, or wife, if we are not at one with God? If we were at one with God, should we not feel at one with all mankind?
But as Christians we know that the Lord is the healer, the one who makes us whole.
“We pray you in Christes stede that ye be atone with God” (2 Cor. 5:20, Tindale’s Version; the Authorized Version says “reconciled”). “To be atone” means to be reconciled. Romans 5:11 reads: “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” [Rom. 5:11] In the Revised Version, the New English Bible, and the Jerusalem Bible, “atonement” reads “reconciliation.” The German Bible’s word is “versoehnung,” whose usual translation is “reconciliation.” The Basic English Bible says “at peace.”
To be reconciled (2 Cor. 5:18, “God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”) we need a mediator. Christ is that mediator (“one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Tim. 2:5).
But Romans 5:11 is the only place where “atonement” is used in the sense of “reconciliation.” [Rom. 5:11] Other scriptural references, particularly in the Old Testament, have a sense that is more familiar to us. The verb “to atone for” can mean “to be penitent, to pay for.” For example, we find in Leviticus 1:4 the sense “expiation” (appeasement by sacrifice) [Lev. 1:4], in Romans 3:24 “redemption” (which means “buying back”) [Rom. 3:24], and in 1 John 2:2 the word “propitiation” (meaning “making gracious”). On the day of atonement, the Jewish national sins were heaped on the scapegoat and he was driven out: “And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited.” (See Lev. 16:22; the literal sense of “not inhabited” is—and this is significant to us here—“a land of separation.”)
Of all these senses, the one most familiar to us is that of “redemption.” But it is the one in which we have lost the original sense of “buying back.” It may be that in dealing with these things of the spirit we should not push the metaphor too hard. The sense “redemption” is not, after all, so very different from that of “reconciliation”; see, for example, “I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25), where the word “goel” translated as “redeemer” could equally well be rendered by “vindicator” (New English Bible) or “mediator.” In fact, if we think of and feel the word “atonement” with the right degree of generality, we can reconcile the senses: we need to be made whole; we cannot be made whole without being reconciled to God; we are reconciled to God by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Putting the senses together in this way, we are led to the meaning in which we understand the plan of salvation. Christ offered himself to make up for the transgression of Adam, the consequence of which was death. Christ sets all the posterity of Adam free from death (general salvation). “When Adam fell, the change came upon all other living things and even the earth itself became mortal, and all things including the earth were redeemed from death through the atonement of Jesus Christ.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions 3:100–101. See also 2 Ne. 2:22.) The animals and the elements, too, suffered death for Adam’s transgression. But Christ also shed his blood (1 Pet. 1:19) for every man individually, and that is why his atonement must be infinite. (2 Ne. 9:7.) This salvation is for everyone who will repent, obey the ordinances of the gospel, and do good works (individual salvation); if a man refuses salvation, he is banished from God’s presence; if he commits the ultimate refusal, he dies the second death.
Fear is a great separator of selves and of self. To be courageous at one level may involve being afraid at another—this helps to explain the difference between physical and moral courage. Most fears in the end are fears of oneself and can be conquered by bringing in the Lord as an ally.
And that brings us to separation from God. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31), but it is a still more terrible thing to fall out of the hands of the living God. To realize that Jehovah and Christ are one is to realize that the books Luke and Jeremiah are both part of the gospel, and that the books Judges and Acts are both part of the gospel. We have not to look upon Jehovah and Christ as different aspects of the same God, but to realize that they are one and the same God. Many people feel that when he looks at them they are at one with his eyes of concern; but when he gazes at horizons they do not like they feel that his eyes are as those of eagles. But what if they cannot see his eyes at all?
Yet with all the irritation at best and torment at worse of being divided against oneself, we need to remember that the prayer “suffer us not to be separated” (T. S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday) is a prayer against the destruction of our individuality which is the most important of all things to us. The fear need not and should not be for the struggles we may have that come from the “opposition in all things” and that we must admit to ourselves in order to be able to grow. However, that opposition is at its healthiest when we are not divided against ourselves, but may find ourselves in opposition to someone else and discover the need to modify ourselves accordingly. It is better to conquer oneself in terms of reconciliation with someone else. And the words of the poet, Yeats, apply here, too:
What Winston Churchill offered the British people as their way to preservation, the Lord himself gave all peoples and every person to show them the way to salvation: blood, sweat, and tears. Christ’s agony in Gethsemane takes over where his teaching ends but his love continues. When his suffering caused him to “tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore” (D&C 19:18), it was not because of apprehension at his own death and suffering, but because he was taking upon himself the burden of all of the sins of humanity from all times. In his trial and scourging and crucifixion he was to suffer still further for the gap between his teaching and the way mankind was treating him, but that was just a prolongation of the climax of suffering in Gethsemane, when he accepted the cup with all its implications—implications that go far beyond not merely our thinking, but also our imagination. This in some way enables him to pay for our sins, to expiate them, to reconcile us with the Father, and to redeem us.
And then to suffer a greater separation than any separation man had ever suffered—the moment at about the ninth hour when he cried from the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46.) Was it necessary that he also should suffer that last of separations, the separation of a Divine Father from a Divine Son in order to understand and stand for all those who, like William Cowper, had felt forsaken by the Father because of false doctrine, or because they had themselves forsaken the Father? Christ had not forsaken the Father, but he had to have the experience of being forsaken. Such a moment is beyond our power to comprehend or imagine.
And then the resurrection—the resurrection of the body to life everlasting—a resurrection from the greatest of agonies to the greatest of joys—the conquest of death for all and the conquest of sin for all those that will repent and seek eternal life by the grace of God.
The price: to suffer more agony than any man; the achievement: eternal life for all those that can and will accept him; the motivation: love—the medium, the air, and the life of wholeness, of being at one.
The parts are not to be joined or sewn or glued together. There are no more edges and no more friction. Each part contains the whole and yet the whole is more than any part. Each part is fused and interfused with the whole, but the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
But what of the need for opposition in all things, and what of eternal progression? In this earthly life we may feel wholeness and oneness, this atonement, fleetingly before the color of the experience changes and the harmony is gone to come again and then to go again.
“For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
“But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” (1 Cor. 13:9–10.)
If we accept and live the gospel, we shall be made whole, we shall be glorified, we shall be that much further on in our eternal progression. What oppositions we shall then meet, what conditions for creation we shall then obtain, what new wholes we may rise to has not been revealed to us, and if it were we would not understand. But for the time being, if we have not a full understanding of divine or human love, we can be given the experience of it. We may have the supreme experience of it in contemplating the atonement and in trying to live to be worthy of the love that it shows to us. Praise be to the Father and the Son that they are at one and that we may be at one with them: “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” (John 17:21.)
We grow in two ways—removing negative weeds and cultivating positive flowers. The Savior’s grace blesses both parts—if we do our part. First and repeatedly we must uproot the weeds of sin and bad choices. It isn’t enough just to mow the weeds. Yank them out by the roots, repenting fully to satisfy the conditions of mercy. But being forgiven is only part of our growth. We are not just paying a debt. Our purpose is to become celestial beings. So once we’ve cleared our heartland, we must continually plant, weed, and nourish the seeds of divine qualities. And then as our sweat and discipline stretch us to meet His gifts, “the flow’rs of grace appear,” like hope and meekness. Even a tree of life can take root in this heart-garden, bearing fruit so sweet that it lightens all our burdens “through the joy of his Son.” And when the flower of charity blooms here, we will love others with the power of Christ’s own love.
We need grace both to overcome sinful weeds and to grow divine flowers. We can do neither one fully by ourselves. But grace is not cheap. It is very expensive, even very dear. How much does this grace cost? Is it enough simply to believe in Christ? The man who found the pearl of great price gave “all that he had” for it. If we desire “all that [the] Father hath,” God asks all that we have. To qualify for such exquisite treasure, in whatever way is ours, we must give the way Christ gave—every drop He had: “How exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.” Paul said, “If so be that we suffer with him,” we are “joint-heirs with Christ.” All of His heart, all of our hearts.
What possible pearl could be worth such a price—for Him and for us? This earth is not our home. We are away at school, trying to master the lessons of “the great plan of happiness” so we can return home and know what it means to be there. Over and over the Lord tells us why the plan is worth our sacrifice—and His. Eve called it “the joy of our redemption.” Jacob called it “that happiness which is prepared for the saints.” Of necessity, the plan is full of thorns and tears—His and ours. But because He and we are so totally in this together, our being “at one” with Him in overcoming all opposition will itself bring us “incomprehensible joy.”
Christ’s Atonement is at the very core of this plan. Without His dear, dear sacrifice, there would be no way home, no way to be together, no way to be like Him. He gave us all He had. Therefore, “how great is his joy,” when even one of us “gets it”—when we look up from the weed patch and turn our face to the Son.
Let us consider now the second and more sobering finding about the idea of heaven in modern America. McDannell and Lang observe that despite the surprising strength of today’s personal beliefs in a real heaven, the mainline Christian churches offer little serious theological response to the natural intuition of their members. Rather, today’s “ideas about what happens after death are only popular sentiments and are not integrated into Protestant and Catholic theological systems.” (Heaven: A History, p. 308.) These systems seem to assume that ideas about immortality are no longer socially relevant and that they are too speculative to be acceptable to modern scholarship.
But then these historians note one “major exception” to their generalization regarding today’s theological vacuum about heaven—namely, “the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” They summarize a range of LDS teachings, from eternal marriage to genealogy and ordinances for the dead, then conclude that “the understanding of life after death in the LDS Church is the clearest [known] example of the continuation of the modern heaven into the twentieth century.” (Ibid., p. 320.)
How poignant that so many people today yearn for everlasting ties to God and to each other, yet how sad and ironic that other Christian denominations’ theology offers no developed reply to these deeply felt needs. The Restoration offers these people not only the hope of an embrace with the Lord but also a full understanding of what that embrace can mean. For being “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Morm. 5:11) symbolizes the fulfillment of his atonement in our lives—becoming literally “at one” with him, belonging to him, in mortality as well as in heaven.
The Book of Mormon teaches us of an infinite atonement (see 2 Ne. 9:7; 2 Ne. 25:16; Alma 34:10, 12, 14), an atoning sacrifice by Christ that is unbounded by time, ethnicity, geography, or even kinds of sins, save for the unpardonable sin of denying the Holy Ghost (see Alma 39:6). The Resurrection includes all people “from the days of Adam down” to the end of time (Alma 40:18), those “both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female” (Alma 11:44). The Atonement is also infinite in the sense that the Savior not only overcame death and sin, but he also took upon himself “the pains and the sicknesses” and the “infirmities” of his people (Alma 7:11–12). The Atonement is infinite, too, in that because of the redemption made possible by his beloved Son, our Heavenly Father is able to forgive us “as often as [we] repent” (Mosiah 26:30–31; see also Moro. 6:8).
Through repentance we can become at one with Christ, or, as Jacob put it, we can “be reconciled unto him” (Jacob 4:11). Amaleki invited the people of his day—and us as well—to “come unto Christ … and partake of his salvation … and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26). We become reconciled with him when we willingly give our souls to him as he offered his life for us.
After Aaron had taught the father of King Lamoni about the fall of man and of the plan of redemption and the Savior’s atoning sacrifice, the king prayed to God: “I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day” (Alma 22:18). That is precisely what each of us must do to become reconciled with our Savior: we must give away all our sins. Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has explained that “real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!” (“Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness,” Ensign, May 1995, p. 68.)
In William Tyndale’s 1526 version of the New Testament, he gave an English translation of Romans 5:10-11 as follows:
For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son: much more, seeing we are reconciled, we shall be preserved by his life. Not only so, but we also joy in God by the means of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received this atonement.
Like many others of Tyndale’s memorable translations of scriptural phrases, this version became the basis for the historically dominant rendering of the text into English. In the English Bible, “atonement” is “the single word of Anglo-Saxon origin that describes a theological doctrine; other doctrinal words come from Latin, Hebrew, or Greek.”
Tyndale’s use of the term “atonement” in his Bible translation was consistent with his theological view that the central mission of Jesus was:
“to make us one with God: “One God, one Mediatour, that is to say aduocate, intercessor, or an atonemaker, between God and man.” “One mediatour Christ, . and by that word understand an atonnemaker, a peacemaker.”
The original meaning also comes through in the various early Bible commentators. Note Udal’s comment on Ephesians 2:16 which makes the intended meaning of “atone” crystal clear: “And like as he made the Jewes and Gentiles at one betwene themselfes, euen so he made them bothe at one with God, that there should be nothing to break the attonement, but that the thynges in heauen and the thinges in earth should be ioined together as it wer into one body.”
The results of this “great and last sacrifice” have been described in many different ways. For example, there is the term “expiate”-which means “to completely satisfy or appease; to make propitious”-and the term “redeem”-which can mean to “pay a ransom to deliver a captive.” These two terms address the idea of justification, the aspect of the sacrifice of Christ that enables forgiveness and release from the bondage of sin. But “expiate” and “redeem” do not adequately express the concept of sanctification, the complementary process by which we may be “spiritually. born of God,” having received a “mighty change in [our] hearts” and “his image” in our countenances. For, in the end, it is not enough for us to be cleansed from all sin: we must also acquire the divine attributes that qualify us for the society of celestial beings. As Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained, the Final Judgment is one of both actions and effects-not only what we have done, but also what we have become. As “sons of God,” we are to “be like him,” for the day shall come when “we shall see [our Father] as he is.”
Embracing the meaning of each of the more limited descriptions, the term “atonement” describes both the process and the ultimate result of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It focuses attention on the most central and important concept of that sacrifice-namely, the idea of “taking two things that have become separated, estranged, or incompatible. and bringing them together again, thus making the two be ‘at one.'”
The intimate personal dimension of the Atonement was described by Jesus Christ in His “High Priestly Prayer” on behalf of His disciples. He pleaded that they, and those they later would teach, would be “made perfect in one”:
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.
At a first level of understanding, the Hebrew term for atonement, kippur, can be thought of as roughly approximating the English word “cover.” In the Mosaic temple, the idea of kippur related to the kapporet that formed the lid of the ark of the temple where Jehovah stood to forgive-or cover-the sins of the people. The veil of the temple, also a kapporet, covered the entry of the Holy of Holies. Besides the notion of “covering of sin” implied by the term kippur, however, there appears to have been the additional concept of “union” with the Divine, a “covering with glory,” in the ancient temple cult. After the priest and the people had completed all the rituals and ordinances of the atonement, the veil was opened so that the Lord could tell the people that their sins had been forgiven, symbolically welcoming them into His presence. Following his study of the term kippur, Nibley concluded that:
. the literal meaning of kaphar and kippurim is a close and intimate embrace, which took place at the kapporeth or the front cover or flap of the Tabernacle or tent. The Book of Mormon instances are quite clear, for example, “Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.” “But behold the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled eternally in the arms of his love”. From this it should be clear what kind of oneness is meant by the Atonement-it is being received in a close embrace of the prodigal son, expressing not only forgiveness but oneness of heart and mind that amounts to identity.
When we have proven our faithfulness through all the experiences that the Lord sees fit to inflict, the Atonement will then have full claim on us. In the first stages, it heals our wounds, while, in its ultimate manifestation, it literally clothes us with the glory of God in His similitude and crown us with immortality and eternal life. Of the centrality of the Atonement, the Prophet Joseph Smith said:
The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.
Amplifying this thought, C. S. Lewis writes:
This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects-education, building, missions, holding [meetings]. [However] the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to [re]make them [in the image of Christ]. If they are not doing that, all the [chapels, temples], [priesthood], missions, sermons, even the [Holy Scriptures themselves], are simply a waste of time. [The Savior came to earth] for no other purpose. [T]he whole universe was created for [just this] purpose.
“Wherefore, how great the importance to 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”!
Let’s adapt King Benjamin’s brilliant observation for our purposes:
For the natural person is an enemy to God and to all people,
and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever,
unless he or she yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit,
and putteth off the natural man or woman
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. (adaptation of Mosiah 3:19)
We are all programmed to protect and preserve ourselves at all costs. We are on the defensive—unless and until we yield to the invitation of God’s messenger who changes us into disciples of the One who takes separate things and unites them to each other, to Himself, and to Heavenly Father. Then we become children who welcome His tutoring.
All of this is consistent with the much-neglected verse immediately before Benjamin’s most-famous statement. Verse 18:
Men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.
That’s pretty clear. The only way to overcome our fallen programming is to humble ourselves and to embrace Jesus and His human renewal. He is the only one who can heal our minds and hearts.
Jesus is the perfect example of taking things that are estranged and making them one with Him and goodness. We should read the accounts of Him ministering to those on the edges of the crowd. We should follow His example in looking for and wholeheartedly including those around us who may feel marginalized. We should remember that every soul is precious to the Lord. When we let the Holy Ghost give us Jesus’ perspective on people, then we begin at-one-ment. This is the task that all of us should undertake.
Sometimes we apply Jesus only superficially to our fallenness. We reflect on Him in an effort to be more kind or polite. That is not enough. If we want to be truly changed, we must throw ourselves on His merits, mercy, and grace. As we put our souls into doing His work, we will feel our hearts being changed by Him. And when we feel the demons of judgment and unkindness stirring within us, I recommend that we use Alma’s powerful mantra:
O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. (Alma 36:18)
The way to overcome racism, narrowness, fallenness, and humanness is to invoke the divine. Jesus can expand our view of and love for others around us. He can make us one with Himself and with each other. He is the master of at-one-ment. When we are filled with Him, we will learn about, embrace, and advocate for one another—even those who are different from us.
The first chapter in Genesis recounts six days of creations beginning with light and ending with man. It is interesting that each day of creation contains or ends with the seeming terminal statement “God saw that it was good” or some variation. Genesis chapter two declares the completion of each created element leading God to rest. But, as we have wondered, why would an all-powerful God need to rest? The Hebrew word for rested is shabath, hence the origin of our word “Sabbath”. It can mean rested or simply stopped but there may be a principle here that would reveal itself with further pondering and discovery:
It is interesting that the word for seven in 1:1 is sheba meaning to complete or perfect. It originates from the word shaba meaning covenant or oath.[iv] The word for finished is kalah which can mean accomplished but is also the same word for bride which is used to mean “to perfect or complete”.
In verse 3, God does two things to this seventh time-period. Note, He blesses and hallows, not the creation, but the day. The word hallow is quadash which can mean He made this time sacred or consecrated for a sacred purpose. Of course, the whole of the seven days of creation was sacred, but something more is indicated for the seventh day. Hallow also means “to make whole”; the work of the at-one-ment of Christ.
But, note verse chapter two verse five:
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
The Book of Moses 3:5 adds: for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air
Now, from this, it might be natural to assume that the first chapter, with six days of creation is an account of the spiritual creation, but Joseph Fielding Smith teaches us that all accounts we have are of the physical creation.[v] Is it possible then, that since nothing was yet on the earth that the seventh time-period was used to assemble all the created parts. The account begins with the creation of man out from a mist. Then he plants the garden and brings the animals to him. Was this time hallowed in order to make things whole? Was it made a sacred time used to perfect His creation? Was He putting the puzzle together into one great whole?
Then, we might notice that the seventh day, unlike all other six, has no terminal “it was good”. Are we still living in the seventh time-period during which Jehovah is working, not to create, for that was ended, but to perfect through divine light, within the dangers and potential of agency.
Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light. DC 93:31
Is the time of this life, His time to perfect us… if we are willing to participate in His process? He will never infringe upon our agency and He is teaching us how to perfect what we create? Is the commandment to keep the Sabbath a time that enables Him to counteract the dangerous effects of this probationary/preparatory world, so that the perfecting can even be realized? He promises to give us unlimited powers to create universes, dimensions, kingdoms, powers, etc. But a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we agreed to face memory and identity loss, a weakness for chocolate, a lost ability to fly, a very gradually developing intellect, blindness to all but physical materials, a controlling desire for attention, recognition, curiosity, entertainment, etc.
As Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, a huge void was created in their lives that nothing could fill – the daily discourse with and direct love of their Creator. They endeavored the rest of their lives to get back to where they had been, to have that at-one-ment. They understood much better than we, that the only way we can fill the “divine void” is with the living water of Jesus Christ.
Because a veil is drawn across our minds when we are born, we each have this “divine void” in our lives. For the very fortunate, the void is in filled to some extent by loving family who offer unconditional love, righteous role models, and instructions on how to receive forgiveness and salvation.
But most of the world is not lucky, and is left with a dark well of wrenching sadness that we can’t understand. We seek to fill it in many ways. Many good humans succeed in filling it with love and service to their fellow man – with sacrifice and selflessness. It is an irony that the more we give from this void, the more we are filled. That is because the grace and love of Christ through his atonement are attendant on Christlike acts.
The atonement is the only thing that can fill that void. This is what we are offered in the Lord’s House – the last ordinances to make us whole. This is the at-one-ment Adam and Eve are seeking.
But for those of us who do not understand this idea, we seek to fill that divine void with other things – either dulling our senses so we can’t feel it – alcohol, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, extreme activities, overindulgence in anything, or even through our friends and mates. Though going the latter route is going in the right direction, those with abandonment issues (that dull ache that will never go away) take this to extremes and sabotage all their dealings by demanding too much, shutting down in resentment, or trying to exercise control. There is after all only one friend who will never fail us under any circumstances, and that is Jesus Christ.
There is, of course, also the starving criminal element who lashes out in rage. They don’t have “it” and they think they are entitled to “it,” whatever “it” is.
Our mission as Latter-day Saints is, first to find the healing of the atonement in our own “divine void,” fill our wells with living water, and then give and give and give to those who have none, that they may see the model, the way that was laid out for us by Adam and Eve to go back home to our loving Heavenly Father.
We can actually witness the tension between these two versions of Christ’s atoning work—saving from sin versus healing from woundedness—in a textual contrast between two of the most important Bible translations in Christian history and the different ways they translate the Greek term sodzo (“heal” or “save”). Few biblical texts should be more central to our understanding of the Christian message as Jesus taught it than a record of one of the first public sermons delivered by the Apostle Peter. Second in sequence only to his Pentecostal testimony, this two-part address occurs before a Jewish crowd and then before a Jewish council. In the third chapter of Acts, in the King James Version, Peter heals “a certain man lame from his mother’s womb” (Acts 3:2). An audience gathers, and after enacting the central principle of Jesus’s ministry—healing—Peter uses the occasion, and his healed, restored teaching aid, to emphasize that central principle.
The first translation into English of these passages is by John Wycliffe, in the fourteenth century. Working before the Reformation, he rendered the critical verses into English as follows: “This [sick] man is made saaf;” “In the name of Jhesu Crist …this man stondith hool bifor you;” There is no other name “in which it bihoveth us to be maad saaf ” (Acts 4:9, 10, 12, our emphasis).The Middle English word saaf, like a principal meaning of the original Greek term sodzo, means “healed,” “made whole.” In sum, Jesus Christ is the name and power whereby we can all be made whole, healed, sound, and complete. As was the design from the beginning—explained after Eve’s fateful ascent, reaffirmed by Jesus on the Mount, and prophesied by the angel to Nephi—we would not be left “wounded” but would be restored to the path of divine ascent by Him who comes “with healing in his wings” (Mal.4:2).The Healer and the Restorer to At-one-ment—the one who brings us into the fullest possible unity with each other and with the Heavenly Family—are the same. Even Augustine at one time saw our predicament in these terms; “through grace,” he wrote, “the soul is healed from the wound of sin.”
A representative distortion from this blueprint is plain to see, dated to a text and time in history. When William Tyndale (upon whose work the King James Bible is based) translates this story of the healing of the paralytic, he forges in immutable form a narrative that is a stark departure from the original. He begins in Wycliffe’s steps. This “impotent man …is made whole,” he translates. “By the name of Jesus Christ …doth his man stand here before you whole,” he continues. Then the fatal pivot on which the whole contemporary Christian message is built: “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given whereby we must be saved.” The story of healing a particular man, as a type of the healing of which we all stand in need, is shifted to a story about salvation from damnation. One Protestant commentator has conceded that “‘salvation’ means to rescue or protect, although it also has the association of healing or restoring to health” (our emphasis). Our point is that in this story, context and language alike could not be clearer. Christ’s incomparable gift is his power and desire to heal us all as individuals, regardless of the nature of our wounds.This is at-one-ment. Tragically, catastrophically, the preoccupation of Tyndale and his fellow Reformers with sin rather than woundedness, and with salvation from hell rather than healing from the “infirmities” and “the pains of all” triumphs (Alma 7:12; 2 Ne.9:2).
In recent decades biblical scholarship has begun to move an understanding of atonement in this same direction. Conventional interpreters of atonement’s roots have seen the word as indicating “to cover.” Mary Douglas, however, notes that while the Hebrew root k-p-r can mean “to cover or recover,” it has a more complex meaning: “to repair a hole, cure a sickness, mend a rift, make good a torn or broken covering….Atonement does not mean covering a sin so as to hide it from the sight of God; it means making good an outer layer which has rotted or been pierced” (our emphases). In other words, atonement means “to heal.” Margaret Barker agrees that the Hebrew k-p-r, translated as “atone,” “has to mean restore, re-create, or heal” and argues that for the Hebrews, atonement was “the rite of healing.”
This reading of the meaning of atonement is twice affirmed in the Book of Mormon. Nephi foresees the day that “the Son of Righteousness shall appear unto them [that …look forward unto Christ with steadfastness]; and he shall heal them” (2 Ne. 26:9).The fulfillment of his prophecy comes in 3 Nephi. There, the Son of God does indeed appear to the Nephite people, and He pleads with those who anticipated His coming in language that clearly evokes the scene of the woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears: “Will ye not return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” (3 Ne. 9:13; our emphasis). In this magnificent scene we witness the purpose and culmination of Christ’s great designs for us. The resurrected Christ here links the final stages of His mission with our return through conversion and healing. The familiar formula—“repent and be saved”—is expanded and enriched to a vastly more encompassing project. The lame, the blind, and the infirm, the guilt-ridden and sin-laden, the spiritually hungry and emotionally wounded, the wandering soul and lonely pilgrim—all are swept up in the embrace of His desire—and capacity—to heal. “Have you any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are …afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy” (3 Nephi 17:7; our emphasis).
Christ here echoes the voice of the prodigal son’s father—and His own—“a father who asks no questions, wanting only to welcome his children home.” Eugene England believed the realization of such an unprompted love, such a disposition to “set aside” our offense, was precisely the “shock of eternal love” necessary to prompt our healing—and our forgiving of and reconciliation with others. Christ, in His mercy, already “hath atoned for [our] sins” (D&C 29:1).Christ, setting our sins aside, loving us perfectly and understandingly in whatever condition He finds us, empowers us to do likewise and complete the cycle of at-one-ing, of perfect healing.
The fear of loving family or beloved more than God has long pervaded Christian culture.The Restoration reexamines this longstanding tradition. Jesus named love of God first in the hierarchy of heavenly commands, with love of others second (Matt. 22:38–39). Yet, when Enoch asks a weeping God the Father (“Man of Holiness”) the cause of His tears, His answer has three astonishing dimensions.The first appears when God prefaces His response by reciting the two great commandments but which He here pronounces in reverse order: “Unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father.” The second paradigm disruption is that though God’s children have clearly broken both commands, God’s grief is over their violation of the second. He is not weeping because they have failed to worship, honor, or obey Him; “Behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood.” Third, His tears flow, indeed, “the whole heavens shall weep over them …seeing these shall suffer.” Human suffering, not human sin, is the focus of his grief. Three times the account affirms, and Enoch marvels, that God’s weeping is over human “misery.”
These verses are the clearest prism through which to see our Divine Parents’ true nature and greatest concern. It is not for Themselves, for Their glory, or for Their priority in our hearts that They labor.Their greatest longing made manifest in those verses accords with the deepest desire we know as parents—or one day shall: that our children live in love and harmony with one another.That we would be jealous of our children’s love for each other is simply perverse. Love in a community of perfect sociability is not competitive—it is mutually reinforcing. How could we have missed that lesson? To serve each other is to serve God. Ministering to each other is to honor and worship Them, as Benjamin taught. To succor the thirsty or to feed the hungry is to succor Christ, to feed Christ. We may make distinctions, but God does not. We cannot contribute to the heavenly community, the Zion of perfect sociability, if our relationships with each other are fractured. Another way of saying this is that our love for one another does not compete with our love for God—as C.S.Lewis and countless poets have suggested; our love for one another registers with God as love for Them; it is the most concrete manifestation of our love for God and the form of worship They most desire.
If this idea is true—as we believe Enoch attests—then the work of atonement would be intended to bring about the healing and unifying of the entire human family. In this project, we are invited to be coparticipants with the Godhead. Indeed, atonement cannot be accomplished without our collaboration. The most emphatic invitation to collaborate comes at that moment when we participate in the ordinance of adoption into the Heavenly Family—otherwise known as baptism. At this most appropriate moment of covenant making, we commit to join in the enterprise of Zion-building, to erect, edify, and constitute a community of love—of at-one-ment. Mosiah’s language beautifully reminds us that we have been called to work collaboratively with the Godhead in Their healing enterprise.
At one time, converts to the restored faith vocally affirmed the baptismal covenants at water’s edge. At the present, the covenants outlined in Mosiah 18:8–10 are implicit.We covenant to “bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light.” That language evokes the role of God the Christ, who bore our burdens throughout His life, into Gethsemane and onto Golgotha. We pledge to “mourn with those that mourn.” These words call to mind that same God the Father who revealed to Enoch that He wept tears of grief, in solidarity with those who suffered misery and fratricidal hate. We can be assured, as Chieko Okazaki has written, that both our Heavenly Parents “have suffered with us …in our own suffering.” And we covenant to “comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” That phrasing could hardly direct us more explicitly to the role of God the Holy Spirit, our Comforter in all our afflictions.Though we (sadly) no longer verbally pronounce the words of a baptismal covenant, remembering this sacred trilogy of obligation to mourn, to share burdens, and to comfort can make the at-one-ing of God’s family a daily act of worship in which we participate with the Divine Family.
We believe one final shift is called for in our thinking about atonement. Oh, that we still pronounced atonement as it would have been heard in William Tyndale’s pronunciation: at-one-ment! We would then learn two of its aspects we may have forgotten. First, that the purpose of Christ’s work of healing was intended to restore unity to the human family and reunite us with God—at “oneness.” All things tend toward the “great one-ing between Christ and us,” Julian of Norwich wrote. And second, Wycliffe’s earlier rendering of atonement as “reconciliation” would call to mind a process that requires active effort by both parties. The Atonement is not something Christ performed. It is not adequately encompassed in a picture of a suffering Jesus in Gethsemane or the Christ nailed to the cross. Important as those events are, they no more capture the aspiration and reality of atonement than a wedding proposal captures the totality of a joyful and harmonious companionate marriage. The central, two-fold process of atonement is captured in the Healer’s own words, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).The most fitting image of atonement is that given us in the book of Moses: “And the Lord said unto Enoch: Then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and they shall see us; and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other; And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion” (Moses 7:63–64).
This passage is stunningly new, unexpected, and unlike the depictions over the centuries of losing ourselves in the beatific vision.Contrary to the fears of C.S. Lewis, we find here no diminution of earthly bonds, eclipsed in a superior Divine Presence.Here is totality, wholeness, reunion, healing, and unity.“They [the heavenly community] shall see us!” God and Christ, the living and the departed, divine and human, all merge into one celebratory community of the holy.That is the picture of atonement, reconciliation, “oneing,” brought to its perfect fulfillment.
We need to provide a way for Christ to affirm that He knows us by name, that He has in reality set His heart upon us. That may take the form of pondering those words that most resonate with our heartstrings: Jesus’s expression of love for His disciples (“Little children, yet a little while I am with you …I go to prepare a place for you”), the testimony of John (“God sent his son into the world not to condemn us, but to heal us”), Dostoevsky’s witness of Christ that emerged through his own “great crucible of doubt” (“Believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, …and more powerful than Christ”), or the lyrics to Dustin Kensrue’s “Please Come Home” (“Please come home, please come home / Don’t you know that I still love you? / And I don’t care where you’ve been”). We must find a medium through which God can speak to us. We need to find our own Urim and Thummim.
In some cases, the healing will come slowly or incompletely. However, in such cases, our own experience of unmet need is a witness to the fact that Christ’s work of redemptive healing relies upon us as collaborators in His ministry of at-one-ing. “God will wipe away all tears from off all faces” (Isa. 25:8).The promise is given, but the timetable is not. The urgent responsibility to minister to the wounded is upon us all. Our baptismal covenants are the operative way by which Christ’s atoning ministry becomes universal.
The Atonement is an event that enables us to be reconciled to God. The word atonement, or “at-one-ment,” means to restore or to come back. In terms of family, it means to be reunited with one another and with God and His Son, Jesus Christ. It means sadness through separation will become happiness through reuniting.
I am a father, inadequate to be sure, but I cannot comprehend the burden it must have been for God in His heaven to witness the deep suffering and Crucifixion of His Beloved Son in such a manner. His every impulse and instinct must have been to stop it, to send angels to intervene—but He did not intervene. He endured what He saw because it was the only way that a saving, vicarious payment could be made for the sins of all His other children from Adam and Eve to the end of the world. I am eternally grateful for a perfect Father and His perfect Son, neither of whom shrank from the bitter cup nor forsook the rest of us who are imperfect, who fall short and stumble, who too often miss the mark.
In considering such beauty of the “at-one-ment” in that first Easter season, we are reminded that this relationship between Christ and His Father is one of the sweetest and most moving themes running through the Savior’s ministry. Jesus’ entire being, His complete purpose and delight, were centered in pleasing His Father and obeying His will. Of Him He seemed always to be thinking; to Him He seemed always to be praying. Unlike us, He needed no crisis, no discouraging shift in events to direct His hopes heavenward. He was already instinctively, longingly looking that way.
9. Am I striving to “become one” with what I know I ideally should be? As long as what we do in our actual lives is beneath the level where we know we should be, we rob ourselves of spirituality.
Jesus prayed over and over again that we who believe in him should become one as he and his Father are one. (John 17:11, 21–22.) Not only do the Father and the Son get along extremely well together, they know exactly what the ideal person ought to be and that is exactly what they are. Our ultimate goal is to become like them. (Matt. 5:48; 3 Ne. 27:27.) To get there we must apply the Atonement (“at-one-ment”) and by faith in Christ unto repentance change our lives to be more “at one” with what we ought to be. In the process, we must be willing to give up all our sins.
If we are moving in the direction of achieving this oneness, peace of mind and increased spirituality will be among our blessings. This process is at the heart of the reason we have come to this earth. It is at the center of the message we have to share with the world.
We know from nearly universal human experience that enduring love between a man and a woman approaches the highest form of mortal fulfillment. When we have paid the high price of patient preparation, self-discipline, and an irrevocable commitment to another person’s happiness, we may taste the sweet joy of human love. To be encircled about eternally in the arms of such love is to fulfill our deepest longing for security and meaning. That form of love awaits those who enter the highest degree of celestial life; in fact, such love distinguishes that life from all lesser rewards.
There is another, comparable source of fulfillment to be found in our relationship with the Lord, captured in the idea of the atonement—the “at-one-ment” of Jesus Christ. When we have faithfully endured the mortal experience, this wondrous gift allows us to become truly “at one” with him, just as he is at one with his father. The scriptures are full of references to marriage symbols between the Lord and his people, expressing this oneness with God in a spiritual sense of “belonging,” just as family members belong to one another. Thus did King Benjamin express the hope “that Christ … may seal you his” (Mosiah 5:15). There is no human yearning, no mortal satisfaction that can compare with being welcomed into the arms of the Atoning One in that day when we once more enter his presence.
So we Latter-day Saints have a challenge when we use terms like “grace” and “enabling power,” because those terms, long used by other churches, sometimes proceed from incorrect doctrinal assumptions. That means the vocabulary of traditional Christianity won’t always work for us, and it may confuse us. On the other hand, the Restoration corrected those doctrines with clarity and light about who we are and why we’re here. That clear light resonates in the heart of every child who sings “I am a Child of God,” with echoes of divine parents, of having wandered from another sphere, of an inward yearning for home in the arms of a Father who has not only a body, but also a heart–a heart like ours. We came to the earth not as depraved sinners but trailing clouds of glory, carrying the seeds of a potentially divine nature within us.
Modern-day scripture teaches us that we are born neither evil nor good by nature; rather, we are born “whole” or “innocent.” Then, in a mortal environment that is subject to death and sinful influences, we will taste some sin and bitterness--not because we are innately bad, but because we can’t learn to prize the sweet without actually tasting the bitter. And because the effects of that bitterness may separate us from our Heavenly Father, we need Christ’s Atonement to overcome whatever separates us from Him--such as the physical separation caused by death and the spiritual separation caused by our sins. That’s what the word means: “at-one-ment,” the act of re-uniting what has been separated.
In addition, we need the Atonement to help us grow to become like our Father, because we cannot be “with Him” forever in His celestial realm until we are “like Him.” In this sense, our immature capacity separates us from Him–that’s why he sent us away to school. So at birth we are completely innocent, literally babes in the woods. Then, as we grow up, like our first parents, we wrestle with afflictions–sin, misery, children– and that wrestling, paradoxically, teaches us what joy means. In that way, our children also help us discover the “joy” part. The Savior’s Atonement makes that process possible by protecting us while we learn from practice what love really is or why wickedness cannot produce happiness. Because of the Atonement, we can learn from our experience without being condemned by it. So the Atonement is not just a doctrine about erasing black marks–it is the core doctrine that allows human development. Thus its purpose is to facilitate our growth, ultimately helping us to develop the Christ-like capacities we need to live with God.
"My point is that as we seek unity, we become truly one with the saints and one with the Lord who makes us increasingly more effective at serving his children.
Brother and sisters, we see the future of the Church in our youth. I am inspired as I have the privilege of serving, teaching and counseling them. They are a choice generation. So many are totally committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and have an understanding of the importance the Atonement plays in their individual lives. We, however, must do more to help them. Let us join together in a commitment to live and teach them so they will be prepared for the challenges they will face. Let us teach them of the strength that comes from unity and the kingdom of God on the earth that recognizes the rich heritage of ethnicity yet rejoices in our oneness through our Father’s plan. If do not teach them in the Lord’s way, who will? And how will the Church ever move forward? Let us look to our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and their growing role in this great work -- they who will play such a critical role in preparing a people for the return of our Savior. Let ushelp them understand that some questions concerning the Gospel are difficult for we as mortals to fully comprehend, yet through faith, commitment, service, and an eye single to the Glory of our Father and his eternal plan, we -- men and women of all colors and races will walk through the Celestial gates and enter into the glory that he can only offer. May we help leave that vision and legacy to the next generation and the whole Church through our example.
Ultimately, this unity, brothers and sisters, will be a telltale sign not just of the True Church, but of the Lord himself, and of his atoning sacrifice. For he said, in his atoning prayer, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me (who believe on the words of the apostles). That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” There is something about our unity that enables the world to believe in the Lord’s divinity. While there is much to this doctrine, one reason is that our oneness as a people is a manifestation to the world of the Lord’s power to reconcile us not only to God but to each other. This he does through the great At-one-ment. He does it without regard to barriers, boundaries and borders of race and ethnicity."
Often it is a couple’s inability to allow the Atonement to operate in their relationship that causes the negativity cycle to continue until it devours the marriage. They refuse to allow the Atonement to take effect in their own lives and in the life of the one they loved.
Ideally, when we do something that irritates or hurts our spouse, the “at-one-ment” makes it possible for us to regain lost trust and unity in two ways. First, the Atonement allows us to gain forgiveness from God, thereby restoring our own feelings of self-worth. Second, the Atonement encourages our spouse to forgive us and cast aside negative thoughts. In fact, the scriptures tell us we are required to forgive one another (see D&C 64:9–11).
When a spouse goes through the repentance process provided through the Atonement, we are to follow the example of the Lord in His attitude toward that person: “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42). Sometimes our inability to forgive and forget perpetuates the negativity cycle. Refusing to forgive others separates us spiritually from the Savior and destroys relationships.
Oh, will we ever understand why and how He did it for us?
Glory to God. His eternal voice comes back to my ears thousands of times until I really understand His sacred at-one-ment: to become one with Him. By His grace and mercy, we receive the honor to become one with the Father through the sacred Mediator. His holy redeeming act allowed us to be with the Holy Father once again. His Atonement brought to the universe the new birth; it is called holy Resurrection.
Heavenly Father loves us so much. He wanted all of us together to be glorified before His presence. Because of His love, Heavenly Father offered His Eternal and Infinite Love, who is His Only Begotten Son. Why? Because Father loves us, His children, so much.
The act of the Atonement is, in its simplest terms, a reconciliation of man with his God. The word atonement means to be at one. “It is literally at-one-ment.” (James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 47th ed., Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1924, p. 75.) Because of their transgression, Adam and Eve, having chosen to leave their state of innocence (see 2 Ne. 2:23–25), were banished from the presence of God. This is referred to in Christendom as the Fall, or Adam’s transgression. It is a spiritual death because Adam and Eve were separated from the presence of God and given agency “to act for themselves and not to be acted upon.” (2 Ne. 2:26.) They were also given the great power of procreation, so that they could keep the commandment to “multiply, and replenish the earth” and have joy in their posterity. (Gen. 1:28.)
All of their posterity were likewise banished from the presence of God. (See 2 Ne. 2:22–26.) However, the posterity of Adam and Eve were innocent of the original sin because they had no part in it. It was therefore unfair for all of humanity to suffer eternally for the transgressions of our first parents, Adam and Eve. It became necessary to settle this injustice; hence the need for the atoning sacrifice of Jesus in his role as the Savior and Redeemer. Because of the transcendent act of the Atonement, it is possible for every soul to obtain forgiveness of sins, to have them washed away and be forgotten. (See 2 Ne. 9:6–9; Talmage, Articles of Faith, p. 89.) This forgiveness comes about, however, on condition of repentance and personal righteousness.
There is a distinction between immortality, or eternal existence, and eternal life, which is to have a place in the presence of God. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, immortality comes to all men, just or unjust, righteous or wicked. However, eternal life is “the greatest of all the gifts of God.” (D&C 14:7.) We obtain this great gift, according to the Lord, “if you keep my commandments and endure to the end.” If we so endure, the promise is, “you shall have eternal life.” (D&C 14:7.)
9. Do I strive for oneness with others as well as within myself, between my ideal and actual self?
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord commanded us to become perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. In the Book of Mormon the resurrected Lord asked the rhetorical question, “What manner of men ought ye to be?” and then he answered his own question, “Even as I am” (3 Ne. 27:27).
In the Upper Room, just before the Lord left to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and in the presence of His Apostles offered what has come to be called the intercessory prayer. The prayer is found in John, chapter 17. President David O. McKay said that there is no more important chapter in the Bible. In that unique setting, the Lord prayed over and over that His disciples would become one as He and His Father were one (see John 17:11, 21–22).
How are they one? They know perfectly what the ideal person ought to be, and that is exactly what they are. There is a perfect oneness or congruity between their ideal and actual lives. They are one. That is not always the case with us. We often do not actually measure up to what we know we ideally ought to be. Sometimes we are not “one” as we are commanded to become. In order to become one, we need to engage in the process of the “at-one-ment,” or making the Atonement of Jesus Christ operative in our lives. We can grow toward that perfect oneness by applying those basic principles of faith in Christ unto repentance. Thus we can change, and our actual lives will come closer each day to becoming one with our ideal selves. If we are moving in that positive direction, the Spirit will be with us, but if we are going in the other direction, it will not. As the Lord said, “Be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27).
The English word atonement is really three words: at-one-ment, which means to set at one; one with God; to reconcile, to conciliate, to expiate.
But did you know that the word atonement appears only once in the English New Testament? Only once! I quote from Paul’s letter to the Romans:
“Christ died for us.
“… We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
“And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Romans 5:8, 10–11; emphasis added).
Only that once does the word atonement appear in the English New Testament. Atonement, of all words! It was not an unknown word, for it had been used much in the Old Testament in connection with the law of Moses, but once only in the New Testament. I find that to be remarkable.
In the Book of Mormon the word atone in form and tense appears 39 times. I quote but one verse from Alma: “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” (Alma 42:15; emphasis added).
Only once in the New Testament but 39 times in the Book of Mormon. What better witness that the Book of Mormon is indeed another testament of Jesus Christ?
And that is not all. The words atone, atoneth, and atonement appear in the Doctrine and Covenants five times and in the Pearl of Great Price twice. Forty-seven references of transcendent importance. And that is not all! Hundreds of other verses help to explain the Atonement.
I seldom use the word absolutely. It seldom fits. I use it now—twice:
Because of the Fall, the Atonement was absolutely essential for resurrection to proceed and overcome mortal death.
The Atonement was absolutely essential for men to cleanse themselves from sin and overcome the second death, spiritual death, which is separation from our Father in Heaven, for the scriptures tell us eight times that no unclean thing may enter the presence of God (see 1 Nephi 10:21; 15:34; Alma 7:21; 11:37; 40:26; Helaman 8:25; 3 Nephi 27:19; Moses 6:57).
During scripture study one day while serving as a mission president, I was pondering about the relationship between putting off the natural man and having a broken heart. The words natural man and broken heart conjured up in my mind the image of a horse trainer “breaking” a wild or “natural” horse. I wondered if there might be something I could learn by comparing the process a horse trainer uses to tame a wild or natural horse and the process God uses to tame the natural man in each of us—in other words, the process by which God grants unto us repentance.
So I did what any good researcher does these days: I googled it. And to my surprise, I found a book called "A Broke Heart" by a Christian horse trainer. As I read, I gained new insights and saw parallels between breaking a horse and how God was working with me, my missionaries, and many people in the scriptures. In fact, I have seen this pattern repeated over and over in the scriptures. Perhaps you will also recognize this pattern in your life and see how God is working with you to prepare your heart to repent and believe.
But before getting to the pattern, let me share one interesting insight. I was intrigued by the title of the book, A Broke Heart—not a broken heart but a “broke” heart. The author explained that a wild horse that has been tamed is not broken by the process but conversely discovers the joy and freedom of becoming one with its master—a state described as being broke, not broken. Likewise, God’s intent is not to break us but to redeem us. He does not want us to be brokenhearted but to have broke hearts and contrite spirits so that He can take the reins of our lives and guide us with His love to receive all of His promised blessings. The Lord said, “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Horse trainers seek to build a relationship with the horse based on trust and respect—to become one with and united with the horse. They describe the relationship-building process not as breaking the horse but as partnering with or starting the horse. Based on our understanding of gospel truths, perhaps the best way to describe our relationship with God would be to describe it not as a partnership but as a covenant relationship. God starts us down the covenant path with the first ordinance of baptism. Covenants are designed to unite man with God.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland described it this way:
Covenants always deal with the central issue between perfect, immortal God and imperfect, mortal man—why they are separated and how they can again unite. The Latin root for covenant is convenire, “to agree, unite, come together.” In short, all covenants . . . since the beginning have essentially been about one thing—the atonement of Jesus Christ, the at-one-ment provided every man, woman, and child if they will but . . . honor the terms of that coming together, that convenire, or covenant, whose central feature is always the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God himself.
Whether it be the relationship between the horse trainer and the horse or the relationship between God and man, the objective is the same: to become united one with the other.
Somehow these three principles—faith, hope, and charity—seemed closely integrated and inter-related, each drawing strength and reinforcement from the others. I had hope: not only desires for the future, but confidence that these desires in righteousness would be fulfilled. All of the right relationships seemed to be falling into place. I felt good about God (faith), I felt good about myself (hope), and I felt good about others (charity). More than that, I experienced a deep inner peace, a feeling of oneness and unity in life that gave me a sense of the total reconciliation that the atonement (literally at-one-ment) represents.
In my own case the change was not total or even immediate. The process begun in adolescence still continues. I still have moments of disappointment and frustration, moments when I lose confidence in myself and my abilities. I imagine most people do. Sometimes, listening to lessons or sermons in church, I almost buckle under the realization of all the things I should be doing that I am not doing. The path toward perfection sometimes seems so long, my ideal so far away from my real, and my pace so slow—at best a slow plodding toward my goal—that I wonder if I will ever make it. Sometimes I even wish that we did more in our lessons and sermons to encourage plodders like myself.
But somehow that flame of hope, rooted in my faith in Christ and my love for him, keeps burning through it all; as long as that doesn’t flicker out, I still have some light to illuminate the way back to God. I still believe he wants me there. My hope in Christ leads me to recognize that I will succeed as long as I don’t give up. I know he will never give up on me. I know also, in at least one sense, that the universe is on my side and I hurt within for others who lack this conviction. How difficult their way must be!
Human choices are inevitably incomplete and incorrect, and they often have unintended, or even sometimes destructive consequences.
Human choices require atonement.
We have all had experiences where we tried to be helpful and weren’t. I once arrived early for priesthood meeting. Thinking I could help ready our classroom, I erased the blackboard dense with writing. As he began our lesson, our dedicated instructor said, with surprise but without criticism, “I came early and put our lesson on the board, but somehow it’s been erased.” The class turned out fine, but I remember the forbearance of our priesthood teacher who, incidentally, is today’s U.S. Senate majority leader.
That’s a simple example. What about the roommate who inadvertently hurts the tender feelings of another roommate in a way that causes her to stop coming to church? What about the friend who accidentally fatally injures his best friend in a car accident?
In each of our lives things happen that make us stop and consider what is most important. A heart attack, a near drowning, a suicide—the sudden jolt of death, injury, or major changes make us seek at-one-ment. At these tender moments, the four things that matter most find expression as “thank you,” “I love you,” “please forgive me,” and “I forgive you” (Ira Byock, The Four Things That Matter Most [New York: Free Press, 2004], 3).
Each of these phrases is an echo of the Atonement. In each we feel our Savior’s love for us as we extend His love and forgiveness to others. Each eases pain, offers hope and comfort, and reconciles injustices and hurts that come from living in a world of sticks and stones.
And we don’t have to wait for death or trauma. The Savior’s Atonement can infuse our role relationships, experiences, and knowledges right now. Our lives become richer, more peaceful, and more whole as we say with all our hearts “thank you,” “I love you,” “please forgive me,” and “I forgive you.”
Atonement ultimately comes because of our Savior’s “infinite and eternal,” “great and last sacrifice” (Alma 34:13–14). He knows “according to the flesh how to succor his people” (Alma 7:12). He can heal us. He can comfort and bless those hurt by our mistakes, by our imperfect choices.
Judaic scholars teach that the Day of Atonement represents the time when the unrepentant are doomed, whereas at that time the repentant are forgiven and reconciled to God. Worshipers believe that on this day they spiritually enter the Holy of Holies, which is symbolic of entering into God’s presence. This time is represented as providing them with their “highest and deepest communion with God.”
For Latter-day Saints who understand the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, a study of the relationship between these holy days verifies what prophets and scriptures teach about what will occur in the last days. While Christ performed the great act of Atonement in His mortal life, His work is not yet complete. His return will further fulfill reconciliation between Him and mankind, serving as a time of At-one-ment, a time repentant individuals can physically enter His presence.
If the Resurrection is Christ’s universal gift to God’s children, then the Atonement is his particular gift, given only to the penitent. And if the Resurrection welds spirit to body to overcome physical death, then the Atonement joins our spirit to the Holy Spirit to overcome spiritual death. And, as the Resurrection brings completion, the Atonement also brings completion, but unlike the Resurrection, completion comes in two distinct but related ways:
First, our sins bring an imbalance to the scales of eternal justice; paying for our sins, Christ brings those scales back to a complete and perfect equilibrium. In the words of Mosiah, God gave “the Son power to make intercession for the children of men—Having . . . taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice” (Mosiah 15:8–9). We are justified through Christ: the price has been paid to the last farthing, and equilibrium is complete.
Second, the Atonement—literally at-one-ment—is the completion of a covenant, which in its simplest form is this: We stop sinning and Christ pays for our sin. There are those who say that salvation comes from works—from the absolution that comes from the sacraments. Others say that it comes from faith—from declaring Jesus to be the Savior. This is the ancient debate of faith and works. Works are defined as the sacraments (or, in our terms, ordinances). Faith is defined as proclaiming Jesus as the Savior of the world. But we know from modern scriptures that remission of sin comes from sacrifice—sacrifice on Christ’s part and sacrifice on our part:
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. [2 Nephi 2:7]
And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away. . . .
And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost. [3 Nephi 9:19–20]
If we are justified through Christ’s absorbing our sins, we are sanctified through a process involving three steps: First, we genuinely suffer a broken heart and a contrite spirit for our sins. Second, we consequently manifest our sorrow by leaving behind us those sins; we go our way and sin no more. Third, we are sanctified through the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost.
The bottom line is this: We were once spiritually dead through a separation from God by the absence of his spirit, but we are now, so to speak, resurrected—spiritually made alive—by the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. We were once sinful and incomplete, but through the process of the Atonement we are both justified and sanctified, completely and wholly.
We are in this sense complete, even as our Father in Heaven is complete—and one step nearer to being like him, too.
In the end, the purpose of this restoration [Apokatastasis] is to reunite God and his children. The Atonement itself is not only a powerful process of union (at-one-ment), but of reunion. As Jacob said, “For [by] the atonement … they are restored to that God who gave them breath.” (2 Ne. 9:26.)
On account of the Fall of Adam, all mankind suffer a mortal death as well as a spiritual death—that is, to experience life cut off from the presence of God. Although the death and Resurrection of Christ make it possible for all to be resurrected, our own sins create a separation from God: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Thus, the Atonement was offered to reconcile us to God. Describing this doctrine, the Apostle Paul uses the Greek word katallagå, usually translated as “reconciliation” (see Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18; Heb. 2:17) or in one case as “atonement” (see Rom. 5:11). The English word atonement captures precisely what this “reconciliation” means—that God and His children can be reunited or arrive at a state of “at-one-ment” again. The Savior provides a way for us to repent of our sins by “reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Cor. 5:19).
The Atonement came about through the “grace of God,” and grace is an important concept in the Apostle Paul’s writings. The Greek word for grace, charis, simply means “favor” or “gift” and refers to the fact that the Atonement is a gift. Through the grace of God, the Atonement offers two gifts. The first gift is immortality and is given to all mankind: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:21). But the second gift is eternal life and this gift is reserved for those who become “saints of God.”
We learn, then, that through repentance the earlier sorrow and darkness are transformed into joy and light. Calling out to Christ for salvation from the gall of bitterness and the everlasting chains of death, Alma found his pain being lifted. Replacing it were peace and new possibilities. “And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! …
“There can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.” (Alma 36:20–21.)
With that wonderful transformation comes another intriguing, even more revealing, change. This young man who was so tormented and horrified at the thought of coming back into the presence of God—who literally wished to be annihilated so he would not have to face the great Judge of the quick and the dead—now has opened to him a vision of God sitting upon his throne, and with his newly cleansed soul he cries, “My soul did long to be there.” (Alma 36:22.)
Not only does our spiritual record change and our physical life become clean, but also our very desires are purified and made whole. Our will quite literally changes to receive His will.
We may have avoided Church attendance, the sacrament, the bishop, our parents, our worthy companions—avoided anyone we had sinned against, including God himself—but now that repentant heart longs to be with them. That is part of the joy and light of the atonement—the “at-one-ment”—which not only binds us back to God but also brings us back to a special unity with our best natural self and our most beloved human associates.
The ultimate source of healing is spiritual. Breaking the word atonement into three parts—at-one-ment—suggests the truth that only divine love can finally make us whole—emotionally and spiritually. As Mormon explains, the power to become like the Savior—whole, fully developed—comes from being filled with charity, or “the pure love of Christ”: “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him.” (Moro. 7:47–48.)
Alma describes the transforming effect of experiencing the Lord’s atoning love. Struck down for trying to destroy the Church, Alma was racked in his soul “with eternal torment.” Then, as he remembered his father’s prophecies of the Savior’s atoning love, he pleaded for mercy and was filled with an exquisite peace and joy. (See Alma 36:6–21.)
Healing comes when we, too, not only know—but also feel—that the Savior loves us, even in our weakness. Dr. Dean Byrd, field manager for LDS Social Services, suggests that we can feel this love by reading the scriptures in a personalized way. For example, we could read John 3:16–17, “For God so loved [me], that he gave his only begotten Son, that [believing in him, I] should not perish, but have everlasting life.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn [me]; but that [I] through him might be saved.”
Dr. Byrd also tells of people who have received healing and comfort by envisioning the Savior reaching out to them.
The atoning love of the Savior includes his willingness to bear not only the burden of our sins—which would separate us forever from our Father—but also our day-to-day burdens of fear and anxiety—which would deprive us of peace and joy. As Sister Patricia Holland explains, giving our burdens to the Lord sometimes requires us “to make that leap of faith toward His embrace when we are least certain of His presence. … When we hand our fears and frustrations to Him in absolute confidence that He will help us resolve them, when in this way we free our heart and mind and soul of all anxiety, we find in a rather miraculous way that He can instill within us a whole new perspective—He can fill us with ‘that joy which is unspeakable and full of glory.’ (Hel. 5:44.)” (Unpublished talk given at the Exemplary Womanhood Fireside, Brigham Young University, 27 Mar. 1988.)
David Rolph Seely, “William Tyndale and the Language of At-one-ment,” in The King James Bible and the Restoration, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 25–42
Atonement. Tyndale’s first use of the English word atonement is in his 1526 translation of the New Testament at Romans 5:11: “We also joy in God by the means of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement.” In addition to the noun atonement (Greek katallagē), two forms of the related Greek verb katallassō occur in Romans 5:10, which Tyndale translated as “we were reconciled” and “seeing we were reconciled.” The words in this passage in Classical Greek mean “to change from enmity to friendship,” or “to reconcile.” In the New Testament, the verb is used in one passage describing the reconciliation of one human with another (1 Corinthians 7:11), but it most often describes the reconciliation of humans with God (Romans 5:10–11; 2 Corinthians 5:18–20; Colossians 1:20, 22; Ephesians 2:16). It is this Greek word that Tyndale translates with the word atonement, and it is likely that this Greek word provides the foundation for his understanding of the effects of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
While many have stated that Tyndale invented this word, the Oxford English Dictionary lists several variations and combinations of at and one, such as “to one,” “at one,” “one ment” (used by Wycliffe), and “atonement,” that were used in Tyndale’s time. But Tyndale saw that this term was a very good match for the theological context of the relationship between God and man and put the word atonement into his passages in the Old and New Testaments.
Tyndale only used the word atonement twice more in his New Testament, in the very important passage describing the effects of Christ’s Atonement in 2 Corinthians 5:18–20. The nominal and verbal forms of the Greek root katallassō occur five times in this passage, two of which Tyndale renders with “atonement” and one with “at one with.” A brief review of these five occurrences can help us see how he understood the meaning of the Greek word in relationship to the effect of Christ’s atonement. In 2 Corinthians 5:18, Tyndale renders “which hath reconciled” and “the office to preach the atonement.” In 5:19, he translates “and made agreement” and “the preaching of the atonement.” In 5:20 he renders “that ye may be at one with God.”
The Geneva and King James translators only used the English word atonement once in the New Testament, at Romans 5:11. Throughout the passages in Romans 5:10–11 and 2 Corinthians 5:18–20, the Geneva Bible and the KJV uniformly translated the words derived from katallassō with variations of the word reconcile or reconciliation. The word reconciliation was not uncommon and was employed by Tyndale and the Geneva translators, but Tyndale often found simple English words to express the concept.
Tyndale’s “which hath reconciled us unto himself by Jesus Christ” is similarly rendered by the KJV as “who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18). But Tyndale’s “the office to preach the atonement” is “ministry of reconciliation” in the KJV (2 Corinthians 5:18). Tyndale’s “For God was in Christ, and made agreement between the world and himself” is “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” in the KJV (2 Corinthians 5:19). Tyndale’s “the preaching of the atonement” is rendered in the KJV with “the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19), and his “Be at one with God” in the KJV is “Be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Several words in the Old Testament are also relevant to the language of Atonement in the Bible. Leviticus 16 contains a description of the most solemn of the festivals of the law of Moses, called Yom Kippur in Hebrew. [19] Tyndale coined three new English words in conjunction with this festival, which he called the Day of Atonement: atonement, scapegoat, and mercy seat. The Hebrew root behind Kippur is kpr, which has the sense of “to cover up” and occurs in contexts where it means “to appease, make amends, or reconcile.” [20] Leviticus 16 contains many occurrences of this word in a verbal form describing the rituals of reconciliation between God and man. Tyndale translated this Hebrew verb as “to make atonement” (Leviticus 16:6, 10) or “to reconcile” (Leviticus 16:6, 18, 20). The Septuagint translates this Hebrew word meaning “reconciliation” with various Greek words, including exilaskomai and hilastērion, which both mean “to reconcile” or “make amends.” The Vulgate uses expiationum, which has the sense of satisfying or appeasing. The King James translators used Tyndale’s words atonement, scapegoat, and mercy seat in their translation of the Old Testament.
While some of the Greek terms in the Septuagint translation of Leviticus 16 associated with the Day of Atonement are found in the New Testament, neither Tyndale nor the King James translators used the term atonement to translate them. Nevertheless, a look at two of these terms can help us see how they understood the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament as a type and shadow of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The Greek word hilastērion, which in Classical Greek refers to a gift or sacrifice to appease or gain the favor of a deity, is used to translate the Hebrew kappōret, which describes the golden cover of the ark of the covenant as the place where amends are made for sins on the Day of Atonement. This word is found in Romans 3:24–25. Tyndale used common vocabulary to translate the passage, relying on his understanding of the connection of the hilastērion as the mercy seat with “Christ Jesus, whom God hath made a seat of mercy through faith in his blood.” The King James translators, on the other hand, render “Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” They choose to translate hilastērion (Tyndale “mercy seat”) with propitiation, taken from the Vulgate, which remains obscure today. [21] In related passages with the Greek term hilasmos (cognate of hilastērion), used to refer to the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9), Tyndale also had common vocabulary: “He it is that obtaineth grace for our sins” (KJV, “he is the propitiation for our sins,” 1 John 2:2), and “sent his son to make agreement for our sins” (KJV, “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” 1 John 4:10).
The word propitiation does not appear at all in modern revelation. Reconcile appears in several passages, but Tyndale’s word atonement, with its variations atone, atoned, atoneth, and atoning, is found over forty times in modern scripture, especially in the Book of Mormon. As one of the many lasting legacies of Tyndale to the Latter-day Saint faith, atonement has become our common designation for the saving acts of Jesus Christ on behalf of the children of men and for the possibility of reconciliation and “at-one-ment” through his sacrifice.
Brown, Hugh B. (1962). "Mormonism." address was delivered by President Hugh B. Brown, counselor in the First Presidency, on Monday, Feb. 26, 1962, to the students at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pa. URL: https://www.cumorah.com/etexts/mormonism.txt
[T]he Godhead are one God in the sense that they are of exactly the same mind and heart in everything they do with us here on earth. The concept of unity or oneness is foundational in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the basic and essential message inherent in the otherwise abstract English word atonement, “at-one-ment,” or the idea of becoming one. So much alike are the three members of the Godhead that if we know one, we know the others. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one God (2 Nephi 31:21; Alma 11:44; 3 Nephi 11:36; D&C 20:28).
D. Kelly Ogden, Andrew C. Skinner, Verse by Verse, the Book of Mormon Volume 1: First Nephi - Alma 29. pg 31
England, Eugene (1966) "That They Might Not Suffer: The Gift of Atonement," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 1: No. 3, Pages 141-155.
1. We all know sin. We are inescapably moral by nature in that we cannot evade the question that finally comes into all reflection: "Am I justified?" We have eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and find the self of action tragically divided against the self of belief.
These are things we all know about. And if we are Christians we also know something about a claim which is incredible to most men —the claim that these estrangements can uniquely be healed through the Atonement of Christ. Atonement —a word whose pronunciation disguises its meaning, which is literally at one ment, a bringing to unity, a reconciliation of that which is estranged: man and man, man and God, or man and himself. That Atonement re- mains, as Paul described it, "unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." We have no greater need than that there be a force of healing in all our public and inner strife: that there be some source of forgiveness and change for the oppressor as well as help for the oppressed; that there be something large enough in love to reach past the wrongs we each have done and can never fully make restitution for; that there be hope in the possibility that any man can be renewed by specific means to a life of greater justice and mercy toward others. But for most men the claim that such a possibility truly exists is scandalous.
The scandal to humanistic man is the idea that man cannot go it alone —that his reason will not save him. Knowing what is right is not enough; there must be power to do what is right, and men (as the appalling organized evil of this century has reminded us), no matter how sophisticated or civilized they become, continue to act against what they know is right — their additional knowledge and merely efficient reason capable of becoming, in fact, more powerful means of doing evil. The scandal to the non-Christian is that God would take the necessary reconciliation upon himself, but is somehow unable to do it except by descending below all men into particular events in the history of the Jews and finally into the particular body and life of one man, Jesus of Nazareth —and that as a man he would enter the full range of human experience, including the very thing he was to save us from, estrangement itself. The scandal to the non- Mormon is the claim by a contemporary church of special insight into the meaning and means of the Atonement and of special authority in making it efficacious in the lives of men. (ENGLAND: The Gift of Atonement/142 & 143)
2. The Atonement is a necessary, but not sufficient, factor in men's
salvation from sin —necessary because no one else can fully motivate the process in the free agent, man, and insufficient because man must respond and complete the process. There is no reason to imagine God being unable to forgive. The question is what effect will the forgiveness have; the forgiveness is meaningless unless it leads to repentance. T h e forgiveness extended in the dramatic events of the Atonement is that kind of forgiveness uniquely capable of bring- ing "means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance." In other words, the forgiveness must be accepted in order to be efficacious: "For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he received not the gift" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:33) . As Paul Tillich has pointed out, the most difficult thing for man to do is accept his acceptance, to accept the fact that God accepts him, loves him —freely —even in his sins. Man's usual nature in his dealings with other men and, most important to my point here, in his dealings with himself, is to demand satisfaction before he can accept, to demand justice before he can forgive. This is not Christ's way and therefore his love (and the love which he tells us we can develop in response to that love) is redemptive. It has a quality of mercy which allows us to be at one with ourselves and thus gain the strength to be the new person that our sense of justice in the first place demanded that we be. We do not repent in order that God will forgive us and atone for our sins, but rather God atones for our sins and begins the process of forgiveness, by extend- ing unconditional love to us, in order that we might repent and thus bring to conclusion the process of forgiveness. And the center of the experience somehow is Christ's ability to break through the barrier of justice, in those men who can somehow freely respond, with the shock of eternal love expressed in Gethsemane. It comes to us only through our deep knowledge of that event and our involvement in the process of sustaining that knowledge in our lives, through the continual reminding of ourselves of the event and recommitment to the implications of it which occurs in the ordinances of the Gospel. The process is a complex one, an ongoing one. It may be triggered by particular events and have climaxes, but essentially it is a lifelong process —one beautifully described towards the end of the Book of Mormon in these words from the prophet Mormon to his son Moroni:
. . . repentance is unto them that are under condemnation and under the curse of a broken law. And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which comforter filleth with hope and perfect love. . . . (Moroni 8:24-26)
(ENGLAND: The Gift of Atonement /153)
3. About 600 years before Christ was born, a young man living in Jerusalem, seeking confirmation of his father's spiritual experiences, was given a remarkable vision:
. . . I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin. . . . And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdst thou? And I said unto him: a virgin most beautiful and fair above all other virgins. And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things. And he said unto me: Behold the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh. . . . And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father. (I Nephi 11:13-21)
After further explanation by the Angel, Nephi continues,
"And the angel said unto me again: Look and behold the condescension of God! And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my Father had spoken" (I Nephi 11:26-27).
We have here an important insight into the Atonement of Christ, an insight preserved by this young man and his people in their religious history as they journeyed to America and until their descend- ants six hundred years later welcomed Christ there after his death and resurrection. The word chosen by Joseph Smith in his translation is crucial: condescension — descending with. Christ is the descending of God with man into all that man experiences, including his estrangement, and this is somehow the heart of the power of the Atonement.
Many years after this group of people had arrived in America, one of their great prophet-kings named Benjamin, approaching old age and death, gathered his people together to declare to them a great revelation of understanding that had come to him. After re- minding them in very colorful terms of the implications of their human tendency to sin and the effects of guilt upon a man —"which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of God, and doth fill his breast with guilt, pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever" — King Benjamin tells them of a vision that had come to him of an event still
125 years in the future:
For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay. . . .
And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, fatique, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death: for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.
And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.
And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name (Mosiah 3:5,7-9)
Here for the first time chronologically in all known scripture we have a clear reference to what seems to be the central experience of that part of Christ's Atonement that concerns our individual sins: "Behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people." This is not a description of what occurred on the cross, but of what occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane in that night when Christ participated fully in the fearful loneliness that lies at the extremity of human experience — participated somehow in the anguish of estrangement. Christ descended, through capabilities which only he had as the literal Son of God, into the fullness, both in depth and breadth, of human guilt. We begin to get clearer insight into what occurred in that Garden through a revelation given by the Lord Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith in 1830.
Therefore 1 command you to repent — repent, lest . . . your sufferings be sore —how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For Behold, I , God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent: But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit — and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink — Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. (Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-19)
Although we certainly can't begin to understand all that happened in Gethsemane, especially how it happened, we can begin to feel the impact in our hearts of the divine love expressed there.
Jesus Christ has somehow created the greatest possibility we can imagine: that our common lot of meaninglessness and alienation can be redeemed, that we might not suffer if we would repent. The God who planned and created and who directs our earth experience, who sent us here into tragic risk and suffering because only here could we experience further growth in his likeness, has sent his son, not only to guide and teach us through his revelations and his life, but to enter willingly into the depths of man's life and redeem him —not offering solutions without knowing the pain of the problem and not setting prior conditions, but taking into himself the fullness of pain in all human estrangement in some awful awareness of the full force of human evil. Because the love is unconditionally offered and comes freely from the same person who gives us our standard of right and will eventually judge us, it has the power to release man from the barrier of his own guilt and give him the strength to repent.
The effect of King Benjamin's revelation on his people was immediate and dramatic. After hearing his words,
. . . they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come. . . . And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceeding great joy. And we are willing to enter ito a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments and all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days. . . . (Mosiah 5:2-5)
King Benjamin responded,
Ye have spoken the words that I desired; And, now, because o£ the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually be- gotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name. . . . And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye shall be obedient unto the end of your lives. (Mosiah 5:6-8)
A great thing is occurring here —the formation of a Christian community in 125 B.C. as a group of people respond in faith to the possibility that they can be at one with themselves through means provided by Christ. Struck to the heart by the meaning of God's love extended to them in the midst of their estrangement from him and themselves, they experience a mighty change which leads them into a covenant and the covenant sustains a process of development through continual repentance toward the image of Christ. (ENGLAND: The Gift of Atonement/145-148)
Talmage, James E. (1915) Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to the Holy Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern. Chapter 3: “The Need of a Redeemer”
Through the atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ—a redeeming service, vicariously rendered in behalf of mankind, all of whom have become estranged from God by the effects of sin both inherited and individually incurred—the way is opened for a reconciliation whereby man may come again into communion with God, and be made fit to dwell anew and forever in the presence of his Eternal Father. This basal thought is admirably implied in our English word, “atonement,” which, as its syllables attest, is at-one-ment, “denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into agreement of those who have been estranged.”v The effect of the atonement may be conveniently considered as twofold:
1—The universal redemption of the human race from death invoked by the fall of our first parents; and,
2—Salvation, whereby means of relief from the results of individual sin are provided.
The victory over death was made manifest in the resurrection of the crucified Christ; He was the first to pass from death to immortality and so is justly known as “the first fruits of them that slept.”w That the resurrection of the dead so inaugurated is to be extended to every one who has or shall have lived is proved by an abundance of scriptural evidence. Following our Lord’s resurrection, others who had slept in the tomb arose and were seen of many, not as spirit-apparitions but as resurrected beings possessing immortalized bodies: “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”
Talmage, James E. (1919) The Articles of Faith: A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lecture IV, “The Atonement, and Salvation. 1-3, Page 77
The Atonement of Christ is taught as a leading doctrine by all sects professing Christianity. The expression is so common a one, and the essential point of its signification is so generally admitted, that definitions may appear to be superfluous; nevertheless, there is a peculiar importance attached to the use of the word atonement, in a theological sense. The doctrine of the atonement comprises proof of the divinity of Christ's earthly ministry; and the vicarious nature of His death, as a fore-ordained and voluntary sacrifice, intended for and efficacious as a propitiation for the sins of mankind, thus becoming the means whereby salvation may be obtained.
The New Testament, which is properly regarded as the scripture of Christ's mission among men, is imbued throughout with the doctrine of salvation through the work of atonement wrought by the Savior; and yet the word atonement, occurs but once in the whole record; and in that single instance, according to the opinion of most biblical authorities, it is confessedly misused. The instance referred to is found in the words of Paul addressed to the saints at Rome:—"But we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."[191] The marginal rendering gives, instead of atonement, reconciliation, and of this word a related form is used in the preceding verse. A consistent translation, giving a full agreement between the English and the Greek, would make the verse quoted, and that immediately preceding it, read in this way:—"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation."[192] The term atonement occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament, and with marked frequency in three of the books of the Pentateuch, viz.: Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers; and the sense in which it is employed is invariably that of a sacrifice of propitiation, usually associated with the death of an acceptable victim, whereby reconciliation was to be effected between God and His creatures.
The structure of the word in its present form is suggestive of this, the true meaning; it is literally at-one-ment, "denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into agreement of those who have been estranged."[193] And such is the significance of the saving sacrifice of the Redeemer, whereby He expiated the transgression of the Fall, through which came death into the world, and provided ready and efficient means for man's attainment of immortality through reconciliation with God.
Riddle, Chauncey C. (1989) Doctrines for Exaltation: The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants, “The New and Everlasting Covenant.” Page 234, 241-242
When we examine the etymological roots of the word atonement, we find that in Old English there was a regular expression used to say that people became “at one.” This was sometimes spelled as two words, sometimes as one. The concept was a bringing together, an arranging of agreement, a uniting of hitherto estranged parties. The process by which this uniting was achieved was in English appropriately denominated “at-one-ment.” When a word was desired to express what our Savior accomplishes in our behalf, no better word could be found than the word “at-one-ment,” which we have come to pronounce atonement. This English word is the transaltion of the Hebrew kaphar, which means, among other things, to cover, and the Greek word katallag, which means to change in an intensive way and also to reconcile. The Savior’s atonement does cover our sins, and change our nature, and reconcile us to the Father.
My understanding is that our Savior’s atonement is the general descriptive term that covers all of his labors to exalt mankind from the moment he said, “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever,” to the great and last day when he will present his children spotless before Father for Father’s acceptation unto exaltation. As it is the task of men to learn to love God with all their heart, might, mind, and strength, so we can see that it is the task of our Savior’s atonement to enable men to love God with all their heart, might, mind, and strength.
…
Human beings may be saved only by binding themselves to Christ. It is as if our task were to stand straight and tall before Father, but because of the Fall, we are broken and twisted. The Savior is our straight and tall splint. If we bind ourselves to him, wrap strong covenants around us and him that progressively draw us up into his form and nature, then we can become righteous as he is and can be saved. But without him we are nothing…
If a human being endures to the end in the new and everlasting covenant, until he is literally transformed into the stature of Christ in heart, might, mind, and strength, then he may love God with all of his heart, might, mind, and strength. And if he then endures to the end of mortal life in that same condition, unfailingly enacting that same love, that new nature will become his eternal nature. He becomes one with God, part of God, also to work for the immortality and eternal life of man forever, as gods.
Thus the purpose of the new and everlasting covenant is to provide a means whereby every human being may come to be able to fulfill the first covenant, to do all things whatsoever their God commands them. But the first covenant cannot be fulfilled by one who has sinned. Therefore it is only through living vicariously in Christ that any mortal fulfills the first covenant and thereby is enabled to become exalted. Thus Christ wrought eternal life for us in love by satisfying justice for us vicariously. He extends mercy to all who will learn to love until their love can satisfy the demands of Father’s justice. The new and everlasting covenant is our detour whereby our Savior strengthens us until we can tread the narrow way of justice and mercy on our own.
Thus the new and everlasting covenant is a special case of the first covenant, that which enables sinners to yet claim the blessing of exaltation in eternity, even though they themselves, by themselves, do not merit such blessings and are at first unable to receive such blessings. Only in and through Christ may they inherit, through his worthiness.
Our Savior kept the first covenant and was exalted by it. Had he sinned, there could have been no one to at-one him with Father. Because of his faithfulness in the first covenant, the second, or new and everlasting, covenant was made possible, that all of us may share his blessings with him for all eternity.
Holland, J. R. (2006). "Christ and the New Covenant." Deseret Book Co.
“The literal meaning of the word atonement is self-evident: at-one-ment, the act of unifying or bringing together what has been separated or estranged. The atonement of Christ was indispensable because of the separating transgression, or fall, of Adam, which brought death into the world. In the words of Moroni, “By Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ…; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man. And because of the redemption of man,…they are brought back into the presence of the Lord.” (Mormon 9:12-13)
Holland, J. R. (2006). Chapter Ten: The Atonement. In Christ and the new covenant (pp. 195). Deseret Book Co.
"To help his sons and daughters remember their promises to him--and certainly to help them remember his promises to them--God has directed that the nature and significance of those covenants be recorded. In that process, the texts and documents preserving such promises have also been called 'covenants.' In fact, the words 'testament' and 'covenant' are virtually synonymous in their theological usage, the Latin definition of 'testament' being 'a covenant with God, holy scripture.' Thus, the Old and New Testaments, as we commonly refer to them, are written testimonies or witnesses (the Latin 'testis' meaning 'witness') of the covenants between God and man in various dispensations. Furthermore, such covenants always deal with the central issue between perfect, immortal God and imperfect, mortal man--why they are separated and how they can again unite. The Latin root for 'covenant' is 'convenire,' 'to agree, unite, come together.' In short, all covenants, all testaments, all holy witnesses since the beginning have essentially been about one thing--the atonement of Jesus Christ, the 'at-one-ment' provided every man, woman, and child if they will but receive the witness, the 'testi'-mony of the prophets and apostles, and honor the terms of that coming together, that 'convenire,' or covenant, whose central feature is always the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God himself."
Holland, J. R. (2006). Chapter One: "The New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon." In Christ and the new covenant (pp. 8). Deseret Book Co.
“This allegory as recounted by Jacob is from the outset intended to be about Christ. …
“Even as the Lord of the vineyard and his workers strive to bolster, prune, purify, and otherwise make productive their trees in what amounts to a one-chapter historical sketch of the scattering and gathering of Israel, the deeper meaning of the Atonement undergirds and overarches their labors. In spite of cuttings and graftings and nourishings that mix and mingle trees in virtually all parts of the vineyard, it is bringing them back to their source that is the principal theme of this allegory. Returning, repenting, reuniting—at-one-ment—this is the message throughout.
“… At least fifteen times the Lord of the vineyard expresses a desire to bring the vineyard and its harvest to his ‘own self,’ and he laments no less than eight times, ‘It grieveth me that I should lose this tree.’ One student of the allegory says it should take its place beside the parable of the prodigal son, inasmuch as both stories ‘make the Lord’s mercy so movingly memorable.’
“Clearly this at-one-ment is hard, demanding, and, at times, deeply painful work, as the work of redemption always is. There is digging and dunging. There is watering and nourishing and pruning. And there is always the endless approaches to grafting—all to one saving end, that the trees of the vineyard would ‘thrive exceedingly’ and become ‘one body; … the fruits [being] equal,’ with the Lord of the vineyard having ‘preserved unto himself the … fruit.’ From all the distant places of sin and alienation in which the children of the Father find themselves, it has always been the work of Christ (and his disciples) in every dispensation to gather them, heal them, and unite them with their Master” (Christ and the New Covenant [1997], 165–66).
"[M]ortal life, glorious as it is, was never the ultimate objective of God’s plan. Life and death here on planet Earth were merely means to an end—not the end for which we were sent.
That brings us to the Atonement. Paul said, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The Atonement of Jesus Christ became the immortal creation. He volunteered to answer the ends of a law previously transgressed. And by the shedding of His blood, His and our physical bodies could become perfected. They could again function without blood, just as Adam’s and Eve’s did in their paradisiacal form. Paul taught that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; … this mortal must put on immortality.”
Meaning of Atonement
With this background in mind, let us now ponder the deep meaning of the word atonement. In the English language, the components are at-one-ment, suggesting that a person is at one with another. Other languages employ words that connote either expiation or reconciliation. Expiation means 'to atone for.' Reconciliation comes from Latin roots 're-', meaning 'again'; '-con', meaning 'with'; and 'sella', meaning 'seat.' Reconciliation, therefore, literally means 'to sit again with.'
Rich meaning is found in study of the word atonement in the Semitic languages of Old Testament times. In Hebrew, the basic word for atonement is 'kaphar,' a verb that means 'to cover' or 'to forgive.' Closely related is the Aramaic and Arabic word 'kafat,' meaning “a close embrace”—no doubt related to the Egyptian ritual embrace. References to that embrace are evident in the Book of Mormon. One states that 'the Lord hath redeemed my soul … ; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.' Another proffers the glorious hope of our being 'clasped in the arms of Jesus.'
I weep for joy when I contemplate the significance of it all. To be redeemed is to be atoned—received in the close embrace of God with an expression not only of His forgiveness, but of our oneness of heart and mind. What a privilege! And what a comfort to those of us with loved ones who have already passed from our family circle through the gateway we call death!"
Nelson, Russel M. (1996). "The Atonement." October General Conference
"How the Atonement was wrought, we do not know. No mortal watched as evil turned away and hid in shame before the light of that pure being.
All wickedness could not quench that light. When what was done was done, the ransom had been paid. Both death and hell forsook their claim on all who would repent. Men at last were free. Then every soul who ever lived could choose to touch that light and be redeemed.
By this infinite sacrifice, through this atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.
Atonement is really three words: At-one-ment, meaning to set at one, one with God; to reconcile, to conciliate, to expiate.
But did you know that the word atonement appears only once in the English New Testament? Only once! I quote from Paul’s letter to the Romans:
'Christ died for us. …
'We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
'And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement' (Rom. 5:8, 10–11; italics added).
Only that once does the word atonement appear in the English New Testament. Atonement, of all words! It was not an unknown word, for it had been used much in the Old Testament in connection with the law of Moses, once only in the New Testament. I find that to be remarkable."
Packer, Boyd K. (1988). "Atonement, Agency, Accountability." April General Conference.
"The Atonement was the foreordained but voluntary act of the Only Begotten Son of God in which He offered His life and spiritual anguish as a redeeming ransom for the effect of the Fall of Adam upon all mankind and for the personal sins of all who repent.
The literal meaning of the English word Atonement is self-evident: at-one-ment, the bringing together of things that have been separated or estranged. The Atonement of Jesus Christ was indispensable because of the separating transgression, or Fall, of Adam, which brought two kinds of death into the world when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Physical death brought the separation of the spirit from the body, and spiritual death brought the estrangement of both the spirit and the body from God. As a result of the Fall, all persons born into mortality would suffer these two kinds of death. But we must remember the Fall was an essential part of Heavenly Father’s divine plan. Without it no mortal children would have been born to Adam and Eve, and there would have been no human family to experience opposition and growth, moral agency, and the joy of resurrection, redemption, and eternal life."
Holland, Jeffrey R. (2008). "The Atonement of Jesus Christ." March Liahona
https://luthert.web.illinois.edu/blog/posts/57.html
Hafen, Bruce C. (1990). "Beauty for Ashes: The Atonement of Jesus Christ." April Ensign
"The basic doctrines of the holy Atonement relate first to the transgression of Adam and Eve and to our personal sins. The Fall subjected Adam and Eve and their children to death, sin, and other characteristics of mortality that separated them from God. To allow mankind again to be “at one” with God, divine justice required compensation for these consequences of the Fall. God’s mercy allowed the Savior to make that compensation through the great 'at-one-ment.'"
"Life is a school, a place for us to learn and grow. We, like Adam and Eve, experience 'growing pains' through the sorrow and contamination of a lone and dreary world. These experiences may include sin, but they also include mistakes, disappointments, and the undeserved pain of adversity. The blessed news of the gospel is that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can purify all the uncleanness and sweeten all the bitterness we taste.
We might think of the degree of our personal fault for the bad things that happen in our lives as a continuum ranging from sin to adversity, with the degree of our fault dropping from high at one end of the spectrum to zero at the other. At the “sin” end of the continuum, we bear grave responsibility, for we bring the bitter fruits of sin fully upon ourselves. But at the other end of the spectrum, marked by 'adversity,' we may bear no responsibility at all. The bitterness of adversity may come to us, as it did to Job in the Old Testament, regardless of our actual, conscious fault.
Along this fault-level continuum, between the poles of sin and adversity, lie such intermediate points as unwise choices and hasty judgments. In these cases, it may be unclear just how much personal fault we bear for the bitter fruits we may taste or cause others to taste. Bitterness may taste the same, whatever its source, and it can destroy our peace, break our hearts, and separate us from God. Could it be that the great 'at-one-ment' of Christ could put back together the broken parts and give beauty to the ashes of experience such as this?
I believe that it does, because tasting the bitter in all its forms is a deliberate part of the great plan of life. This consequence of the Fall was not just a terrible mistake; rather, it gives mortality its profound meaning: 'They taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good.' (Moses 6:55; italics added.)"
"The purpose of the endowment of charity is not merely to cause Christ’s followers to engage in charitable acts toward others, desirable as that is. The ultimate purpose is to transform his followers to become like him: 'he hath bestowed [this love] upon all who are true followers of his Son, … that when he shall appear we shall be like him.' (Moro. 7:48.) 'At-one-ment' thus seems to mean not only being with God, but also being like God."
Nibley, Hugh W. (1990). "The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Part 1." July Ensign
"People are usually surprised to learn that atonement, an accepted theological term, comes from neither a Greek nor a Latin word, but is good old English and really does mean, when we write it out, “at-one-ment,” denoting both a state of being “at one” with another and the process by which that end is achieved.
The word atonement appears only once in the New Testament (Rom. 5:11 in the King James Version), and in the Revised Standard Version it does not appear at all, the translators preferring the more familiar word reconciliation. (See also footnote to Rom. 5:11 in the LDS edition of the King James Version.) Reconciliation is a very good word for atonement there, since it means literally to be seated again with someone (re-con-silio)—so that atonement is to be reunited with God, just as Paul said: “[The Lord] sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High.”
The Greek word translated as “reconciliation” is katallagein. It is a business term, which the lexicon tells us means “exchange, esp. of money; … change from enmity to friendship, reconciliation; … reconciliation of sinners with God.”2 It is the return to the status ante quo, whether as a making of peace or a settlement of debt.
The monetary metaphor is by far the most common, being the simplest and easiest to understand. Hence, frequently the word redemption literally means “to buy back”—that is, to reacquire something you owned previously. Thus, Moses said: “But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh.” (Deut. 7:8.)"
In Semitic languages, where one root can have many meanings, the first rule is always to look for the basic or literal meaning of the word, which in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic usually takes us back to early days and simple homely affairs of life in the desert or the countryside. One simple physical act often triggers a long line of derivatives—meanings which are perfectly reasonable if one takes the most obvious steps from one to the next, but which can end up miles from the starting-place.
The basic word for atonement is kafar, which has the same basic meaning in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic—that being “to bend, arch over, cover; 2) [to pass over with one’s palm &c., to wipe out, rub] … to deny, … to forgive, … to be expiated, … renounce.”3
The Arabic kafara puts the emphasis on a tight squeeze, such as tucking in the skirts, drawing a thing close to oneself. Closely related are Aramaic4 and Arabic kafata,5 meaning a close embrace, which are certainly related to the Egyptian hpt,6 the common ritual embrace written with the ideogram of embracing arms. Hpt may be cognate with the Latin capto7 and the Persian kaftan,8 a monk’s robe and hood completely embracing the body.
Most interesting is the Arabic kafata,9 as it is the key to a dramatic situation. It was the custom for one fleeing for his life in the desert to seek protection in the tent of a great sheik, crying out, “Ana dakhiluka,” meaning “I am thy suppliant,” whereupon the host would place the hem of his robe over the guest’s shoulder and declare him under his protection. In one instance in the Book of Mormon we see Nephi fleeing from an evil enemy that is pursuing him. In great danger, he prays the Lord to give him an open road in the low way, to block his pursuers, and to make them stumble. He comes to the Lord as a suppliant: “O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies!” (2 Ne. 4:33.) In reply, according to the ancient custom, the Master would then place the hem of his robe protectively over the kneeling man’s shoulder (kafata). This puts him under the Lord’s protection from all enemies. They embrace in a close hug, as Arab chiefs still do; the Lord makes a place for him (see Alma 5:24) and invites him to sit down beside him—they are at-one.
This is the imagery of the Atonement—the embrace: “The Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.” (2 Ne. 1:15.)
“Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.” (Alma 5:33.)
This is the hpt—the ritual embrace that consummates the final escape from death in the Egyptian funerary texts and reliefs, where the son Horus is received into the arms of his father Osiris.
In Israel, when the sacrifices and sin offerings were completed on the Day of Atonement, the high priest went to the door of the kapporet to receive assurance from the Lord that He had accepted the offerings and repentance of the people and forgiven them their sins: “At the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee.” (Ex. 29:42.) The kapporet is usually assumed to be the lid of the ark of the covenant, yet it fits much better with the front, since one stands before it.10 The Septuagint, the old Greek text of the Bible, makes the verse clearer: I will meet you at the “door of the tent of the testimony in the presence of the Lord, on which occasion I shall make myself known to you that I might converse with you.”
The setting is clarified in the Gospel of Luke when Zacharias, a direct descendant of Aaron (as was also his wife), entered behind the veil into the Holy of Holies (naon tou kuriou, the skene or tent of the Old Testament) while people waited on the outside. (See Luke 1:9–10.) He did not meet the Lord, but rather his personal representative, a messenger of the Lord standing beside the altar, who identified himself as “Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.” (See Luke 1:11, 19.)
The news was about a great at-one-ment that was to take place in which the children would “turn to the Lord their God” while the “hearts of the fathers” would be turned again [epistrepsai] “to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:16–17.) It is all a preparation for a great bringing together again through the ordinance of baptism after they had been separated by the Fall: “I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and … Aaron and his sons, … and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and be their God.” (Ex. 29:44–45.) They will all be one happy family forever.
Nibley, Hugh W. (1990). "The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Part 2." August Ensign
It must be admitted that other societies seem to share the tradition. The most notable is the grasp of the situation by the Greek dramatists, whose plays in fact were religious presentations, the main theme of the tragedies being the purging of guilt. No one ever stated the problem of man’s condition more clearly than the great Greek dramatists. They show us what life is without the Atonement, for their view of life, like that of all the ancients, is a profoundly tragic one.
The standard tragedy begins with something gone very wrong. After all, that is the way the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants also begin—in the one case, that “great city Jerusalem [is about to] be destroyed” (1 Ne. 1:4); in the other, “peace [is about to] be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion” (D&C 1:35). Things are not as they should be in the world; nothing short of immediate destruction is in the offing. Someone must be responsible. Why? Because things don’t just happen; therefore, appeal must be made to the oracle. Long before Aeschylus’s The Suppliant Maidens (the earliest Greek tragedy), in which Danaus seeks favor at the altars of the Pelasgian gods as an enemy approaches, we find the same dramatic scene as Moses stands before the people and cries out, “Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” (Ex. 32:30.) For the people had turned to the golden calf and were smitten with the plague.
But who is guilty? Not just one person, certainly; society has its part to play in making us what we are and do. Should all the society be punished, then? How do we apportion the blame when all share in it? We cannot. The law of Moses insists with great strictness that every individual man, woman, and child above age twenty, rich and poor, shall pay “ransom for his soul” of exactly the same amount—one-half shekel, no more, no less. (See Ex. 30:11–16.) Just as sweeping is the provision that God “commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent” (3 Ne. 11:32) and to keep repenting as long as our days are extended for that express purpose. We are all in it together.
To satisfy both offended justice and offended Deity, something must be done. Appeasement, payment, settlement—call it what you will—it must restore the old unity of the heavenly and the human order; it must bring about at-one-ment of the two. And what payment or sacrifice is sufficient to do that? The usual practice throughout the ancient world was to sacrifice the king, who after all took credit for victory and prosperity and was answerable when they failed.
Joseph Smith took the gospel of Christ back even before Abraham to Adam and beyond, revealing the Atonement as “the plan of redemption … prepared from the foundation of the world” (Alma 12:30)—that is, when it was approved at the Council in Heaven. This event is often mentioned in the earliest Christian and Jewish literature, one of the most notable texts being the “Discourse on Abbaton” by Timothy, Archbishop of Alexandria (circa A.D. 380). When the plan was voted on, according to this account and others, it was turned down. The earth herself complained, as in the Book of Moses and other Enoch literature, of the defilement it would bring upon her, knowing the kind of inhabitants to come (see Moses 7:48–49); and the heavenly host objected to a plan that would cause such a vast amount of sin and suffering.
The Only Begotten broke the deadlock by volunteering to go down and pay the price. This opened the way; the plan could go forward; and the sons of God and the morning stars all sang and shouted for joy (see Job 38:7) in a great creation hymn that has left an indelible mark in ancient literature and ritual. The Lord had made it all possible, leaving men their agency, and obeying the Father in all things. But Satan and his followers refused to accept the majority vote; for that, Satan was deprived of his glory in a reversal of the ritual endowment and was cast out of heaven, which was the reverse of at-one-ment.
Only in such a context does the Atonement, otherwise so baffling, take on its full significance. There is not a word among those translated as “atonement” which does not plainly indicate the return to a former state or condition; one rejoins the family, returns to the Father, becomes united, reconciled, embracing and sitting down happily with others after a sad separation. We want to get back, but to do that, we must resist the alternative: being taken into the community of “the prince of this world.” (John 12:31.)
Jacob, contemplating our possibilities here on earth both for dissolution and salvation, breaks out into an ecstatic cry of wonder and awe: “O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace!” (2 Ne. 9:8.) For God has provided the resurrection as the first step to a physical at-one-ment, a resurrection which is indispensable to saving our spirits as well—they, too, must be atoned, for when Adam yielded to the adversary at the Fall (the common experience of all who become accountable), it was the spirit that committed the act of disobedience and independence, and the spirit could not undo that which was done. In the next verse Jacob gives a concise summary of the situation:
“And our spirits must have become like unto him [Satan], and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God [for no unclean thing can dwell in his presence, and being shut out is the utter reverse of at-one-ment], and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who … transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.” (2 Ne. 9:9.)
The part about the angel of light is important to let us know that Satan is with us as a regular member of the group; he does not show himself as a Halloween horror—that point is vital in establishing the reality of the scene.
What is the justification for Jacob’s alarming statement of total loss without atonement? For the answer, look around you! In the next verse Jacob describes our condition as Homer does that of his heroes—“all those noble spirits” caught like rats in a trap16—doomed ahead of time, but for the Atonement: “O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape [we are caught!] from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.” By this atonement, “the temporal, shall deliver up its dead”—that is, from the grave—but more important, “the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead.” That is the death that really is hell—“which spiritual death is hell.” So now we have them both, body and spirit, brought together—another at-one-ment, “restored one to the other.” (2 Ne. 9:10–12.)
And how, pray, is this all done? Not by a syllogism or an argument or an allegory or even a ceremony; “it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.” (2 Ne. 9:12.) Thus, another outburst from Jacob: “O how great [is] the plan of our God!” (2 Ne. 9:13; italics added.)
Nibley, Hugh W. (1990). "The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Part 3." September Ensign
The law leads us back home; the at-one-ment takes place when we get there. In other words, the law is all preparation. Everything we do here is to prepare for the Atonement:
“Therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state … which is after the resurrection of the dead.” (Alma 12:24.)
The early Christians also taught that, as this life is a preparation for the next, so in the premortal existence we had to prepare for this one.1 To reach a stage in which the test would be meaningful—the plan itself being “prepared from the foundation of the world,” well ahead of time and well understood by those who accepted it there—angels were sent to remind men of that preparation. (See Alma 12:28–30; Alma 13:2–5.)
Before approaching the tabernacle or tent covering the ark, Aaron and his sons would be washed at the gate (see Ex. 29:4); then they would be clothed with the ephod, apron, and sash (Ex. 29:5), and a mitre, a flat cap or pad which may have been meant to support the weight of a crown, was placed on their heads (Ex. 29:6). The priests were also anointed with oil (Ex. 29:7) and consecrated or set apart (Ex. 29:9). Then they put their hands upon the head of a bullock (Ex. 29:10), transferring their guilt to the animal, which was slain. Its blood was put upon the horns of the altar (Ex. 29:12), which represented the four corners of the world. Two rams were then slain, and their blood was sprinkled on the altar as an atonement for all; then blood from the second ram was placed upon the right ear and right thumb of Aaron. (See Ex. 29:15–20.) The blood was also sprinkled over the garments of the priests (Ex. 29:21), who then ate parts of the ram with bread, Aaron and his sons “eat[ing] those things wherewith the atonement was made” (Ex. 29:22–24, 32–33). Each day for seven days, a bullock was offered for atonement. (Ex. 29:36–37.) Then the Lord received the high priest at the tent door, the veil (in Lev. 16:17–19, the high priest alone enters the tabernacle), and conversed with him (Ex. 29:42), accepting the sin offering, sanctifying the priests and people, and receiving them into his company to “dwell among the children of Israel, and [to] be their God” (Ex. 29:45).
This order is clearly reflected in D&C 101:23: “And prepare for the revelation which is to come, when the veil of the covering of my temple, in my tabernacle, which hideth the earth, shall be taken off, and all flesh shall see me together.” What an at-one-ment that will be!
In Latter-day Saint doctrine, the Atonement of Christ is far from being a merely theological, philosophical, or psychological exercise. At-one-ment fulfills the measure of man’s creation and is the culmination of the plan of salvation. As such, it requires more than our casual attention as we live out our days on earth. No detached intellectualism; no frenzied quick-fixes; no “cheap grace,” as Bonhoffer put it. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. … Costly grace is … the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. … It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”15
The “only true life” requires a lifetime of obedience (see Matt. 7:21) and cleanliness before God (see 3 Ne. 27:19). It is specifically a matter of covenants, to which one must be true and faithful before overcoming this world and finding at-one-ment in the world to come. (See Rev. 3:21.)
Being guilty of the blood and sins of your generation, you may not “have a place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white.” (Alma 5:24.) This is nothing less than the yeshivah, literally “sitting down” in the presence of God.16
Note that there are two kinds of blood-stained garments here—the one showing the blood and sins of this world, the other attesting (for Alma expressly states that “these things testify”) that Aaron and his sons have completed the sacrifice of the Lamb and thus cleansed the people of their defilements, and their garments are white. The blood that washes garments clean is not the blood that defiles them, just as the serpent that healed the people in the wilderness was not the serpent that killed. (See Num. 21:9.)
It is on that principle of paradoxical opposites that Satan’s participation in our lives is to be explained. If we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of [God’s] love” (2 Ne. 1:15), we can also be “encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction” (Alma 5:7); and if we can be perfectly united in the at-one-ment, we can also be “cast out” (Alma 5:25), separated and split off forever—our names “blotted out, that the names of the wicked … shall not be mingled with the names of my people” (Alma 5:57).
Nibley, Hugh W. (1990). "The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Part 4." October Ensign
Choosing At-one-ment
If we would have God “apply the atoning blood of Christ” (Mosiah 4:2) to our case, we can also reject it. We can take advantage of it, or we can refuse it. The Atonement is either dead to us or in full effect. It is the supreme sacrifice made for us, and to receive it, we must live up to every promise and covenant related to it—the Day of Atonement was the day of covenants, and the place was the temple.
We cannot keep ourselves chaste in a casual and convenient way, nor can we accept chastity as St. Augustine did, as to be operative at some future time—“God give me chastity and continency, only not yet.”1 We cannot enjoy optional obedience to the laws of God, or place our own limits on the law of sacrifice, or mitigate the charges of righteous conduct connected with living the gospel. We cannot be willing to sacrifice only that which is convenient to part with, and then expect a reward. The Atonement is everything; it is not to be had “on the cheap.” God is not mocked in these things; we do not make promises and covenants with mental reservations. Unless we keep our covenants, Satan has power over us—a condition we can easily recognize by the mist of fraud and deception that has enveloped our whole society.
Atonement is both individual and collective. That is what Zion is—the people must be “of one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18), not only one with each other, but one with the Lord. So in 3 Nephi 11, after the Lord had contact with every member of the multitude personally, “one by one” (3 Ne. 11:15), “when they had all gone forth and had witnessed for themselves, they did cry out with one accord, saying: Hosannah! Blessed be the name of the Most High God! And they did fall down at the feet of Jesus, and did worship him” (3 Ne. 11:16–17). That was a true at-one-ment.
For the pre-neo-Darwinist Korihor, the Atonement was nothing but wishful thinking, “the effect of a frenzied mind.” (Alma 30:16.) But as Lord Raglan has shown at length, such a doctrine is the last thing in the world that a seeker for an easy and blissfully happy land would invent.4 The rigorous terms of the Atonement, which demands the active participation of all its beneficiaries and passes the bitter cup of sacrifice to all of them, has made it unpopular to the point of total rejection by the general public—hardly a product of wishful thinking or human invention!
But is that other world—the world of at-one-ment with God—any more real? It is the standard by which we judge this one. It is hard to argue with the voices that keep telling us that we are strangers here, that there must be some better place. Whence this nostalgia, the “intimations of immortality” of which Wordsworth spoke,5 the yearning for the good, true, and beautiful, the ideal which we recognize in Plato’s anamnesis? It is so vivid and compelling that we must actually fight to suppress it.
Many birds and animals have a powerful and mysterious homing instinct that drives them for thousands of miles. This is real. When we feel overpowering nostalgia, can it be ignored as utterly meaningless? Our growing revulsion to this mad world is matched by a growing yearning for another that can become very real for us. We can recognize the pieces of a more complete and perfect order surviving in the wreckage around us. From all of this, we can easily reconstruct or imagine a more perfect antetype. We would not come down here unless something was to be done; the work is not finished, the story is not over. There is something very powerful at work beyond our world and our ken.
In matters of atonement, the scriptures engage us in a very serious, thoughtful, and lifelong project; but the minimal involvement which makes for popular religion plainly shows that something has been removed which has caused the Gentiles to stumble. It was known from the beginning that “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehend[eth] it not.” (John 1:5.) “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” (John 1:10–11.)
So why bother with this hopelessly unpopular doctrine? Because there are always some who do accept it: “But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12–13.)
That makes them the children of God before they lived in the flesh, and what more consummate at-one-ment than to resume their status as sons of God? For their sake, it was all worth it.
And what greater thing could we possibly “lay hold upon” than the eternal life that all the prophets have sought? It is the faith and the power that Moroni spoke of that are able to bring one into the embrace of the Lord, to be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Ne. 1:15) and to return and “have a place” in the presence of the Father (see Alma 5:24). It is at this point that the atonement of Christ is operative in one’s life. This is the true at-one-ment. As to the ordinances on earth—and in the spirit of Article of Faith 8 [A of F 1:8] (“We believe the Bible … as far as it is translated correctly”), a few words in the text deserve new treatment—the Lord was clear in his prayer just prior to his suffering in Gethsemane: “While I was with them in the world, I [tested] them in thy name [by which thou didst endow me]; those that thou gavest me [have] kept [the secret], and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” (John 17:12.) “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of [do not come out of] the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:14.) “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me” (John 17:22–23), that we may be endowed (initiated, completed) to make one, “so have I also sent them into the world” (John 17:18).
Ostler, Blake T. (2013). Fire on the Horizon: A Meditation on the Endowment and Love of Atonement.
"To engage in the ethics of discourse properly is to address our existence from within the I-Thou relationship, to move and have our being in God. To enter into ethics of the divine discourse is to enter the temple, to belong to Zion, to be reconciled as at-one-ment with God--to be as God is."
McConkie, Bruce R. (1954). Doctrines of Salvation Volume I: Sermons & Writings of Joseph Fielding Smith
FEW TO GAIN "AT-ONE-MENT" WITH GOD. We often hear the word atonement defined as being "at-one-ment" with God. That is a very small part of it. In fact, the great majority of mankind never becomes one with God, although they receive the atonement. "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." We do not all become "at one" with God, if we mean that we are brought back again and given the fulness of life which is promised to those who keep the commandments of God and become sons and daughters of God. (pp. 78)
Faust, James E. (2001). The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope. October General Conference, Saturday Morning Session.
Understanding what we can of the Atonement and the Resurrection of Christ helps us to obtain a knowledge of Him and of His mission. Any increase in our understanding of His atoning sacrifice draws us closer to Him. Literally, the Atonement means to be “at one” with Him. The nature of the Atonement and its effects is so infinite, so unfathomable, and so profound that it lies beyond the knowledge and comprehension of mortal man. I am profoundly grateful for the principle of saving grace. Many people think they need only confess that Jesus is the Christ and then they are saved by grace alone. We cannot be saved by grace alone, “for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
Some years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley told “something of a parable” about “a one room school house in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough no teacher had been able to handle them.
“Then one day an inexperienced young teacher applied. He was told that every teacher had received an awful beating, but the teacher accepted the risk. The first day of school the teacher asked the boys to establish their own rules and the penalty for breaking the rules. The class came up with rules, which were written on the blackboard. Then the teacher asked, ‘What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?’
“‘Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on,’ came the response.
“A day or so later, … the lunch of a big student, named Tom, was stolen. ‘The thief was located—a little hungry fellow, about ten years old.’
“As Little Jim came up to take his licking, he pleaded to keep his coat on. ‘Take your coat off,’ the teacher said. ‘You helped make the rules!’
“The boy took off the coat. He had no shirt and revealed a bony little crippled body. As the teacher hesitated with the rod, Big Tom jumped to his feet and volunteered to take the boy’s licking.
“‘Very well, there is a certain law that one can become a substitute for another. Are you all agreed?’ the teacher asked.
“After five strokes across Tom’s back, the rod broke. The class was sobbing. ‘Little Jim had reached up and caught Tom with both arms around his neck. “Tom, I’m sorry that I stole your lunch, but I was awful hungry. Tom, I will love you till I die for taking my licking for me! Yes, I will love you forever!”’”
President Hinckley then quoted Isaiah:
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. …
“… He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
Samuelson Jr., Cecil O. (2009). What Does the Atonement Mean to You? April Ensign.
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”
These fundamental principles are grounded in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The word Atonement “describes the setting ‘at one’ of those who have been estranged, and denotes the reconciliation of man to God. Sin is the cause of the estrangement, and therefore the purpose of atonement is to correct or overcome the consequences of sin.” I believe it is also possible to become estranged from God for many reasons other than overt sin.
King, Arthur Henry (1975). Atonement: The Only Wholeness. April Ensign.
We Are Not at One:
The world is sick and most of us are sick—perhaps all of us are sick in some way or another. We need to be healed, to be made whole.
We are sick because we are not whole: we feel separated, we feel incomplete.
To us who believe, the Lord is the healer, the one who makes us whole.
Then why do we not feel whole? Why do we not feel at one?
In the first weeks of life we still respond to our mother’s heartbeat because it is the one that we know; then we lose our remembrance of that response. We lose still further when we are weaned, for we are separated still further. We separate ourselves further yet by learning to crawl, to walk, and so it goes on. Do we ever naturally feel whole again after birth? And does our mother? Does she not long to go on being one with her child?
Husband and wife yearn to be one with each other always and in all ways. Do we ever completely succeed?
Does the family feel at one? Is it not always struggling, even in its goodness, with the trammels of its badness?
Are we at one with our brethren? We have been told, “If ye are not one, ye are not mine.” What about the barriers of environment, race, creed, education, fortune? Can we be at one in a society that is not at one? How can we be at one with ourselves when we are aware all the time of the imperfections of society and our unfulfilled duty to help remove them?
Are we at one inside ourselves? Most of us feel more than one aspect of separation from others: the sense of inferiority, jealousy, fear, guilt, of evil, of suffering, of death, all of them symptoms of separation. We have a sense of limitation, and wonder whether it is our mind or our body or both that limit us. We feel pulled in several directions at once, we feel the need of having to choose the lesser of two evils. We are sick in body and mind—we have so much illness because we are not at one with ourselves. The number of illnesses regarded by the experts as having to do with attitude of mind—the psychosomatic illnesses—increases steadily.
And are we at one with God? How can we be at one with him unless we are at one with our family, with society, and with ourselves? And how can we be at one with ourselves, and with father, mother, brother, sister, husband, or wife, if we are not at one with God? If we were at one with God, should we not feel at one with all mankind?
But as Christians we know that the Lord is the healer, the one who makes us whole.
The Word Atonement
“We pray you in Christes stede that ye be atone with God” (2 Cor. 5:20, Tindale’s Version; the Authorized Version says “reconciled”). “To be atone” means to be reconciled. Romans 5:11 reads: “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” [Rom. 5:11] In the Revised Version, the New English Bible, and the Jerusalem Bible, “atonement” reads “reconciliation.” The German Bible’s word is “versoehnung,” whose usual translation is “reconciliation.” The Basic English Bible says “at peace.”
To be reconciled (2 Cor. 5:18, “God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”) we need a mediator. Christ is that mediator (“one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Tim. 2:5).
But Romans 5:11 is the only place where “atonement” is used in the sense of “reconciliation.” [Rom. 5:11] Other scriptural references, particularly in the Old Testament, have a sense that is more familiar to us. The verb “to atone for” can mean “to be penitent, to pay for.” For example, we find in Leviticus 1:4 the sense “expiation” (appeasement by sacrifice) [Lev. 1:4], in Romans 3:24 “redemption” (which means “buying back”) [Rom. 3:24], and in 1 John 2:2 the word “propitiation” (meaning “making gracious”). On the day of atonement, the Jewish national sins were heaped on the scapegoat and he was driven out: “And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited.” (See Lev. 16:22; the literal sense of “not inhabited” is—and this is significant to us here—“a land of separation.”)
Of all these senses, the one most familiar to us is that of “redemption.” But it is the one in which we have lost the original sense of “buying back.” It may be that in dealing with these things of the spirit we should not push the metaphor too hard. The sense “redemption” is not, after all, so very different from that of “reconciliation”; see, for example, “I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25), where the word “goel” translated as “redeemer” could equally well be rendered by “vindicator” (New English Bible) or “mediator.” In fact, if we think of and feel the word “atonement” with the right degree of generality, we can reconcile the senses: we need to be made whole; we cannot be made whole without being reconciled to God; we are reconciled to God by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Putting the senses together in this way, we are led to the meaning in which we understand the plan of salvation. Christ offered himself to make up for the transgression of Adam, the consequence of which was death. Christ sets all the posterity of Adam free from death (general salvation). “When Adam fell, the change came upon all other living things and even the earth itself became mortal, and all things including the earth were redeemed from death through the atonement of Jesus Christ.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions 3:100–101. See also 2 Ne. 2:22.) The animals and the elements, too, suffered death for Adam’s transgression. But Christ also shed his blood (1 Pet. 1:19) for every man individually, and that is why his atonement must be infinite. (2 Ne. 9:7.) This salvation is for everyone who will repent, obey the ordinances of the gospel, and do good works (individual salvation); if a man refuses salvation, he is banished from God’s presence; if he commits the ultimate refusal, he dies the second death.
Fear is a great separator of selves and of self. To be courageous at one level may involve being afraid at another—this helps to explain the difference between physical and moral courage. Most fears in the end are fears of oneself and can be conquered by bringing in the Lord as an ally.
And that brings us to separation from God. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31), but it is a still more terrible thing to fall out of the hands of the living God. To realize that Jehovah and Christ are one is to realize that the books Luke and Jeremiah are both part of the gospel, and that the books Judges and Acts are both part of the gospel. We have not to look upon Jehovah and Christ as different aspects of the same God, but to realize that they are one and the same God. Many people feel that when he looks at them they are at one with his eyes of concern; but when he gazes at horizons they do not like they feel that his eyes are as those of eagles. But what if they cannot see his eyes at all?
Yet with all the irritation at best and torment at worse of being divided against oneself, we need to remember that the prayer “suffer us not to be separated” (T. S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday) is a prayer against the destruction of our individuality which is the most important of all things to us. The fear need not and should not be for the struggles we may have that come from the “opposition in all things” and that we must admit to ourselves in order to be able to grow. However, that opposition is at its healthiest when we are not divided against ourselves, but may find ourselves in opposition to someone else and discover the need to modify ourselves accordingly. It is better to conquer oneself in terms of reconciliation with someone else. And the words of the poet, Yeats, apply here, too:
“For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.”
What Winston Churchill offered the British people as their way to preservation, the Lord himself gave all peoples and every person to show them the way to salvation: blood, sweat, and tears. Christ’s agony in Gethsemane takes over where his teaching ends but his love continues. When his suffering caused him to “tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore” (D&C 19:18), it was not because of apprehension at his own death and suffering, but because he was taking upon himself the burden of all of the sins of humanity from all times. In his trial and scourging and crucifixion he was to suffer still further for the gap between his teaching and the way mankind was treating him, but that was just a prolongation of the climax of suffering in Gethsemane, when he accepted the cup with all its implications—implications that go far beyond not merely our thinking, but also our imagination. This in some way enables him to pay for our sins, to expiate them, to reconcile us with the Father, and to redeem us.
And then to suffer a greater separation than any separation man had ever suffered—the moment at about the ninth hour when he cried from the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46.) Was it necessary that he also should suffer that last of separations, the separation of a Divine Father from a Divine Son in order to understand and stand for all those who, like William Cowper, had felt forsaken by the Father because of false doctrine, or because they had themselves forsaken the Father? Christ had not forsaken the Father, but he had to have the experience of being forsaken. Such a moment is beyond our power to comprehend or imagine.
And then the resurrection—the resurrection of the body to life everlasting—a resurrection from the greatest of agonies to the greatest of joys—the conquest of death for all and the conquest of sin for all those that will repent and seek eternal life by the grace of God.
The price: to suffer more agony than any man; the achievement: eternal life for all those that can and will accept him; the motivation: love—the medium, the air, and the life of wholeness, of being at one.
Wholeness
The parts are not to be joined or sewn or glued together. There are no more edges and no more friction. Each part contains the whole and yet the whole is more than any part. Each part is fused and interfused with the whole, but the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
But what of the need for opposition in all things, and what of eternal progression? In this earthly life we may feel wholeness and oneness, this atonement, fleetingly before the color of the experience changes and the harmony is gone to come again and then to go again.
“For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
“But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” (1 Cor. 13:9–10.)
If we accept and live the gospel, we shall be made whole, we shall be glorified, we shall be that much further on in our eternal progression. What oppositions we shall then meet, what conditions for creation we shall then obtain, what new wholes we may rise to has not been revealed to us, and if it were we would not understand. But for the time being, if we have not a full understanding of divine or human love, we can be given the experience of it. We may have the supreme experience of it in contemplating the atonement and in trying to live to be worthy of the love that it shows to us. Praise be to the Father and the Son that they are at one and that we may be at one with them: “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” (John 17:21.)
Hafen, Bruce C. (2004). The Atonement: All for All. April General Conference, Sunday Afternoon Session.
We grow in two ways—removing negative weeds and cultivating positive flowers. The Savior’s grace blesses both parts—if we do our part. First and repeatedly we must uproot the weeds of sin and bad choices. It isn’t enough just to mow the weeds. Yank them out by the roots, repenting fully to satisfy the conditions of mercy. But being forgiven is only part of our growth. We are not just paying a debt. Our purpose is to become celestial beings. So once we’ve cleared our heartland, we must continually plant, weed, and nourish the seeds of divine qualities. And then as our sweat and discipline stretch us to meet His gifts, “the flow’rs of grace appear,” like hope and meekness. Even a tree of life can take root in this heart-garden, bearing fruit so sweet that it lightens all our burdens “through the joy of his Son.” And when the flower of charity blooms here, we will love others with the power of Christ’s own love.
We need grace both to overcome sinful weeds and to grow divine flowers. We can do neither one fully by ourselves. But grace is not cheap. It is very expensive, even very dear. How much does this grace cost? Is it enough simply to believe in Christ? The man who found the pearl of great price gave “all that he had” for it. If we desire “all that [the] Father hath,” God asks all that we have. To qualify for such exquisite treasure, in whatever way is ours, we must give the way Christ gave—every drop He had: “How exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.” Paul said, “If so be that we suffer with him,” we are “joint-heirs with Christ.” All of His heart, all of our hearts.
What possible pearl could be worth such a price—for Him and for us? This earth is not our home. We are away at school, trying to master the lessons of “the great plan of happiness” so we can return home and know what it means to be there. Over and over the Lord tells us why the plan is worth our sacrifice—and His. Eve called it “the joy of our redemption.” Jacob called it “that happiness which is prepared for the saints.” Of necessity, the plan is full of thorns and tears—His and ours. But because He and we are so totally in this together, our being “at one” with Him in overcoming all opposition will itself bring us “incomprehensible joy.”
Christ’s Atonement is at the very core of this plan. Without His dear, dear sacrifice, there would be no way home, no way to be together, no way to be like Him. He gave us all He had. Therefore, “how great is his joy,” when even one of us “gets it”—when we look up from the weed patch and turn our face to the Son.
Hafen, Bruce C. (1993). The Restored Doctrine of the Atonement. December Ensign.
Let us consider now the second and more sobering finding about the idea of heaven in modern America. McDannell and Lang observe that despite the surprising strength of today’s personal beliefs in a real heaven, the mainline Christian churches offer little serious theological response to the natural intuition of their members. Rather, today’s “ideas about what happens after death are only popular sentiments and are not integrated into Protestant and Catholic theological systems.” (Heaven: A History, p. 308.) These systems seem to assume that ideas about immortality are no longer socially relevant and that they are too speculative to be acceptable to modern scholarship.
But then these historians note one “major exception” to their generalization regarding today’s theological vacuum about heaven—namely, “the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” They summarize a range of LDS teachings, from eternal marriage to genealogy and ordinances for the dead, then conclude that “the understanding of life after death in the LDS Church is the clearest [known] example of the continuation of the modern heaven into the twentieth century.” (Ibid., p. 320.)
How poignant that so many people today yearn for everlasting ties to God and to each other, yet how sad and ironic that other Christian denominations’ theology offers no developed reply to these deeply felt needs. The Restoration offers these people not only the hope of an embrace with the Lord but also a full understanding of what that embrace can mean. For being “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Morm. 5:11) symbolizes the fulfillment of his atonement in our lives—becoming literally “at one” with him, belonging to him, in mortality as well as in heaven.
Condie, Spencer J. (1996). The Fall and Infinite Atonement. January Ensign.
The Book of Mormon teaches us of an infinite atonement (see 2 Ne. 9:7; 2 Ne. 25:16; Alma 34:10, 12, 14), an atoning sacrifice by Christ that is unbounded by time, ethnicity, geography, or even kinds of sins, save for the unpardonable sin of denying the Holy Ghost (see Alma 39:6). The Resurrection includes all people “from the days of Adam down” to the end of time (Alma 40:18), those “both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female” (Alma 11:44). The Atonement is also infinite in the sense that the Savior not only overcame death and sin, but he also took upon himself “the pains and the sicknesses” and the “infirmities” of his people (Alma 7:11–12). The Atonement is infinite, too, in that because of the redemption made possible by his beloved Son, our Heavenly Father is able to forgive us “as often as [we] repent” (Mosiah 26:30–31; see also Moro. 6:8).
Through repentance we can become at one with Christ, or, as Jacob put it, we can “be reconciled unto him” (Jacob 4:11). Amaleki invited the people of his day—and us as well—to “come unto Christ … and partake of his salvation … and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26). We become reconciled with him when we willingly give our souls to him as he offered his life for us.
After Aaron had taught the father of King Lamoni about the fall of man and of the plan of redemption and the Savior’s atoning sacrifice, the king prayed to God: “I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day” (Alma 22:18). That is precisely what each of us must do to become reconciled with our Savior: we must give away all our sins. Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has explained that “real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!” (“Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness,” Ensign, May 1995, p. 68.)
Bradshaw, Jeffrey M. (2010). Three Perspectives on the Atonement. April Meridian Magazine. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-401/
In William Tyndale’s 1526 version of the New Testament, he gave an English translation of Romans 5:10-11 as follows:
For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son: much more, seeing we are reconciled, we shall be preserved by his life. Not only so, but we also joy in God by the means of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received this atonement.
Like many others of Tyndale’s memorable translations of scriptural phrases, this version became the basis for the historically dominant rendering of the text into English. In the English Bible, “atonement” is “the single word of Anglo-Saxon origin that describes a theological doctrine; other doctrinal words come from Latin, Hebrew, or Greek.”
Tyndale’s use of the term “atonement” in his Bible translation was consistent with his theological view that the central mission of Jesus was:
“to make us one with God: “One God, one Mediatour, that is to say aduocate, intercessor, or an atonemaker, between God and man.” “One mediatour Christ, . and by that word understand an atonnemaker, a peacemaker.”
Gallagher further explains:
The original meaning also comes through in the various early Bible commentators. Note Udal’s comment on Ephesians 2:16 which makes the intended meaning of “atone” crystal clear: “And like as he made the Jewes and Gentiles at one betwene themselfes, euen so he made them bothe at one with God, that there should be nothing to break the attonement, but that the thynges in heauen and the thinges in earth should be ioined together as it wer into one body.”
The results of this “great and last sacrifice” have been described in many different ways. For example, there is the term “expiate”-which means “to completely satisfy or appease; to make propitious”-and the term “redeem”-which can mean to “pay a ransom to deliver a captive.” These two terms address the idea of justification, the aspect of the sacrifice of Christ that enables forgiveness and release from the bondage of sin. But “expiate” and “redeem” do not adequately express the concept of sanctification, the complementary process by which we may be “spiritually. born of God,” having received a “mighty change in [our] hearts” and “his image” in our countenances. For, in the end, it is not enough for us to be cleansed from all sin: we must also acquire the divine attributes that qualify us for the society of celestial beings. As Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained, the Final Judgment is one of both actions and effects-not only what we have done, but also what we have become. As “sons of God,” we are to “be like him,” for the day shall come when “we shall see [our Father] as he is.”
Embracing the meaning of each of the more limited descriptions, the term “atonement” describes both the process and the ultimate result of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It focuses attention on the most central and important concept of that sacrifice-namely, the idea of “taking two things that have become separated, estranged, or incompatible. and bringing them together again, thus making the two be ‘at one.'”
The intimate personal dimension of the Atonement was described by Jesus Christ in His “High Priestly Prayer” on behalf of His disciples. He pleaded that they, and those they later would teach, would be “made perfect in one”:
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.
At a first level of understanding, the Hebrew term for atonement, kippur, can be thought of as roughly approximating the English word “cover.” In the Mosaic temple, the idea of kippur related to the kapporet that formed the lid of the ark of the temple where Jehovah stood to forgive-or cover-the sins of the people. The veil of the temple, also a kapporet, covered the entry of the Holy of Holies. Besides the notion of “covering of sin” implied by the term kippur, however, there appears to have been the additional concept of “union” with the Divine, a “covering with glory,” in the ancient temple cult. After the priest and the people had completed all the rituals and ordinances of the atonement, the veil was opened so that the Lord could tell the people that their sins had been forgiven, symbolically welcoming them into His presence. Following his study of the term kippur, Nibley concluded that:
. the literal meaning of kaphar and kippurim is a close and intimate embrace, which took place at the kapporeth or the front cover or flap of the Tabernacle or tent. The Book of Mormon instances are quite clear, for example, “Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.” “But behold the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled eternally in the arms of his love”. From this it should be clear what kind of oneness is meant by the Atonement-it is being received in a close embrace of the prodigal son, expressing not only forgiveness but oneness of heart and mind that amounts to identity.
When we have proven our faithfulness through all the experiences that the Lord sees fit to inflict, the Atonement will then have full claim on us. In the first stages, it heals our wounds, while, in its ultimate manifestation, it literally clothes us with the glory of God in His similitude and crown us with immortality and eternal life. Of the centrality of the Atonement, the Prophet Joseph Smith said:
The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.
Amplifying this thought, C. S. Lewis writes:
This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects-education, building, missions, holding [meetings]. [However] the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to [re]make them [in the image of Christ]. If they are not doing that, all the [chapels, temples], [priesthood], missions, sermons, even the [Holy Scriptures themselves], are simply a waste of time. [The Savior came to earth] for no other purpose. [T]he whole universe was created for [just this] purpose.
“Wherefore, how great the importance to 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”!
Goddard, H. Wallace (2020). Are We All Racist? June Meridian Magazine. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/are-we-all-racist/
Let’s adapt King Benjamin’s brilliant observation for our purposes:
For the natural person is an enemy to God and to all people,
and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever,
unless he or she yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit,
and putteth off the natural man or woman
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. (adaptation of Mosiah 3:19)
We are all programmed to protect and preserve ourselves at all costs. We are on the defensive—unless and until we yield to the invitation of God’s messenger who changes us into disciples of the One who takes separate things and unites them to each other, to Himself, and to Heavenly Father. Then we become children who welcome His tutoring.
All of this is consistent with the much-neglected verse immediately before Benjamin’s most-famous statement. Verse 18:
Men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.
That’s pretty clear. The only way to overcome our fallen programming is to humble ourselves and to embrace Jesus and His human renewal. He is the only one who can heal our minds and hearts.
Jesus is the perfect example of taking things that are estranged and making them one with Him and goodness. We should read the accounts of Him ministering to those on the edges of the crowd. We should follow His example in looking for and wholeheartedly including those around us who may feel marginalized. We should remember that every soul is precious to the Lord. When we let the Holy Ghost give us Jesus’ perspective on people, then we begin at-one-ment. This is the task that all of us should undertake.
Sometimes we apply Jesus only superficially to our fallenness. We reflect on Him in an effort to be more kind or polite. That is not enough. If we want to be truly changed, we must throw ourselves on His merits, mercy, and grace. As we put our souls into doing His work, we will feel our hearts being changed by Him. And when we feel the demons of judgment and unkindness stirring within us, I recommend that we use Alma’s powerful mantra:
O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. (Alma 36:18)
The way to overcome racism, narrowness, fallenness, and humanness is to invoke the divine. Jesus can expand our view of and love for others around us. He can make us one with Himself and with each other. He is the master of at-one-ment. When we are filled with Him, we will learn about, embrace, and advocate for one another—even those who are different from us.
Frogley, Craig R. (2022). His Day to Perfect Us. April Meridian Magazine. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/his-day-to-perfect-us/
The first chapter in Genesis recounts six days of creations beginning with light and ending with man. It is interesting that each day of creation contains or ends with the seeming terminal statement “God saw that it was good” or some variation. Genesis chapter two declares the completion of each created element leading God to rest. But, as we have wondered, why would an all-powerful God need to rest? The Hebrew word for rested is shabath, hence the origin of our word “Sabbath”. It can mean rested or simply stopped but there may be a principle here that would reveal itself with further pondering and discovery:
It is interesting that the word for seven in 1:1 is sheba meaning to complete or perfect. It originates from the word shaba meaning covenant or oath.[iv] The word for finished is kalah which can mean accomplished but is also the same word for bride which is used to mean “to perfect or complete”.
In verse 3, God does two things to this seventh time-period. Note, He blesses and hallows, not the creation, but the day. The word hallow is quadash which can mean He made this time sacred or consecrated for a sacred purpose. Of course, the whole of the seven days of creation was sacred, but something more is indicated for the seventh day. Hallow also means “to make whole”; the work of the at-one-ment of Christ.
But, note verse chapter two verse five:
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
The Book of Moses 3:5 adds: for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air
Now, from this, it might be natural to assume that the first chapter, with six days of creation is an account of the spiritual creation, but Joseph Fielding Smith teaches us that all accounts we have are of the physical creation.[v] Is it possible then, that since nothing was yet on the earth that the seventh time-period was used to assemble all the created parts. The account begins with the creation of man out from a mist. Then he plants the garden and brings the animals to him. Was this time hallowed in order to make things whole? Was it made a sacred time used to perfect His creation? Was He putting the puzzle together into one great whole?
Then, we might notice that the seventh day, unlike all other six, has no terminal “it was good”. Are we still living in the seventh time-period during which Jehovah is working, not to create, for that was ended, but to perfect through divine light, within the dangers and potential of agency.
Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light. DC 93:31
Is the time of this life, His time to perfect us… if we are willing to participate in His process? He will never infringe upon our agency and He is teaching us how to perfect what we create? Is the commandment to keep the Sabbath a time that enables Him to counteract the dangerous effects of this probationary/preparatory world, so that the perfecting can even be realized? He promises to give us unlimited powers to create universes, dimensions, kingdoms, powers, etc. But a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we agreed to face memory and identity loss, a weakness for chocolate, a lost ability to fly, a very gradually developing intellect, blindness to all but physical materials, a controlling desire for attention, recognition, curiosity, entertainment, etc.
Vandagriff, G. G. (2007). The Divine Void: Adam and Eve's Model for Life. May Meridian Magazine. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-172/
As Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, a huge void was created in their lives that nothing could fill – the daily discourse with and direct love of their Creator. They endeavored the rest of their lives to get back to where they had been, to have that at-one-ment. They understood much better than we, that the only way we can fill the “divine void” is with the living water of Jesus Christ.
Because a veil is drawn across our minds when we are born, we each have this “divine void” in our lives. For the very fortunate, the void is in filled to some extent by loving family who offer unconditional love, righteous role models, and instructions on how to receive forgiveness and salvation.
But most of the world is not lucky, and is left with a dark well of wrenching sadness that we can’t understand. We seek to fill it in many ways. Many good humans succeed in filling it with love and service to their fellow man – with sacrifice and selflessness. It is an irony that the more we give from this void, the more we are filled. That is because the grace and love of Christ through his atonement are attendant on Christlike acts.
The atonement is the only thing that can fill that void. This is what we are offered in the Lord’s House – the last ordinances to make us whole. This is the at-one-ment Adam and Eve are seeking.
But for those of us who do not understand this idea, we seek to fill that divine void with other things – either dulling our senses so we can’t feel it – alcohol, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, extreme activities, overindulgence in anything, or even through our friends and mates. Though going the latter route is going in the right direction, those with abandonment issues (that dull ache that will never go away) take this to extremes and sabotage all their dealings by demanding too much, shutting down in resentment, or trying to exercise control. There is after all only one friend who will never fail us under any circumstances, and that is Jesus Christ.
There is, of course, also the starving criminal element who lashes out in rage. They don’t have “it” and they think they are entitled to “it,” whatever “it” is.
Our mission as Latter-day Saints is, first to find the healing of the atonement in our own “divine void,” fill our wells with living water, and then give and give and give to those who have none, that they may see the model, the way that was laid out for us by Adam and Eve to go back home to our loving Heavenly Father.
Givens, Fiona, and Terryl Givens. "All things new: Rethinking sin, salvation, and everything in between." Faith Matters Publishing, 2020. Accessed July 9, 2023. URL: https://faithmatters.org/atonement-from-penal-substitution-to-radical-healing-an-excerpt-from-all-things-new-by-terryl-and-fiona-givens/
We can actually witness the tension between these two versions of Christ’s atoning work—saving from sin versus healing from woundedness—in a textual contrast between two of the most important Bible translations in Christian history and the different ways they translate the Greek term sodzo (“heal” or “save”). Few biblical texts should be more central to our understanding of the Christian message as Jesus taught it than a record of one of the first public sermons delivered by the Apostle Peter. Second in sequence only to his Pentecostal testimony, this two-part address occurs before a Jewish crowd and then before a Jewish council. In the third chapter of Acts, in the King James Version, Peter heals “a certain man lame from his mother’s womb” (Acts 3:2). An audience gathers, and after enacting the central principle of Jesus’s ministry—healing—Peter uses the occasion, and his healed, restored teaching aid, to emphasize that central principle.
The first translation into English of these passages is by John Wycliffe, in the fourteenth century. Working before the Reformation, he rendered the critical verses into English as follows: “This [sick] man is made saaf;” “In the name of Jhesu Crist …this man stondith hool bifor you;” There is no other name “in which it bihoveth us to be maad saaf ” (Acts 4:9, 10, 12, our emphasis).The Middle English word saaf, like a principal meaning of the original Greek term sodzo, means “healed,” “made whole.” In sum, Jesus Christ is the name and power whereby we can all be made whole, healed, sound, and complete. As was the design from the beginning—explained after Eve’s fateful ascent, reaffirmed by Jesus on the Mount, and prophesied by the angel to Nephi—we would not be left “wounded” but would be restored to the path of divine ascent by Him who comes “with healing in his wings” (Mal.4:2).The Healer and the Restorer to At-one-ment—the one who brings us into the fullest possible unity with each other and with the Heavenly Family—are the same. Even Augustine at one time saw our predicament in these terms; “through grace,” he wrote, “the soul is healed from the wound of sin.”
A representative distortion from this blueprint is plain to see, dated to a text and time in history. When William Tyndale (upon whose work the King James Bible is based) translates this story of the healing of the paralytic, he forges in immutable form a narrative that is a stark departure from the original. He begins in Wycliffe’s steps. This “impotent man …is made whole,” he translates. “By the name of Jesus Christ …doth his man stand here before you whole,” he continues. Then the fatal pivot on which the whole contemporary Christian message is built: “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given whereby we must be saved.” The story of healing a particular man, as a type of the healing of which we all stand in need, is shifted to a story about salvation from damnation. One Protestant commentator has conceded that “‘salvation’ means to rescue or protect, although it also has the association of healing or restoring to health” (our emphasis). Our point is that in this story, context and language alike could not be clearer. Christ’s incomparable gift is his power and desire to heal us all as individuals, regardless of the nature of our wounds.This is at-one-ment. Tragically, catastrophically, the preoccupation of Tyndale and his fellow Reformers with sin rather than woundedness, and with salvation from hell rather than healing from the “infirmities” and “the pains of all” triumphs (Alma 7:12; 2 Ne.9:2).
In recent decades biblical scholarship has begun to move an understanding of atonement in this same direction. Conventional interpreters of atonement’s roots have seen the word as indicating “to cover.” Mary Douglas, however, notes that while the Hebrew root k-p-r can mean “to cover or recover,” it has a more complex meaning: “to repair a hole, cure a sickness, mend a rift, make good a torn or broken covering….Atonement does not mean covering a sin so as to hide it from the sight of God; it means making good an outer layer which has rotted or been pierced” (our emphases). In other words, atonement means “to heal.” Margaret Barker agrees that the Hebrew k-p-r, translated as “atone,” “has to mean restore, re-create, or heal” and argues that for the Hebrews, atonement was “the rite of healing.”
This reading of the meaning of atonement is twice affirmed in the Book of Mormon. Nephi foresees the day that “the Son of Righteousness shall appear unto them [that …look forward unto Christ with steadfastness]; and he shall heal them” (2 Ne. 26:9).The fulfillment of his prophecy comes in 3 Nephi. There, the Son of God does indeed appear to the Nephite people, and He pleads with those who anticipated His coming in language that clearly evokes the scene of the woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears: “Will ye not return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” (3 Ne. 9:13; our emphasis). In this magnificent scene we witness the purpose and culmination of Christ’s great designs for us. The resurrected Christ here links the final stages of His mission with our return through conversion and healing. The familiar formula—“repent and be saved”—is expanded and enriched to a vastly more encompassing project. The lame, the blind, and the infirm, the guilt-ridden and sin-laden, the spiritually hungry and emotionally wounded, the wandering soul and lonely pilgrim—all are swept up in the embrace of His desire—and capacity—to heal. “Have you any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are …afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy” (3 Nephi 17:7; our emphasis).
Christ here echoes the voice of the prodigal son’s father—and His own—“a father who asks no questions, wanting only to welcome his children home.” Eugene England believed the realization of such an unprompted love, such a disposition to “set aside” our offense, was precisely the “shock of eternal love” necessary to prompt our healing—and our forgiving of and reconciliation with others. Christ, in His mercy, already “hath atoned for [our] sins” (D&C 29:1).Christ, setting our sins aside, loving us perfectly and understandingly in whatever condition He finds us, empowers us to do likewise and complete the cycle of at-one-ing, of perfect healing.
The fear of loving family or beloved more than God has long pervaded Christian culture.The Restoration reexamines this longstanding tradition. Jesus named love of God first in the hierarchy of heavenly commands, with love of others second (Matt. 22:38–39). Yet, when Enoch asks a weeping God the Father (“Man of Holiness”) the cause of His tears, His answer has three astonishing dimensions.The first appears when God prefaces His response by reciting the two great commandments but which He here pronounces in reverse order: “Unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father.” The second paradigm disruption is that though God’s children have clearly broken both commands, God’s grief is over their violation of the second. He is not weeping because they have failed to worship, honor, or obey Him; “Behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood.” Third, His tears flow, indeed, “the whole heavens shall weep over them …seeing these shall suffer.” Human suffering, not human sin, is the focus of his grief. Three times the account affirms, and Enoch marvels, that God’s weeping is over human “misery.”
These verses are the clearest prism through which to see our Divine Parents’ true nature and greatest concern. It is not for Themselves, for Their glory, or for Their priority in our hearts that They labor.Their greatest longing made manifest in those verses accords with the deepest desire we know as parents—or one day shall: that our children live in love and harmony with one another.That we would be jealous of our children’s love for each other is simply perverse. Love in a community of perfect sociability is not competitive—it is mutually reinforcing. How could we have missed that lesson? To serve each other is to serve God. Ministering to each other is to honor and worship Them, as Benjamin taught. To succor the thirsty or to feed the hungry is to succor Christ, to feed Christ. We may make distinctions, but God does not. We cannot contribute to the heavenly community, the Zion of perfect sociability, if our relationships with each other are fractured. Another way of saying this is that our love for one another does not compete with our love for God—as C.S.Lewis and countless poets have suggested; our love for one another registers with God as love for Them; it is the most concrete manifestation of our love for God and the form of worship They most desire.
If this idea is true—as we believe Enoch attests—then the work of atonement would be intended to bring about the healing and unifying of the entire human family. In this project, we are invited to be coparticipants with the Godhead. Indeed, atonement cannot be accomplished without our collaboration. The most emphatic invitation to collaborate comes at that moment when we participate in the ordinance of adoption into the Heavenly Family—otherwise known as baptism. At this most appropriate moment of covenant making, we commit to join in the enterprise of Zion-building, to erect, edify, and constitute a community of love—of at-one-ment. Mosiah’s language beautifully reminds us that we have been called to work collaboratively with the Godhead in Their healing enterprise.
At one time, converts to the restored faith vocally affirmed the baptismal covenants at water’s edge. At the present, the covenants outlined in Mosiah 18:8–10 are implicit.We covenant to “bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light.” That language evokes the role of God the Christ, who bore our burdens throughout His life, into Gethsemane and onto Golgotha. We pledge to “mourn with those that mourn.” These words call to mind that same God the Father who revealed to Enoch that He wept tears of grief, in solidarity with those who suffered misery and fratricidal hate. We can be assured, as Chieko Okazaki has written, that both our Heavenly Parents “have suffered with us …in our own suffering.” And we covenant to “comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” That phrasing could hardly direct us more explicitly to the role of God the Holy Spirit, our Comforter in all our afflictions.Though we (sadly) no longer verbally pronounce the words of a baptismal covenant, remembering this sacred trilogy of obligation to mourn, to share burdens, and to comfort can make the at-one-ing of God’s family a daily act of worship in which we participate with the Divine Family.
We believe one final shift is called for in our thinking about atonement. Oh, that we still pronounced atonement as it would have been heard in William Tyndale’s pronunciation: at-one-ment! We would then learn two of its aspects we may have forgotten. First, that the purpose of Christ’s work of healing was intended to restore unity to the human family and reunite us with God—at “oneness.” All things tend toward the “great one-ing between Christ and us,” Julian of Norwich wrote. And second, Wycliffe’s earlier rendering of atonement as “reconciliation” would call to mind a process that requires active effort by both parties. The Atonement is not something Christ performed. It is not adequately encompassed in a picture of a suffering Jesus in Gethsemane or the Christ nailed to the cross. Important as those events are, they no more capture the aspiration and reality of atonement than a wedding proposal captures the totality of a joyful and harmonious companionate marriage. The central, two-fold process of atonement is captured in the Healer’s own words, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).The most fitting image of atonement is that given us in the book of Moses: “And the Lord said unto Enoch: Then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and they shall see us; and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other; And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion” (Moses 7:63–64).
This passage is stunningly new, unexpected, and unlike the depictions over the centuries of losing ourselves in the beatific vision.Contrary to the fears of C.S. Lewis, we find here no diminution of earthly bonds, eclipsed in a superior Divine Presence.Here is totality, wholeness, reunion, healing, and unity.“They [the heavenly community] shall see us!” God and Christ, the living and the departed, divine and human, all merge into one celebratory community of the holy.That is the picture of atonement, reconciliation, “oneing,” brought to its perfect fulfillment.
We need to provide a way for Christ to affirm that He knows us by name, that He has in reality set His heart upon us. That may take the form of pondering those words that most resonate with our heartstrings: Jesus’s expression of love for His disciples (“Little children, yet a little while I am with you …I go to prepare a place for you”), the testimony of John (“God sent his son into the world not to condemn us, but to heal us”), Dostoevsky’s witness of Christ that emerged through his own “great crucible of doubt” (“Believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, …and more powerful than Christ”), or the lyrics to Dustin Kensrue’s “Please Come Home” (“Please come home, please come home / Don’t you know that I still love you? / And I don’t care where you’ve been”). We must find a medium through which God can speak to us. We need to find our own Urim and Thummim.
In some cases, the healing will come slowly or incompletely. However, in such cases, our own experience of unmet need is a witness to the fact that Christ’s work of redemptive healing relies upon us as collaborators in His ministry of at-one-ing. “God will wipe away all tears from off all faces” (Isa. 25:8).The promise is given, but the timetable is not. The urgent responsibility to minister to the wounded is upon us all. Our baptismal covenants are the operative way by which Christ’s atoning ministry becomes universal.
Tingey, Earl C (2006). "The Great Plan of Happiness." Sunday Morning Session, April General Conference.
The Atonement is an event that enables us to be reconciled to God. The word atonement, or “at-one-ment,” means to restore or to come back. In terms of family, it means to be reunited with one another and with God and His Son, Jesus Christ. It means sadness through separation will become happiness through reuniting.
Holland, Jeffrey R. (1999). "The Hands of the Fathers." May Ensign.
I am a father, inadequate to be sure, but I cannot comprehend the burden it must have been for God in His heaven to witness the deep suffering and Crucifixion of His Beloved Son in such a manner. His every impulse and instinct must have been to stop it, to send angels to intervene—but He did not intervene. He endured what He saw because it was the only way that a saving, vicarious payment could be made for the sins of all His other children from Adam and Eve to the end of the world. I am eternally grateful for a perfect Father and His perfect Son, neither of whom shrank from the bitter cup nor forsook the rest of us who are imperfect, who fall short and stumble, who too often miss the mark.
In considering such beauty of the “at-one-ment” in that first Easter season, we are reminded that this relationship between Christ and His Father is one of the sweetest and most moving themes running through the Savior’s ministry. Jesus’ entire being, His complete purpose and delight, were centered in pleasing His Father and obeying His will. Of Him He seemed always to be thinking; to Him He seemed always to be praying. Unlike us, He needed no crisis, no discouraging shift in events to direct His hopes heavenward. He was already instinctively, longingly looking that way.
Christensen, Joe J. (1983). "Toward Greater Spirituality: Ten Important Steps." August Ensign.
9. Am I striving to “become one” with what I know I ideally should be? As long as what we do in our actual lives is beneath the level where we know we should be, we rob ourselves of spirituality.
Jesus prayed over and over again that we who believe in him should become one as he and his Father are one. (John 17:11, 21–22.) Not only do the Father and the Son get along extremely well together, they know exactly what the ideal person ought to be and that is exactly what they are. Our ultimate goal is to become like them. (Matt. 5:48; 3 Ne. 27:27.) To get there we must apply the Atonement (“at-one-ment”) and by faith in Christ unto repentance change our lives to be more “at one” with what we ought to be. In the process, we must be willing to give up all our sins.
If we are moving in the direction of achieving this oneness, peace of mind and increased spirituality will be among our blessings. This process is at the heart of the reason we have come to this earth. It is at the center of the message we have to share with the world.
Hafen, Bruce C. (1992). "There Is a Tomorrow." January Ensign.
We know from nearly universal human experience that enduring love between a man and a woman approaches the highest form of mortal fulfillment. When we have paid the high price of patient preparation, self-discipline, and an irrevocable commitment to another person’s happiness, we may taste the sweet joy of human love. To be encircled about eternally in the arms of such love is to fulfill our deepest longing for security and meaning. That form of love awaits those who enter the highest degree of celestial life; in fact, such love distinguishes that life from all lesser rewards.
There is another, comparable source of fulfillment to be found in our relationship with the Lord, captured in the idea of the atonement—the “at-one-ment” of Jesus Christ. When we have faithfully endured the mortal experience, this wondrous gift allows us to become truly “at one” with him, just as he is at one with his father. The scriptures are full of references to marriage symbols between the Lord and his people, expressing this oneness with God in a spiritual sense of “belonging,” just as family members belong to one another. Thus did King Benjamin express the hope “that Christ … may seal you his” (Mosiah 5:15). There is no human yearning, no mortal satisfaction that can compare with being welcomed into the arms of the Atoning One in that day when we once more enter his presence.
Hafen, Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen (2014). "Fear Not, I am With Thee: Christ’s Atonement and our Personal Growth." Thursday, May 1, 2014 at the BYU Women’s Conference. Accessed July 9, 2023. URL: https://womensconference.byu.edu/sites/womensconference.ce.byu.edu/files/hafens_0.pdf
So we Latter-day Saints have a challenge when we use terms like “grace” and “enabling power,” because those terms, long used by other churches, sometimes proceed from incorrect doctrinal assumptions. That means the vocabulary of traditional Christianity won’t always work for us, and it may confuse us. On the other hand, the Restoration corrected those doctrines with clarity and light about who we are and why we’re here. That clear light resonates in the heart of every child who sings “I am a Child of God,” with echoes of divine parents, of having wandered from another sphere, of an inward yearning for home in the arms of a Father who has not only a body, but also a heart–a heart like ours. We came to the earth not as depraved sinners but trailing clouds of glory, carrying the seeds of a potentially divine nature within us.
Modern-day scripture teaches us that we are born neither evil nor good by nature; rather, we are born “whole” or “innocent.” Then, in a mortal environment that is subject to death and sinful influences, we will taste some sin and bitterness--not because we are innately bad, but because we can’t learn to prize the sweet without actually tasting the bitter. And because the effects of that bitterness may separate us from our Heavenly Father, we need Christ’s Atonement to overcome whatever separates us from Him--such as the physical separation caused by death and the spiritual separation caused by our sins. That’s what the word means: “at-one-ment,” the act of re-uniting what has been separated.
In addition, we need the Atonement to help us grow to become like our Father, because we cannot be “with Him” forever in His celestial realm until we are “like Him.” In this sense, our immature capacity separates us from Him–that’s why he sent us away to school. So at birth we are completely innocent, literally babes in the woods. Then, as we grow up, like our first parents, we wrestle with afflictions–sin, misery, children– and that wrestling, paradoxically, teaches us what joy means. In that way, our children also help us discover the “joy” part. The Savior’s Atonement makes that process possible by protecting us while we learn from practice what love really is or why wickedness cannot produce happiness. Because of the Atonement, we can learn from our experience without being condemned by it. So the Atonement is not just a doctrine about erasing black marks–it is the core doctrine that allows human development. Thus its purpose is to facilitate our growth, ultimately helping us to develop the Christ-like capacities we need to live with God.
"My point is that as we seek unity, we become truly one with the saints and one with the Lord who makes us increasingly more effective at serving his children.
Brother and sisters, we see the future of the Church in our youth. I am inspired as I have the privilege of serving, teaching and counseling them. They are a choice generation. So many are totally committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and have an understanding of the importance the Atonement plays in their individual lives. We, however, must do more to help them. Let us join together in a commitment to live and teach them so they will be prepared for the challenges they will face. Let us teach them of the strength that comes from unity and the kingdom of God on the earth that recognizes the rich heritage of ethnicity yet rejoices in our oneness through our Father’s plan. If do not teach them in the Lord’s way, who will? And how will the Church ever move forward? Let us look to our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and their growing role in this great work -- they who will play such a critical role in preparing a people for the return of our Savior. Let ushelp them understand that some questions concerning the Gospel are difficult for we as mortals to fully comprehend, yet through faith, commitment, service, and an eye single to the Glory of our Father and his eternal plan, we -- men and women of all colors and races will walk through the Celestial gates and enter into the glory that he can only offer. May we help leave that vision and legacy to the next generation and the whole Church through our example.
Ultimately, this unity, brothers and sisters, will be a telltale sign not just of the True Church, but of the Lord himself, and of his atoning sacrifice. For he said, in his atoning prayer, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me (who believe on the words of the apostles). That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” There is something about our unity that enables the world to believe in the Lord’s divinity. While there is much to this doctrine, one reason is that our oneness as a people is a manifestation to the world of the Lord’s power to reconcile us not only to God but to each other. This he does through the great At-one-ment. He does it without regard to barriers, boundaries and borders of race and ethnicity."
Unspecified Address by Ahmad S. Corbitt
Baker, Terry (2001). "Don't Let Negativism Ruin Your Marriage." March Ensign.
Often it is a couple’s inability to allow the Atonement to operate in their relationship that causes the negativity cycle to continue until it devours the marriage. They refuse to allow the Atonement to take effect in their own lives and in the life of the one they loved.
Ideally, when we do something that irritates or hurts our spouse, the “at-one-ment” makes it possible for us to regain lost trust and unity in two ways. First, the Atonement allows us to gain forgiveness from God, thereby restoring our own feelings of self-worth. Second, the Atonement encourages our spouse to forgive us and cast aside negative thoughts. In fact, the scriptures tell us we are required to forgive one another (see D&C 64:9–11).
When a spouse goes through the repentance process provided through the Atonement, we are to follow the example of the Lord in His attitude toward that person: “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42). Sometimes our inability to forgive and forget perpetuates the negativity cycle. Refusing to forgive others separates us spiritually from the Savior and destroys relationships.
Kikuchi, Yoshihiko (2009). "Do We Know How Much He Went Through?" December Ensign.
Oh, will we ever understand why and how He did it for us?
Glory to God. His eternal voice comes back to my ears thousands of times until I really understand His sacred at-one-ment: to become one with Him. By His grace and mercy, we receive the honor to become one with the Father through the sacred Mediator. His holy redeeming act allowed us to be with the Holy Father once again. His Atonement brought to the universe the new birth; it is called holy Resurrection.
Heavenly Father loves us so much. He wanted all of us together to be glorified before His presence. Because of His love, Heavenly Father offered His Eternal and Infinite Love, who is His Only Begotten Son. Why? Because Father loves us, His children, so much.
Faust, James E. (1988). "The Supernal Gift of the Atonement." October General Conference, Saturday Morning Session.
The act of the Atonement is, in its simplest terms, a reconciliation of man with his God. The word atonement means to be at one. “It is literally at-one-ment.” (James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 47th ed., Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1924, p. 75.) Because of their transgression, Adam and Eve, having chosen to leave their state of innocence (see 2 Ne. 2:23–25), were banished from the presence of God. This is referred to in Christendom as the Fall, or Adam’s transgression. It is a spiritual death because Adam and Eve were separated from the presence of God and given agency “to act for themselves and not to be acted upon.” (2 Ne. 2:26.) They were also given the great power of procreation, so that they could keep the commandment to “multiply, and replenish the earth” and have joy in their posterity. (Gen. 1:28.)
All of their posterity were likewise banished from the presence of God. (See 2 Ne. 2:22–26.) However, the posterity of Adam and Eve were innocent of the original sin because they had no part in it. It was therefore unfair for all of humanity to suffer eternally for the transgressions of our first parents, Adam and Eve. It became necessary to settle this injustice; hence the need for the atoning sacrifice of Jesus in his role as the Savior and Redeemer. Because of the transcendent act of the Atonement, it is possible for every soul to obtain forgiveness of sins, to have them washed away and be forgotten. (See 2 Ne. 9:6–9; Talmage, Articles of Faith, p. 89.) This forgiveness comes about, however, on condition of repentance and personal righteousness.
There is a distinction between immortality, or eternal existence, and eternal life, which is to have a place in the presence of God. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, immortality comes to all men, just or unjust, righteous or wicked. However, eternal life is “the greatest of all the gifts of God.” (D&C 14:7.) We obtain this great gift, according to the Lord, “if you keep my commandments and endure to the end.” If we so endure, the promise is, “you shall have eternal life.” (D&C 14:7.)
Christensen, Joe J. (1999). "Ten Ideas to Increase Your Spirituality." March Ensign.
9. Do I strive for oneness with others as well as within myself, between my ideal and actual self?
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord commanded us to become perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. In the Book of Mormon the resurrected Lord asked the rhetorical question, “What manner of men ought ye to be?” and then he answered his own question, “Even as I am” (3 Ne. 27:27).
In the Upper Room, just before the Lord left to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and in the presence of His Apostles offered what has come to be called the intercessory prayer. The prayer is found in John, chapter 17. President David O. McKay said that there is no more important chapter in the Bible. In that unique setting, the Lord prayed over and over that His disciples would become one as He and His Father were one (see John 17:11, 21–22).
How are they one? They know perfectly what the ideal person ought to be, and that is exactly what they are. There is a perfect oneness or congruity between their ideal and actual lives. They are one. That is not always the case with us. We often do not actually measure up to what we know we ideally ought to be. Sometimes we are not “one” as we are commanded to become. In order to become one, we need to engage in the process of the “at-one-ment,” or making the Atonement of Jesus Christ operative in our lives. We can grow toward that perfect oneness by applying those basic principles of faith in Christ unto repentance. Thus we can change, and our actual lives will come closer each day to becoming one with our ideal selves. If we are moving in that positive direction, the Spirit will be with us, but if we are going in the other direction, it will not. As the Lord said, “Be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27).
Packer, Boyd K. (2008). "Who Is Jesus Christ?" March Ensign.
The English word atonement is really three words: at-one-ment, which means to set at one; one with God; to reconcile, to conciliate, to expiate.
But did you know that the word atonement appears only once in the English New Testament? Only once! I quote from Paul’s letter to the Romans:
“Christ died for us.
“… We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
“And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Romans 5:8, 10–11; emphasis added).
Only that once does the word atonement appear in the English New Testament. Atonement, of all words! It was not an unknown word, for it had been used much in the Old Testament in connection with the law of Moses, but once only in the New Testament. I find that to be remarkable.
In the Book of Mormon the word atone in form and tense appears 39 times. I quote but one verse from Alma: “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” (Alma 42:15; emphasis added).
Only once in the New Testament but 39 times in the Book of Mormon. What better witness that the Book of Mormon is indeed another testament of Jesus Christ?
And that is not all. The words atone, atoneth, and atonement appear in the Doctrine and Covenants five times and in the Pearl of Great Price twice. Forty-seven references of transcendent importance. And that is not all! Hundreds of other verses help to explain the Atonement.
I seldom use the word absolutely. It seldom fits. I use it now—twice:
Because of the Fall, the Atonement was absolutely essential for resurrection to proceed and overcome mortal death.
The Atonement was absolutely essential for men to cleanse themselves from sin and overcome the second death, spiritual death, which is separation from our Father in Heaven, for the scriptures tell us eight times that no unclean thing may enter the presence of God (see 1 Nephi 10:21; 15:34; Alma 7:21; 11:37; 40:26; Helaman 8:25; 3 Nephi 27:19; Moses 6:57).
Budge, L. Todd (2021). "'Broke' Hearts and Contrite Spirits." BYU Devotional February 2, 2021.
During scripture study one day while serving as a mission president, I was pondering about the relationship between putting off the natural man and having a broken heart. The words natural man and broken heart conjured up in my mind the image of a horse trainer “breaking” a wild or “natural” horse. I wondered if there might be something I could learn by comparing the process a horse trainer uses to tame a wild or natural horse and the process God uses to tame the natural man in each of us—in other words, the process by which God grants unto us repentance.
So I did what any good researcher does these days: I googled it. And to my surprise, I found a book called "A Broke Heart" by a Christian horse trainer. As I read, I gained new insights and saw parallels between breaking a horse and how God was working with me, my missionaries, and many people in the scriptures. In fact, I have seen this pattern repeated over and over in the scriptures. Perhaps you will also recognize this pattern in your life and see how God is working with you to prepare your heart to repent and believe.
But before getting to the pattern, let me share one interesting insight. I was intrigued by the title of the book, A Broke Heart—not a broken heart but a “broke” heart. The author explained that a wild horse that has been tamed is not broken by the process but conversely discovers the joy and freedom of becoming one with its master—a state described as being broke, not broken. Likewise, God’s intent is not to break us but to redeem us. He does not want us to be brokenhearted but to have broke hearts and contrite spirits so that He can take the reins of our lives and guide us with His love to receive all of His promised blessings. The Lord said, “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Horse trainers seek to build a relationship with the horse based on trust and respect—to become one with and united with the horse. They describe the relationship-building process not as breaking the horse but as partnering with or starting the horse. Based on our understanding of gospel truths, perhaps the best way to describe our relationship with God would be to describe it not as a partnership but as a covenant relationship. God starts us down the covenant path with the first ordinance of baptism. Covenants are designed to unite man with God.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland described it this way:
Covenants always deal with the central issue between perfect, immortal God and imperfect, mortal man—why they are separated and how they can again unite. The Latin root for covenant is convenire, “to agree, unite, come together.” In short, all covenants . . . since the beginning have essentially been about one thing—the atonement of Jesus Christ, the at-one-ment provided every man, woman, and child if they will but . . . honor the terms of that coming together, that convenire, or covenant, whose central feature is always the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God himself.
Whether it be the relationship between the horse trainer and the horse or the relationship between God and man, the objective is the same: to become united one with the other.
Bassett, Arthur R. (1979). "Hope." April Ensign.
Somehow these three principles—faith, hope, and charity—seemed closely integrated and inter-related, each drawing strength and reinforcement from the others. I had hope: not only desires for the future, but confidence that these desires in righteousness would be fulfilled. All of the right relationships seemed to be falling into place. I felt good about God (faith), I felt good about myself (hope), and I felt good about others (charity). More than that, I experienced a deep inner peace, a feeling of oneness and unity in life that gave me a sense of the total reconciliation that the atonement (literally at-one-ment) represents.
In my own case the change was not total or even immediate. The process begun in adolescence still continues. I still have moments of disappointment and frustration, moments when I lose confidence in myself and my abilities. I imagine most people do. Sometimes, listening to lessons or sermons in church, I almost buckle under the realization of all the things I should be doing that I am not doing. The path toward perfection sometimes seems so long, my ideal so far away from my real, and my pace so slow—at best a slow plodding toward my goal—that I wonder if I will ever make it. Sometimes I even wish that we did more in our lessons and sermons to encourage plodders like myself.
But somehow that flame of hope, rooted in my faith in Christ and my love for him, keeps burning through it all; as long as that doesn’t flicker out, I still have some light to illuminate the way back to God. I still believe he wants me there. My hope in Christ leads me to recognize that I will succeed as long as I don’t give up. I know he will never give up on me. I know also, in at least one sense, that the universe is on my side and I hurt within for others who lack this conviction. How difficult their way must be!
Gong, Gerrit W. (2007). "Live Right Now." BYU Devotional, March 20, 2007.
Human choices are inevitably incomplete and incorrect, and they often have unintended, or even sometimes destructive consequences.
Human choices require atonement.
We have all had experiences where we tried to be helpful and weren’t. I once arrived early for priesthood meeting. Thinking I could help ready our classroom, I erased the blackboard dense with writing. As he began our lesson, our dedicated instructor said, with surprise but without criticism, “I came early and put our lesson on the board, but somehow it’s been erased.” The class turned out fine, but I remember the forbearance of our priesthood teacher who, incidentally, is today’s U.S. Senate majority leader.
That’s a simple example. What about the roommate who inadvertently hurts the tender feelings of another roommate in a way that causes her to stop coming to church? What about the friend who accidentally fatally injures his best friend in a car accident?
In each of our lives things happen that make us stop and consider what is most important. A heart attack, a near drowning, a suicide—the sudden jolt of death, injury, or major changes make us seek at-one-ment. At these tender moments, the four things that matter most find expression as “thank you,” “I love you,” “please forgive me,” and “I forgive you” (Ira Byock, The Four Things That Matter Most [New York: Free Press, 2004], 3).
Each of these phrases is an echo of the Atonement. In each we feel our Savior’s love for us as we extend His love and forgiveness to others. Each eases pain, offers hope and comfort, and reconciles injustices and hurts that come from living in a world of sticks and stones.
And we don’t have to wait for death or trauma. The Savior’s Atonement can infuse our role relationships, experiences, and knowledges right now. Our lives become richer, more peaceful, and more whole as we say with all our hearts “thank you,” “I love you,” “please forgive me,” and “I forgive you.”
Atonement ultimately comes because of our Savior’s “infinite and eternal,” “great and last sacrifice” (Alma 34:13–14). He knows “according to the flesh how to succor his people” (Alma 7:12). He can heal us. He can comfort and bless those hurt by our mistakes, by our imperfect choices.
Read, Lenet Hadley (2000). "The Golden Plates and the Feast of Trumpets." January Ensign.
Judaic scholars teach that the Day of Atonement represents the time when the unrepentant are doomed, whereas at that time the repentant are forgiven and reconciled to God. Worshipers believe that on this day they spiritually enter the Holy of Holies, which is symbolic of entering into God’s presence. This time is represented as providing them with their “highest and deepest communion with God.”
For Latter-day Saints who understand the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, a study of the relationship between these holy days verifies what prophets and scriptures teach about what will occur in the last days. While Christ performed the great act of Atonement in His mortal life, His work is not yet complete. His return will further fulfill reconciliation between Him and mankind, serving as a time of At-one-ment, a time repentant individuals can physically enter His presence.
Robertson, John S. (1999). "A Complete Look at Perfect." BYU Devotional, July 13, 1999.
If the Resurrection is Christ’s universal gift to God’s children, then the Atonement is his particular gift, given only to the penitent. And if the Resurrection welds spirit to body to overcome physical death, then the Atonement joins our spirit to the Holy Spirit to overcome spiritual death. And, as the Resurrection brings completion, the Atonement also brings completion, but unlike the Resurrection, completion comes in two distinct but related ways:
First, our sins bring an imbalance to the scales of eternal justice; paying for our sins, Christ brings those scales back to a complete and perfect equilibrium. In the words of Mosiah, God gave “the Son power to make intercession for the children of men—Having . . . taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice” (Mosiah 15:8–9). We are justified through Christ: the price has been paid to the last farthing, and equilibrium is complete.
Second, the Atonement—literally at-one-ment—is the completion of a covenant, which in its simplest form is this: We stop sinning and Christ pays for our sin. There are those who say that salvation comes from works—from the absolution that comes from the sacraments. Others say that it comes from faith—from declaring Jesus to be the Savior. This is the ancient debate of faith and works. Works are defined as the sacraments (or, in our terms, ordinances). Faith is defined as proclaiming Jesus as the Savior of the world. But we know from modern scriptures that remission of sin comes from sacrifice—sacrifice on Christ’s part and sacrifice on our part:
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. [2 Nephi 2:7]
And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away. . . .
And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost. [3 Nephi 9:19–20]
If we are justified through Christ’s absorbing our sins, we are sanctified through a process involving three steps: First, we genuinely suffer a broken heart and a contrite spirit for our sins. Second, we consequently manifest our sorrow by leaving behind us those sins; we go our way and sin no more. Third, we are sanctified through the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost.
The bottom line is this: We were once spiritually dead through a separation from God by the absence of his spirit, but we are now, so to speak, resurrected—spiritually made alive—by the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. We were once sinful and incomplete, but through the process of the Atonement we are both justified and sanctified, completely and wholly.
We are in this sense complete, even as our Father in Heaven is complete—and one step nearer to being like him, too.
Welch, John W. (1993). "New Testament Word Studies." April Ensign.
In the end, the purpose of this restoration [Apokatastasis] is to reunite God and his children. The Atonement itself is not only a powerful process of union (at-one-ment), but of reunion. As Jacob said, “For [by] the atonement … they are restored to that God who gave them breath.” (2 Ne. 9:26.)
Seely, David Rolph and Jo Ann H. Seely (1999). August Ensign.
On account of the Fall of Adam, all mankind suffer a mortal death as well as a spiritual death—that is, to experience life cut off from the presence of God. Although the death and Resurrection of Christ make it possible for all to be resurrected, our own sins create a separation from God: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Thus, the Atonement was offered to reconcile us to God. Describing this doctrine, the Apostle Paul uses the Greek word katallagå, usually translated as “reconciliation” (see Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18; Heb. 2:17) or in one case as “atonement” (see Rom. 5:11). The English word atonement captures precisely what this “reconciliation” means—that God and His children can be reunited or arrive at a state of “at-one-ment” again. The Savior provides a way for us to repent of our sins by “reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Cor. 5:19).
The Atonement came about through the “grace of God,” and grace is an important concept in the Apostle Paul’s writings. The Greek word for grace, charis, simply means “favor” or “gift” and refers to the fact that the Atonement is a gift. Through the grace of God, the Atonement offers two gifts. The first gift is immortality and is given to all mankind: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:21). But the second gift is eternal life and this gift is reserved for those who become “saints of God.”
Holland, Jeffrey R. (1977). "Alma, Son of Alma." March Ensign.
We learn, then, that through repentance the earlier sorrow and darkness are transformed into joy and light. Calling out to Christ for salvation from the gall of bitterness and the everlasting chains of death, Alma found his pain being lifted. Replacing it were peace and new possibilities. “And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! …
“There can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.” (Alma 36:20–21.)
With that wonderful transformation comes another intriguing, even more revealing, change. This young man who was so tormented and horrified at the thought of coming back into the presence of God—who literally wished to be annihilated so he would not have to face the great Judge of the quick and the dead—now has opened to him a vision of God sitting upon his throne, and with his newly cleansed soul he cries, “My soul did long to be there.” (Alma 36:22.)
Not only does our spiritual record change and our physical life become clean, but also our very desires are purified and made whole. Our will quite literally changes to receive His will.
We may have avoided Church attendance, the sacrament, the bishop, our parents, our worthy companions—avoided anyone we had sinned against, including God himself—but now that repentant heart longs to be with them. That is part of the joy and light of the atonement—the “at-one-ment”—which not only binds us back to God but also brings us back to a special unity with our best natural self and our most beloved human associates.
Pinborough, Jan Underwood (1990). "Keeping Mentally Well." September Ensign.
The ultimate source of healing is spiritual. Breaking the word atonement into three parts—at-one-ment—suggests the truth that only divine love can finally make us whole—emotionally and spiritually. As Mormon explains, the power to become like the Savior—whole, fully developed—comes from being filled with charity, or “the pure love of Christ”: “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him.” (Moro. 7:47–48.)
Alma describes the transforming effect of experiencing the Lord’s atoning love. Struck down for trying to destroy the Church, Alma was racked in his soul “with eternal torment.” Then, as he remembered his father’s prophecies of the Savior’s atoning love, he pleaded for mercy and was filled with an exquisite peace and joy. (See Alma 36:6–21.)
Healing comes when we, too, not only know—but also feel—that the Savior loves us, even in our weakness. Dr. Dean Byrd, field manager for LDS Social Services, suggests that we can feel this love by reading the scriptures in a personalized way. For example, we could read John 3:16–17, “For God so loved [me], that he gave his only begotten Son, that [believing in him, I] should not perish, but have everlasting life.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn [me]; but that [I] through him might be saved.”
Dr. Byrd also tells of people who have received healing and comfort by envisioning the Savior reaching out to them.
The atoning love of the Savior includes his willingness to bear not only the burden of our sins—which would separate us forever from our Father—but also our day-to-day burdens of fear and anxiety—which would deprive us of peace and joy. As Sister Patricia Holland explains, giving our burdens to the Lord sometimes requires us “to make that leap of faith toward His embrace when we are least certain of His presence. … When we hand our fears and frustrations to Him in absolute confidence that He will help us resolve them, when in this way we free our heart and mind and soul of all anxiety, we find in a rather miraculous way that He can instill within us a whole new perspective—He can fill us with ‘that joy which is unspeakable and full of glory.’ (Hel. 5:44.)” (Unpublished talk given at the Exemplary Womanhood Fireside, Brigham Young University, 27 Mar. 1988.)
David Rolph Seely, “William Tyndale and the Language of At-one-ment,” in The King James Bible and the Restoration, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 25–42
Atonement. Tyndale’s first use of the English word atonement is in his 1526 translation of the New Testament at Romans 5:11: “We also joy in God by the means of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement.” In addition to the noun atonement (Greek katallagē), two forms of the related Greek verb katallassō occur in Romans 5:10, which Tyndale translated as “we were reconciled” and “seeing we were reconciled.” The words in this passage in Classical Greek mean “to change from enmity to friendship,” or “to reconcile.” In the New Testament, the verb is used in one passage describing the reconciliation of one human with another (1 Corinthians 7:11), but it most often describes the reconciliation of humans with God (Romans 5:10–11; 2 Corinthians 5:18–20; Colossians 1:20, 22; Ephesians 2:16). It is this Greek word that Tyndale translates with the word atonement, and it is likely that this Greek word provides the foundation for his understanding of the effects of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
While many have stated that Tyndale invented this word, the Oxford English Dictionary lists several variations and combinations of at and one, such as “to one,” “at one,” “one ment” (used by Wycliffe), and “atonement,” that were used in Tyndale’s time. But Tyndale saw that this term was a very good match for the theological context of the relationship between God and man and put the word atonement into his passages in the Old and New Testaments.
Tyndale only used the word atonement twice more in his New Testament, in the very important passage describing the effects of Christ’s Atonement in 2 Corinthians 5:18–20. The nominal and verbal forms of the Greek root katallassō occur five times in this passage, two of which Tyndale renders with “atonement” and one with “at one with.” A brief review of these five occurrences can help us see how he understood the meaning of the Greek word in relationship to the effect of Christ’s atonement. In 2 Corinthians 5:18, Tyndale renders “which hath reconciled” and “the office to preach the atonement.” In 5:19, he translates “and made agreement” and “the preaching of the atonement.” In 5:20 he renders “that ye may be at one with God.”
The Geneva and King James translators only used the English word atonement once in the New Testament, at Romans 5:11. Throughout the passages in Romans 5:10–11 and 2 Corinthians 5:18–20, the Geneva Bible and the KJV uniformly translated the words derived from katallassō with variations of the word reconcile or reconciliation. The word reconciliation was not uncommon and was employed by Tyndale and the Geneva translators, but Tyndale often found simple English words to express the concept.
Tyndale’s “which hath reconciled us unto himself by Jesus Christ” is similarly rendered by the KJV as “who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18). But Tyndale’s “the office to preach the atonement” is “ministry of reconciliation” in the KJV (2 Corinthians 5:18). Tyndale’s “For God was in Christ, and made agreement between the world and himself” is “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” in the KJV (2 Corinthians 5:19). Tyndale’s “the preaching of the atonement” is rendered in the KJV with “the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19), and his “Be at one with God” in the KJV is “Be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Several words in the Old Testament are also relevant to the language of Atonement in the Bible. Leviticus 16 contains a description of the most solemn of the festivals of the law of Moses, called Yom Kippur in Hebrew. [19] Tyndale coined three new English words in conjunction with this festival, which he called the Day of Atonement: atonement, scapegoat, and mercy seat. The Hebrew root behind Kippur is kpr, which has the sense of “to cover up” and occurs in contexts where it means “to appease, make amends, or reconcile.” [20] Leviticus 16 contains many occurrences of this word in a verbal form describing the rituals of reconciliation between God and man. Tyndale translated this Hebrew verb as “to make atonement” (Leviticus 16:6, 10) or “to reconcile” (Leviticus 16:6, 18, 20). The Septuagint translates this Hebrew word meaning “reconciliation” with various Greek words, including exilaskomai and hilastērion, which both mean “to reconcile” or “make amends.” The Vulgate uses expiationum, which has the sense of satisfying or appeasing. The King James translators used Tyndale’s words atonement, scapegoat, and mercy seat in their translation of the Old Testament.
While some of the Greek terms in the Septuagint translation of Leviticus 16 associated with the Day of Atonement are found in the New Testament, neither Tyndale nor the King James translators used the term atonement to translate them. Nevertheless, a look at two of these terms can help us see how they understood the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament as a type and shadow of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The Greek word hilastērion, which in Classical Greek refers to a gift or sacrifice to appease or gain the favor of a deity, is used to translate the Hebrew kappōret, which describes the golden cover of the ark of the covenant as the place where amends are made for sins on the Day of Atonement. This word is found in Romans 3:24–25. Tyndale used common vocabulary to translate the passage, relying on his understanding of the connection of the hilastērion as the mercy seat with “Christ Jesus, whom God hath made a seat of mercy through faith in his blood.” The King James translators, on the other hand, render “Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” They choose to translate hilastērion (Tyndale “mercy seat”) with propitiation, taken from the Vulgate, which remains obscure today. [21] In related passages with the Greek term hilasmos (cognate of hilastērion), used to refer to the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9), Tyndale also had common vocabulary: “He it is that obtaineth grace for our sins” (KJV, “he is the propitiation for our sins,” 1 John 2:2), and “sent his son to make agreement for our sins” (KJV, “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” 1 John 4:10).
The word propitiation does not appear at all in modern revelation. Reconcile appears in several passages, but Tyndale’s word atonement, with its variations atone, atoned, atoneth, and atoning, is found over forty times in modern scripture, especially in the Book of Mormon. As one of the many lasting legacies of Tyndale to the Latter-day Saint faith, atonement has become our common designation for the saving acts of Jesus Christ on behalf of the children of men and for the possibility of reconciliation and “at-one-ment” through his sacrifice.
Brown, Hugh B. (1962). "Mormonism." address was delivered by President Hugh B. Brown, counselor in the First Presidency, on Monday, Feb. 26, 1962, to the students at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pa. URL: https://www.cumorah.com/etexts/mormonism.txt
"The atonement accomplished by the Savior was a vicarious service for
mankind, all of whom had become estranged from God through sin; and through
that sacrifice of propitiation, a way has been opened for reconciliation
whereby man may be brought again into communion with God, and be made able to
live and advance as a resurrected being in the eternal worlds. This
fundamental conception is strikingly expressed in our English word atonement,
which, as its syllables indicate, is at-one-ment, 'denoting reconciliation or
the bringing into agreement of those who had been estranged.'
"The assured resurrection of all who have lived and died on earth is a
foundation stone in the structure of (Mormon) philosophy. 'Blessed and holy
is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death
hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall
reign with him a thousand years.' -- Revelation 20:6.
"But there is a special or individual effect of the Atonement, by which every
soul that has lived in the flesh to the age and condition of responsibility
and accountability may place himself within the reach of divine mercy and
obtain absolution for personal sin by compliance with the laws and ordinances
of the Gospel as prescribed and decreed by the Author of this plan of
salvation. The indispensable conditions of individual salvation are: (1)
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, acceptance of His Gospel and
allegiance to His commandments, and to Him as the one and only Savior of men.
(2) Repentance, embracing genuine contrition of the sins of the past and a
resolute turning away therefrom with a determination to avoid, by all
possible effort, future sin. (3) Baptism by immersion in water, for the
remission of sins; the ordinance to be administered by one having the
authority of the Priesthood, that is to say the right and commission to thus
officiate in the name of Deity. (4) The higher baptism of the Spirit or
bestowal of the Holy Ghost by the authorized imposition of hands by one
holding the requisite authority -- that of the higher or Melchizedek
Priesthood. To insure the salvation to which compliance with these
fundamental principles of the Gospel of Christ makes the repentant believer
eligible, a life of continued resistance to sin and observance of the laws of
righteousness is requisite.
"The life we are to experience hereafter will be the result of the life we
lead in this world; and as here men exhibit infinite gradations of faithful
adherence to the truth, and of servility to sin, so in the world beyond the
grave gradations will exist. Salvation grades into exaltation, and every
soul shall find place and condition as befits him. Mormonism affirms on the
basis of direct revelation from God, that graded degrees of glory are
prepared for the souls of men, and that these comprise in decreasing order
the Celestial, the Terrestrial, and the Telestial kingdoms of glory, within
each of which are orders or grades innumerable. These several glories --
Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial -- are comparable to the sun, the moon,
and the stars, in their beauty, worth, and splendor. Such a condition was
revealed to the Apostle Paul: 'There are also celestial bodies, and bodies
terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the
terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of
the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from
another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. ...' -- I
Corinthians 15:40-42. Thus it is provided in the economy of God, that to
progression there is no end."
We do not believe in death-bed repentance nor in instantaneous salvation.
Salvation is an ongoing process, a lifetime endeavor, in fact an eternal
quest. We believe in the efficacy of the atonement of Christ, that He did
for us what we could not do for ourselves; that through his atoning blood all
men will be raised from the dead, but our individual exaltation will, with
His grace, be achieved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
A man cannot be saved in his sins, but from them. "We accept the scriptural
doctrine of the atonement wrought by Jesus Christ. He broke the bonds of
death and provided a way for the annulment of the effects of individual sin.
He was the only sinless man who ever walked the earth; He was the first
begotten in the spirit world and the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh
and therefore the only one who possessed the full powers of godhood and
manhood. He was chosen and foreordained in the primeval council before the
earth was formed. "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine Own Self
with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." -- St. John 17:5
We believe that He had that existence, premortal state, that He was the
second member of the Godhead, the Son of God, and became the Savior and
Redeemer of the world. He was the only one wholly free from the dominion of
Satan, the only one who possessed the power to hold death in abeyance and to
die only as he willed to do so. "For as the Father hath life in himself; so
hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." -- John 5:26. "Therefore
doth my father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it
again. 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.