I sense that an increasing number of deeply committed Church members are weighed down beyond the breaking point with discouragement about their personal lives. When we habitually understate the meaning of the Atonement, we take more serious risks than simply leaving one another without comforting reassurances-for some may simply drop out of the race, worn out and beaten down with the harsh and untrue belief that they are just not celestial material.
The Savior himself was not concerned that he would give aid and comfort to backsliders or that he would seem to be soft on sin. Said he, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. . . . For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) He spoke these words of comfort in the overall context of his demanding teachings about the strait and narrow way and the need to develop a love so pure that it would extinguish not only hatred, but lust and anger. He said his yoke is easy, but he asked for all our hearts.
His words do not describe an event or even simply an attitude, but a process; not the answer to a yes or no question, but an essay, written in the winding trail of our experience. Along that trail, he is not only aware of our limitations, he will also in due course compensate for them, “after all we can do.” That, in addition to forgiveness for sin, is a crucial part of the Good News of the gospel, part of the Victory, part of the Atonement. For such a purpose each of us needs to take the Atonement more fully into the deep parts of our consciousness, even if there are some good reasons not to stress the role of grace excessively.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, Deseret Book, 1989
A re-post of a classic explanation of the Atonement:
A father once scolded his son a few days before Christmas because the little boy was terrorizing the house and creating a constant mess. The father said, “If you aren’t good, Santa won’t bring you anything.” Soon the father wondered where his boy had gone-things were too quiet. He found the little guy lying very still on his back, looking stonily at the ceiling. “What are you doing?” the father asked. “I’m being good,” said the boy. He was avoiding evil by avoiding movement. That is not what it means to prize the good. We seek more than neutrality, more than avoidance. We seek to be good, as the character of God himself is good in its very nature. And that state of being is, like charity, ultimately a gift of Christ’s Atonement, bestowed upon the humble and obedient followers of Christ, after they learn from experience all they can discover by themselves about prizing the good.
So, does the Atonement work in our lives as an event or as a process? If it is an event, life is a simple test that we either pass or fail. We compile a certain number of black marks and white marks. At life’s end, we add up the marks, compute our repentance points, and check the score. Above some fixed level of repentance, the Atonement applies, our sins are paid for, and we go back to square one. With this approach, repentance is essentially another white mark-something we do to earn forgiveness. But something is missing here. For one thing, if the Atonement simply returns Adam and Eve to Eden, theirs is a story with no plot, no character development. Nothing happens to them, because the Atonement seems to erase what has happened to them. There is nothing here about what it means to have learned to recognize evil and to prize the good.
Moreover, this view sees our repentance as mechanically earning enough grace to offset our black marks. If that is how we think the Atonement works, we are unlikely ever to feel the full freedom and meaning of forgiveness and belonging to Christ. As long as we believe that we totally earn forgiveness, we will still feel guilty, because we will sense intuitively that we do not have the power to make ourselves completely whole. The Lord’s forgiveness is ultimately an act of grace-it comes as his gift, not as something we have a “right” to, even though we must repent as a condition of receiving it.
Consider, however, the Atonement in our lives as a process rather than an event. The process of Atonement applies not just once but, potentially, throughout our lives. Along this path of life, Adam and Eve did not simply return to Eden; rather, they moved onward from Eden through the telestial world. Because they accepted the gospel, then learned to cast Satan’s influence from their lives, they kept moving with the blessings of the priesthood into the terrestrial world, and finally into the celestial presence of God.
During this arduous journey, our first parents learned from their own experience to distinguish good from evil. By the sorrow and sweat of earthly life, they learned the taste and, ultimately, the very meaning of the sweet and the good. They did not come to this understanding merely by partaking of the forbidden fruit. Their first taste of the tree of knowledge was but the beginning of a lifelong quest for meaning-not an event but an extended process, marked by having children and discovering misery, sin, goodness, joy, and the very meaning of eternal life.
Elder Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen,
The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships with God and Family, Deseret Books, 1994
On some days, our dealings with other people might prompt us to think that the greatest reward in the life after death should be that God, and everyone else, will just leave us alone, unencumbered by the needs and demands of others.
However, Jesus Christ came to accomplish the great at-one-ment, not the great alone-ment. He came to overcome our separation from God and from one another. He seeks to bring us to his Father, to himself, and to each other, at one, through the gift and power of his Atonement. Even though we do need some space for ourselves, something deep inside each of us instinctively responds to this gospel of belonging, drawing us to certain other people and to God.
. . . .
The good news is that the gospel of Jesus Christ answers the heart’s longing for fulness. The Father of our spirits knows where we belong-where our core being can say, “I was made for this.” To that end, God would have us fulfill our deepest eternal yearnings and know the meaning of our very existence.
We do not live by bread alone, and we were not made to be alone. “Happiness is the object and design of our existence,” wrote Joseph Smith. But the life of alienation and distance from God and from other people leads away from that object and design. The life of faith, hope, and charity-the life of the belonging heart-brings us to and keeps us within the arms of the Holy One of Israel. When in his presence, we will embrace not only him but also those we loved and served on earth. And in all these bonds of belonging is the fulness of our joy.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen
The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships with God and Family
Deseret Books (March 1994)
Our repentance and our continued obedience are thus necessary prerequisites to our receiving the sustaining, healing, and compensating power that flows from belonging to Christ-not because we can “repent” of our undeserved pains and infirmities, but because we must repent of our sins to be entitled to the relationship whose healing and nurturing influence will wipe away all our other tears. That such incomprehensible blessings are unlocked through the two-way covenants of the Atonement unveils an entire body of well-developed, powerful doctrine that gives meaning, life, and theological foundations to our search for peace and personal growth. Because we are his and he is ours, the Lord will continually “at-one for” our separation and estrangement from him, whether that separation has been caused by our sins, our mistakes, the sins of others, or any other cause.
These are the blessings of belonging to Christ, ultimately made possible by the power of his Atonement: “O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.” (Isaiah 43:1-3; emphasis added.)
These sublime promises describe the Savior not as our judge but as our advocate. So has he described himself: “Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father.” (D&C 29:5; emphasis added.) His advocacy-his defense of us before the judgment bar of the Father-derives directly from his atoning act for us: “In mine own name, by the virtue of the blood which I have spilt, have I pleaded before the Father for them.” (D&C 38:4.) In that role, as our champion, he “is pleading [our] cause before [the Father], saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; . . . spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.” (D&C 45:3-5.)
We must always seek to be on the Lord’s side; but what good news it is to know that he is on our side
Elder Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen
The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships with God and Family
Deseret Books (March 1994)
The following is taken from then entry entitled, “Grace” in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. The author is Bruce C. Hafen, an official at BYU when this work was written, now an emeritus member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.
As noted in previous posts, the Encyclopedia of Mormonism is not recognized as official Church doctrine, but is a respected source of well-informed commentary on doctrine.
From Elder Hafen:
Grace is thus the source of three categories of blessings related to mankind’s salvation. First, many blessings of grace are unconditional -free and unmerited gifts requiring no individual action. God’s grace in this sense is a factor in the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement, and the Plan of Salvation. Specifically regarding the Fall, and despite death and other conditions resulting from Adam’s transgression, Christ’s grace has atoned for original sin and has assured the resurrection of all humankind: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression” (A of F 2).
Second, the Savior has also atoned conditionally for personal sins. The application of grace to personal sins is conditional because it is available only when an individual repents, which can be a demanding form of works. Because of this condition, mercy is able to satisfy the demands of justice with neither mercy nor justice robbing the other. Personal repentance is therefore a necessary condition of salvation, but it is not by itselfsufficient to assure salvation (see Justice and Mercy). In addition, one must accept the ordinances of baptism and the laying-on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, by which one is born again as the spirit child of Christ and may eventually become sanctified (cf. D&C 76:51-52; see also Gospel of Jesus Christ).
Third, after one has received Christ’s gospel of faith, repentance, and baptism unto forgiveness of sin, relying “wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save,” one has only “entered in by the gate” to the “strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life” (2 Ne. 31:17-20). In this postbaptism stage of spiritual development, one’s best efforts-further works-are required to “endure to the end” (2 Ne. 31:20). These efforts include obeying the Lord’s commandments and receiving the higher ordinances performed in the temples, and continuing a repentance process as needed “to retain a remission of your sins” (Mosiah 4:12).
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
Grace
The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
Macmillan Publishing, 1992
Charity is but one illustration of the way obedience to God’s commandments both nurtures and satisfies our longing to belong. Many other core gospel doctrines instruct us to develop relationships of belonging with the Lord and with family members. For example, the commandment to accept the Savior’s Atonement directs us to become “at one” with him and his Father: “Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me.” (3 Nephi 27:20.) Our embracing of Christ’s gospel can lead us eventually to embrace him, in a relationship of unity that fulfills everlastingly our longing to belong. At the very hour of his Atonement, the Savior prayed: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified. . . . 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 they may be one, even as we are one.” (John 17:19-22.) The Savior’s intercessory prayer for at-one-ment expressed in words what his sacrifice made possible.
.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen and, Marie K. Hafen
The Belonging Heart: The Atonement And Relationships With God And Family
[P]art of the sacrifice the Lord may require is that we accept what He may inflict upon us without understanding to our rational satisfaction why we should be lost in some dark night of the soul. Eventually the light of Christ’s atoning power can pierce our darkness and bless us with understanding, but we may receive no such witness until after the trial of our faith.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
Reason, Faith, and the Things of Eternity, FARMS Review: Volume 20, Issue 2, Pages: 15-35
May 4, 2011
Alma, Fundamental Principles, General Authorities, Grace, Hafen, Justice, Mercy
Mercy is not extended arbitrarily. To protect individuals from the undeserved effects of sins for which they are not responsible, the Atonement unconditionally paid the penalty for the transgression of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It pays similarly for sins committed in ignorance (Mosiah 3:11; see also Moses 6:54). However, the Atonement removes the penalty for personal sins for which one is accountable only on the condition of individual repentance.
In this way, the concepts of justice, mercy, and the Atonement retain both a specific integrity and a logically consistent relationship: “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 . . . . But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature . . . . For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved” (Alma 42:13, 15, 22, 24).
Mercy is thus rehabilitative, not retributive or arbitrary. The Lord asks repentance from a transgressor, not to compensate the Savior for paying the debt of justice, but to induce the transgressor to undertake a meaningful process of personal development toward a Christlike nature.
At the same time, mercy depends ultimately on the Lord’s extension of unmerited grace. Even though conditioned on repentance for personal sins, mercy is never fully “earned” by its recipients. Repentance is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of salvation and exaltation. “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25:23). The unearned nature of mercy is demonstrated by the Atonement’s having unconditionally compensated for the disabilities imposed on mankind by the fall of Adam. Adam and Eve and their posterity were utterly powerless to overcome the physical and spiritual deaths that were introduced by the Fall. Moreover, transgressors do not “pay” fully for their sins through the process of repentance. Even though repentance requires restitution to the extent of one’s ability, most forms of restitution are beyond any person’s ability to achieve. No matter how complete our repentance, it would all be to no avail without a mediator willing and able to pay our debt to justice, on condition of our repentance. Thus, even with sincere and complete repentance, all are utterly dependent on Jesus Christ.
Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, justice and mercy are interdependent and interactive, demonstrating that God cannot be just without being merciful, nor merciful without being just.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
Justice and Mercy, The Maxwell Institute
April 29, 2011
Discouragement, Enabling Power, Fundamental Principles, Hafen, Millett, Repentance
The person most in need of understanding the Savior’s mercy is probably one who has worked himself to exhaustion in a sincere effort to repent, but who still believes his estrangement from God is permanent and hopeless. . . . I sense that an increasing number of deeply committed Church members are weighed down beyond the breaking point with discouragement about their personal lives. When we habitually understate the meaning of the Atonement, we take more serious risks than simply leaving one another without comforting reassurances-for some may simply drop out of the race, worn out and beaten down with the harsh and untrue belief that they are just not celestial material.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
The Broken Heart, pp. 5-6, quoted in Within Reach by Robert C. Millett (1995, Deseret Book, Salt Lake City)
April 23, 2011
Enabling Power, Fall, Fundamental Principles, General Authorities, Grace, Hafen
I wish now to summarize the elements of doctrine that apply the holy Atonement and its enabling grace to our lives. In this way I hope to illustrate how fully each of us needs the Lord’s power and how earnestly he seeks to turn our mourning to joy, our blindness to sight, and our ashes to beauty.
When I think of the Savior all alone that night in Gethsemane, a solitary light shining in the vast darkness of cosmic evil, I think of the millions of people for whom he alone paid the full ransom. Then I recall Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s phrase about “the awful arithmetic of the Atonement.” The wonder of that event is clearly beyond our comprehension. As Elder Packer said, “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.”
The first and most familiar elements of the Atonement relate to the transgression of Adam and Eve and to our personal sins. Because of the Fall, Adam and his children became subject to death, sin, and other characteristics of mortality that separated them from God. To allow mankind again to be “at one” with God, the eternal law of justice required compensation for these consequences of the Fall. The eternal law of mercy allowed the Savior to make that compensation fully through the great “at-one-ment,” relieving Adam and his children of their unbearable burdens.
Somehow, through his sinless life, his genetic nature as the Only Begotten of the Father, and his willingness to drink the bitter cup of justice, the Lord Jesus Christ was able to atone unconditionally for the original sin of Adam and Eve and for the physical death, and to atone conditionally for the personal sins of all mankind.
The unconditional parts of the Atonement, those that assure our resurrection from physical death and that pay for Adam’s transgression, require no further action on our part. They are the free gifts of unmerited divine grace. The conditional part, however, requires our repentance-part of “all we can do”-as the condition of applying mercy to our personal sins. We have been told that if we do not repent, we must suffer even as the Savior did to satisfy the demands of justice. (See D&C 19:15-17.)
Elder Bruce C. Hafen
The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, Deseret Book, 1989
Recent entries
- He Puts a Little of His Love into Us
- Religious Faith is a Store of Light, Knowledge and Wisdom
- We Must Trust in the Atonement
- Selflessness is Righteousness
- Book Review
Popular Posts
- Bednar – Grace – The Enabling Power of the Atonement
- We Must be Firmly Attached to Him
- No Pain That We Suffer
- Testifying of the Great and Glorious Atonement
- Packer – An Ever-Present Power
- We Must Trust in the Atonement
- Clean Hands and a Pure Heart
- What Pains He Had to Bear
- He Died for You Individually
- The Book of Mormon will Teach You that Christ’s Atonement is Infinite
Categories
- Abinadi (1)
- Abuse (4)
- Addiction (2)
- Administrative Notes (1)
- Adversity (67)
- Advocate (1)
- Agency (3)
- Allred (1)
- Alma (20)
- Amulek (5)
- Andersen (5)
- Arnold (1)
- Ballard (2)
- Banish Fear (4)
- Baptism (1)
- Bateman (6)
- Beck (4)
- Bednar (16)
- Benson (5)
- Bergin and Butler (1)
- Bible (1)
- Bible Dictionary (2)
- Book of Mormon (18)
- Born Again (1)
- Bowen (1)
- Boyle (1)
- Bradford (1)
- Brown (4)
- Burton (1)
- C.S. Lewis (33)
- Callister (1)
- Cannon (3)
- Caring for the Poor (4)
- Change (11)
- Charity (32)
- Chastity (4)
- Children (4)
- Christmas (20)
- Christofferson (14)
- Clark (1)
- Clayton (2)
- Condie (3)
- Consecration (3)
- Conversion (1)
- Cook (7)
- Cornish (1)
- Covenants (7)
- Covey (2)
- Dalton (2)
- Death (3)
- Dew (5)
- Didier (2)
- Discipleship (2)
- Discouragement (12)
- Doctrine (1)
- Doctrine & Covenants (7)
- Easter (2)
- Edgley (1)
- Enabling Power (58)
- Encyclopedia of Mormonism (14)
- England (1)
- Enoch (1)
- Eternal Life (19)
- Exaltation (10)
- Eyring (27)
- Faith (45)
- Fall (16)
- Family (4)
- Faust (7)
- Forgiveness (35)
- Fuhriman (1)
- Fundamental Principles (94)
- Garments (2)
- General Authorities (382)
- General Conference (239)
- Gethsemane (13)
- Grace (71)
- Grant (2)
- Gratitude (14)
- Grow (1)
- Hafen (23)
- Hales (3)
- Hanks (1)
- Happiness (14)
- Healing (21)
- Hinckley (17)
- Holland (26)
- Holy Ghost (20)
- Hope (37)
- Howard (1)
- Hugo (1)
- Humility (40)
- Hunter (8)
- Hymns (23)
- I Need Thee Every Hour (22)
- Immortality (8)
- Integrity (4)
- Italy (2)
- Jacob (4)
- Jensen (2)
- Jeppsen (1)
- Jessen (1)
- John (2)
- John Paul II (2)
- Joseph F. Smith (7)
- Joseph Fieldin Smith (3)
- Joseph Smith (10)
- Joy (6)
- Justice (16)
- Justification (16)
- Kapp (1)
- Keith (1)
- Kimball (17)
- King Benjamin (10)
- Knowledge (1)
- Law (2)
- Lehi (2)
- Light of Christ (3)
- Lincoln (1)
- Longfellow (1)
- Lund (4)
- Lyon (2)
- Madsen (3)
- Marriage (3)
- Martin Luther King (1)
- Matthews (1)
- Maxwell (58)
- McClanahan (1)
- McConkie (28)
- McKay (3)
- McMullin (1)
- Mediator (6)
- Meekness (5)
- Mercy (29)
- Meridian Magazine (1)
- Mickelsen (2)
- Millett (14)
- Miracles (2)
- Missionary (2)
- Monson (13)
- Mormon (1)
- Moroni (8)
- Morrison (2)
- Mosser (1)
- Mother Teresa (5)
- Nash (1)
- Natural Man (1)
- Nature of Christ (5)
- Necessity (1)
- Necessity of Atonement (4)
- Nelson (8)
- Nephi (2)
- New Testament (5)
- Nibley (15)
- Oaks (14)
- Obedience (8)
- Old Testament (4)
- Packer (12)
- Pain (1)
- Patience (2)
- Paul (11)
- Peacock (1)
- Perfection (6)
- Perry (4)
- Peter (1)
- Phelps (1)
- Pingree (1)
- Plan of Salvation (7)
- Poelman (2)
- Pondering (2)
- Porter (1)
- Power (1)
- Prayer (9)
- Preexistence (3)
- Pride (4)
- Priesthood (2)
- Proctor (1)
- Prophesies of Christ (1)
- Psalms (1)
- Reconciliation (4)
- Redemption of the Dead (1)
- Remembering (2)
- Renewal (4)
- Repentance (80)
- Rescue (25)
- Restitution (1)
- Resurrection (33)
- Revelation (8)
- Richards (1)
- Roberts (2)
- Robinson (1)
- Romney (6)
- Sacrament (3)
- Sacrifice (16)
- Salvation (20)
- Samuelson (1)
- Sanctification (26)
- Schweitzer (2)
- Scott (24)
- Scripture (3)
- Second Coming (1)
- Selfishness (1)
- Service (19)
- Sin (9)
- Snow (1)
- Spirit World (1)
- Taylor (4)
- Temple (8)
- Testimony (9)
- Tests (27)
- The Pearl of Great Price (2)
- Thomas (1)
- Thomas More (1)
- Tingey (1)
- Top (1)
- Trust (11)
- Uchtdorf (8)
- Uncategorized (1)
- Vandagriff (31)
- Vessels (1)
- Video (25)
- Wells (1)
- Wesley (6)
- Whitney (2)
- Wilder (1)
- Wirthlin (7)
- Women (1)
- Woodruff (1)
- Words of Christ (13)
- Works (1)
- Wright (1)
- Young (4)
- Zeballos (1)
Archives
Blogroll
- Broadcast Archives – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- BYU Devotionals
- BYU Hawaii Devotionals
- BYU Idaho Devotionals
- CES Firesides
- KBYU Find a Talk Database
- Mormon.org
- RSS Feed
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
- The Gratitude Journal
- The Hope Central Blog