Sunday, May 5, 2024

Atonement -The Sins He Remits, He Remits by Making Them His Own

Stephen Robinson: "All the negative aspects of human existence brought about by the Fall, Jesus Christ absorbed into himself. He experienced vicariously in Gethsemane, all the private griefs and heartaches, all the physical pains and handicaps, and all the emotional burdens and oppressions of the human family. He knows loneliness of those who don't fit in or who aren't handsome or pretty. He knows what it's like to choose up teams and be the last one chosen. He knows the anguish of parents whose children go wrong. He knows these things personally and intimately because he lived them in Gethsemane having personally lived a perfect life. 

He then chose to experience our imperfect lives and that infinite Gethsemane experience in the meridian of time, the center of eternity. He lived a billion, billion lifetimes of sin, pain, disease and sorrow. God has no magic wand with which to simply wave bad things in a non-existence, the sins that he remits, he remits by making them his own and suffering them. The pain and heartache that he relieves, he relieves by suffering them himself. These things can be transferred, but they cannot be simply wished away or waved away. They must be suffered. And thus we owe him, not only for our spiritual cleansing from sin but from our physical, mental and emotional healing as well, for he has borne these infirmities for us also. All that the Fall put wrong, the Savior and his Atonement puts right. "