Going Home - John 17:4-5

Even though the atonement hasn’t been officially performed yet, Jesus tells his Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” He’s almost done and he’s ready to go home. There are a couple of points from this statement that I think are important. First, even though the atonement isn’t finished yet, he’s considered it as done. Indeed, people had been repenting since the dawn of time, or how was it possible for people to repent and believe in the gospel if the atonement hadn’t actually taken place yet? In the book “The Infinite Atonement” author Tad R. Callister addresses this issue by asking, “What if the Savior chose not to proceed? What if no blood were ever shed? The principle of retroactive credit should not seem foreign to us today… Over long eons of time in the pre-mortal realm he proved faithful and dependable and honorable in every commitment, every responsibility, and ever charge. The scriptures tell us that ‘from eternity to eternity he is the same.’ He never deviated from the mark, never slacked in his performance, never shrank from his word. He kept every command with exactness; he discharged every duty with precision… As a result, his spiritual credit was rapidly escalating until it was pure gold, even infinite in value. That is why the laws of justice could recognize the benefits of the Atonement before the purchase price was ever paid, because his promise, his pledge, his credit was ‘got for it,’ and everyone who honored their first estate knew it.”

Jesus was able to consider the work he was sent to do “finished” because he knew that he was going to complete the atonement, he’d never not finished a task he’d committed to. This is a difficult concept for us because there are many things that we just can’t do because we will die. I could commit to rubbing the feet of every single person in the world in a single day, but physically it’s not possible. There isn’t enough time, I don’t have the means to get to every place where there is a person, I would get hungry, I would get tired. Jesus didn’t have any of those obstacles. Yes, he felt hunger and fatigue, but our body would only work up to a certain point and then physically, our bodies would stop working, we don’t have the control over the physical that He does. His body will continue to work regardless of what he’s experiencing if His spirit wills it so.
Another thing that I hadn’t considered before was the fact that I never thought that Jesus did difficult things besides the atonement. Sure he followed every command with exactness, but what was he commanded to do? Make an earth? Was that such a hard thing? Seems pretty fun to me. But thinking about this aspect of the atonement, I realized that Jesus must have been tasked with some pretty difficult stuff to make his fulfillment of the atonement so certain. I’ll have to think about what would be some of the difficult tasks that He would have been assigned that would have rendered everyone’s thought process “oh, enduring all the pain experienced by every living being in the universe, Jesus will absolutely do it.”
The second point is the reference to Jesus’ relationship with the Father “before the world was.” We talked the other day about Jesus’ reference to the pre-mortal life in just the previous verse. He’s really bring this around as a full circle moment, saying that we were together before the world was even created, you gave me a job to do, I did it, now I am coming home. This plan of redemption was established, not in Old Testament times, but before the space dust gathered together to form the universe. He’s helping his disciples see that even though he’s leaving soon and it might seem chaotic, this has always been the plan and the plan needs to happen for us to be saved.
The third point is that Jesus had more glory in the pro-mortal life than he had in mortality. I never really understood the concept of the condescension of God because Jesus seemed pretty powerful during his mortal life, I didn’t think he had given up any power to come down here. But in fact, we all had to condescend in order to come into this world. Before we were born, we lived with God, we had spent eons of time establishing a life their with friends and family, we had knowledge and spiritual power that we had to give up in order to come here and live this life. Jesus did similarly, born as a baby, completely dependent on his parents, subject to physical pain, fatigue, hunger, thirst, etc. He was a leader pre-mortally, he had face time with his Father, he had respect and authority and power, when he came here, he had none of that. He definitely took a pay cut coming here.
The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “Jesus ‘was like unto God’ before the world was; he had glory and dominion then; and he then became, under the direction of the Father, the Creator of this earth and of worlds without number. At the appointed time he came to this particular earth to world out both his own salvation and the atonement which would make salvation available to all men. In this prayer, speaking as though the atoning sacrifice had already been made, Jesus is certifying to the Father that the Son has done the appointed word, and asks that as a consequence he be given again the state of dignity and honor he once held.”