Much More - Romans 5:9-11

One of the things that I mentioned yesterday was something that profoundly impacted me when I first heard it about ten years ago, and that is that the purpose of the atonement isn’t just so that we can live, but that we can live more abundantly. If we look at the atonement from a purely “Christ paid for our sins, therefore we can be forgiven of our sins,” yes it’s absolutely accurate, but we miss out of so much of the beauty and gifts and love that the atonement also was performed to give.

In “The Infinite Atonement,” Tad R. Callister begins the introduction by saying, “A person studying the Atonement is somewhat like the man who retreats to his mountain cabin to enjoy the scenery. If he looks our the window to the east, he will see the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies; but if he fails to examine the view on the west, he will miss the crimson-streaked sunset on the horizon; if he neglects the scene to the north, he will never see the shimmering emerald lake; and if he bypasses the window on the south, he will fail to witness the wild flowers in all their brilliant glory, dancing in the gentle mountain breeze. Beauty besets him in every direction. So it is with the Atonement… It is a doctrine for all seasons.”
This was a mind blowing statement when I heard it because I had only considered the atonement in the context of forgiveness of sins. So what is the difference, really? If we focus solely on the ability to be forgiven of our sins, we technically will be worthy to live with God again, but would we really want to? Pope Francis said something that I really like and it was “If you don’t want to go to mass, why would you want to go to heaven?” We know that our place in the next life will be completely up to us, where do we want to live, what rules do we want to follow, and what do we really see as valuable?
As we discussed the other day, those who refuse repentance will for required to suffer for their own sins, but once that suffering is done, they will be technically worthy to live with God again, but will they want to? The answer is, probably not. Their refusal to repent is an indication that they aren’t ready to accept God’s law, or really the universal law of happiness, so they probably will choose to reside elsewhere, which is their right.
This demonstrates that it is not only the payment for sins that is necessary to be with God and move forward spiritually, we have to WANT to be with God and grow. Repentance isn’t just about asking Jesus to forgive us for our wrongs, but also transforming who we are so that we don’t want to be guilty of anything wrong ever again and working hard to overcome our natural tendencies.
If we only look out the window to the east, we will the miracle of the forgiveness of sins. Really, this is the bedrock of the atonement, if we didn’t have the ability to repent of our sins, then nothing else would matter. It is a beautiful and miraculous opportunity, one that makes life worth living and is the only way back to God. But the beauty of the atonement is that it doesn’t stop there, there’s so much more to it.
If we look out the window to the west, we will see the gift of grace, which is God’s enabling power to do hard things and overcome ourselves. Without grace we would be left up to our own strength and our own efforts and we would only be able to make as much progress as we could on our own. Personally, I can think of a few times in my life when I told Jesus to get our of my way, and I’d like to think that that’s the closest I’ll ever come to being on my own. At those times, I look back and all I remember is the crippling anxiety over everything. I felt so out of control and unprotected, it was crazy. If I was only forgiven on my sins when I repented, then I would be trying to make spiritual progress starting in a place of angst. I’m sure that I would have made some progress if I really tried, but it would be nothing compared to what I have now. So not only does the atonement allow us to repent, but Jesus gives us to strength and peace to have joy in our progress and in our circumstances.
If we look out the window to the north, we will see healing. When Jesus paid our debt to justice, he personally felt every pain that was caused by both the sinner and the one sinned against. This is a staggering feat because for every sin ever committed there are two sides of consequences, the side of the person who committed the sin, and even though they might not have felt the consequences at the time, there is an eternity of moving away from God that will bring personal suffering.
The other side is the person who was sinned against, the victim. It was necessary for Jesus to feel the pain caused to the victim in order for the perpetrator to be forgiven. Justice would require that any hurt caused to someone must be felt by the perpetrator in order for a full recompense to be made. Jesus took the pain that was caused and instead of making the perpetrator feel the pain, he felt it instead, and allows the perpetrator to repent instead of feeling the full measure of it themself.
We have all been the cause and victim of sins, we have all created pain to ourselves and others, and because he loves us, Jesus took on that pain, the pain we caused and that justice demands that we feel in return, and felt it himself, so that instead of suffering for our own sins, we might be spared that agony. He loves us so much that he doesn’t want us to suffer, but that’s not where he limited himself.
Jesus Christ also felt all of our everything, he’s lived every life, he’s given birth to every child, and he’s died every death. It was because of this extensive reach into our human existence that he is able to give us healing. In Alma 7:12 we read, “And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people,” which is what we talked about with the atoning for our sins. But Alma continues, “and he will take upon his their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” This is the part where he took on everything extra, he took account of every aspect of every part of our lives and made a plan for us and loved us.
Because we have all been hurt by others, some more extensively than others, we are all broken. We are here in this fallen, mortal world with people who have so many of their own problems that they can’t think twice about anyone else. Even if we could be forgiven of our sins, without the healing that comes through Christ, we would ultimately just be a complete wreck of a person, and then what good is the plan of salvation then.
So many of us are just crippled emotionally and spiritually to the point of incapacitation, and the beautiful thing about God’s healing is that he doesn’t walk us through the process, he doesn’t say “ok, first I’ll give you peace in your heart, and then I’ll make you feel empowered.” He just says, “repent so I can heal you.” I personally have been healed by the Savior, not completely because I’m still a work in progress but to an extent that I feel like a completely different person that who I was at my most broken.
I can not say how He did it, I can not give a sequence of events or feelings, all I know is that he was always there, watching and waiting for me to just look in His direction and then he swooped in and saved me. This is the beauty about the atonement, that we can have some relief for what this life has done to us, that we can be saved that way without having to know the ins and outs of how it works.
And finally, if we look to the south, we will see the most beautiful part of all, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Because he knows us so intimately, so much more than we even know ourselves, he can be the perfect mentor for us. Because he loves us so completely, he can be our best friends in a way that is uplifting and not enabling of our weaknesses.
That type of relationship is so rare, where someone is so committed to us and our personal happiness that they would not only suffer and die for us, but that they would live for us too. It’s so rare that someone wants to give you their full attention all the time and meet you where you are. This is what a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can look like, and every relationship is different, but all I know is that I love him so much and I’m so grateful that he’s my best friend.
Paul has spent a lot of time teaching about how it is the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God that allows us to be “reconciled to God,” just like when we focused on the atonement being our source of forgiveness for our sins. But now Paul moves on, just like we did, to the “other” parts of this reconciliation, using the words “much more” in the next several verses.
In verse 9 Paul points out that “being now justified by his blood,” or once we’ve accepted the gospel and made covenants with Him, “we shall be saved from wrath through him.” He will save us from the misery and suffering for our own sins that justice requires that we feel. Verse 10 says that because “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” There are a couple of different ways to understand this verse. First is that through his physical death, he made it so that we would all be resurrected again. Second could be that through his spiritual death, his separation from the Father during his atonement, we can be given a better life than anything that we could have ever created for ourselves.
The IM says, “In Romans 5, Paul repeatedly used the phrase ‘much more’ to show how the grace and blessings of the Atonement are more than sufficient to meet our spiritual needs… Now that we are reconciled- meaning that we have accepted the Savior’s Atonement and entered into a covenant relationship with Him- we can be ‘much more’ certain that God will continue to works with us for our salvation.”
Interestingly, in verse 11 Paul uses the word “atonement” to describe what the Savior did for us. The IM says, “Romans 5:11 is the only verse in the King James Version of the New Testament that uses the word atonement; however, a related term, reconciliation, is found in other New Testament passages. Both of these words denote a change from hostile to friendly terms, the reestablishment of an interrupted or broken relationship, and the restoration of harmony between two parties.”
I like the definition of “hostile to friendly terms,” because I feel like it explains the emotional aspect of our acceptance of the atonement so well. We commit sin and we have sin committed against us, and because of that and the fallen world that we live in, we are angry, bitter, and toxic to ourselves and others. Christ uses his love for and knowledge of us to soothe our spirits, to teach us forgiveness, and to bring us in for a big hug. That description speaks to me on such a visceral level because I can feel exactly how he did it to me and it is beautiful and I am so grateful.