Sit Down - 2 Corinthians 5:18-21

5:18-19 - The “new creature” that we become as we repent and grow spiritually is made because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is this atonement “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” One thought that I had about the “new” vs. “old” concept has to do with these “trespasses” that we incur. I was listening to The Infinite Atonement this morning on the way to work and Tad R. Callister was talking about the transformative abilities of the atonement and how as we repent, we are no longer judged for what we did and who we were, but who we are at the time. Thinking about the body becoming “new” like we talked about yesterday, maybe it’s not just about regressing from decaying to healthy, but perhaps it’s about removing the parts of ourselves that makes us decay.

 

People get old and sick because of the natural elements wear on their bodies, the oxidation, the environmental chemicals, gravity, and usage over time are some of the reasons why our bodies degrade. If we can liken that to our spiritual state, it could be our sins, negative energy, and fatigue that wears our spirit down. With Christ’s help, we can be forgiven of our sins, embrace positive energy, and be optimistic. It would be like removing the effects of chemicals and gravity from our body, that would certainly rejuvenate us physically. It’s like us all huddled up in a ball, sick, dirty, and suffering and as we turn to face Christ, his light and power slowly cures and cleans us as we stand and walk toward him. That’s a good visual, I like it.

 

It’s this process of being cleansed that Paul refers to as “reconciling” with God, meaning being changed from a form where we can’t and don’t want to be in God’s presence to where we can and deeply desire to be. The IM gives a good overview saying, “After teaching that all people are accountable for their actions and will one day stand before Jesus Christ to be judged, Paul pleaded with the Corinthian Saints to be reconciled to God through the Atonement of Christ.” The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes High Nibley as teaching, “Reconciliation means ‘to return and site down beside somebody again.’… You return and then you sit down. You sit down by the side of the Lord, and you sit down again because you’ve been there before. It’s reconciliation.” I love that, it gives so much context to this concept, it makes me feel like this whole mortal existence was started with Heavenly Father and I agreeing to a plan to throw me in the mud and helping me climb out of it, clean off and come back to Him again.

 

5:20 – Paul has branded himself, and therefore us, as “ambassadors for Christ.” I had a very limited understanding of the role of ambassadors and their purposes until I watched almost the entirety of the impeachment process of Donald Trump. I was astonished at the professionalism and integrity that those people who had dedicated their lives to the service of this country, exhibited, even under duress. They represented America and advocated for our foreign policy no matter who the president was or what that meant for them personally. They assumed posts in sometimes hostile and dangerous areas where the people held less than friendly opinions of the United States. Now that I think about it, “ambassador” seems like the perfect title for missionaries and really just anyone trying to live the gospel of Christ.

 

We represent Christ at all times in whatever we are doing, that includes not only serving others, but also when we flip people off in traffic. We are called, both formally and informally, to live our lives in different places, bringing exposure to the gospel to people all around. Sometimes, these people and places are not friendly to the gospel message or those who represent it. We represent Christ regardless of who the prophet is and no matter who the local or general authorities of the church are. Sometimes it’s glamourous, like when we feel at home with our fellow saints or when we go to the temple or feel the Spirit. And sometimes it’s not, like when persecution comes or when we are tempted. And we don’t represent ourselves or our own interests, we don’t represent other members or church leaders, but everything we do is based on Jesus’ gospel principles. Even if we don’t agree or understand everything, just like national ambassadors must uphold a policy they might not agree with. Fortunately for us though, unlike the policy of mortals that national ambassadors must uphold, the man making our policy is perfect, and if we don’t understand or agree with something, we can rest assured that it is perfect, and that we can obtain understanding if we seek it, within God’s timeline.

 

5:21 – Verse 21 seems pretty unimpressive at first glance, but researching it has revealed a plethora of little golden nuggets that are just so incredible. The verse says, “for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” At first, I was like “yeah that means nothing to me,” but one of the first interesting points came to me from the IM which says, “there are only a few biblical verses that explicitly state that Jesus Christ was completely without sin; 2 Corinthians 5:21 is one of them.” One aspect of the atonement that I’ve always struggled with is why did Jesus have to be perfect in order to perform the atonement? I understand it more now, but it’s not super clear. I’ve heard it explained that you can’t pay off someone else’s debt if you yourself owe money. That partially explains it, and honestly, the fact that Jesus was sinless might not be clearly taught by Christianity at large. So the fact that there are some references to His sinless nature sprinkled throughout the scriptures helps solidify that fact.

 

The article gives some excellent insight, saying, “the night of the atonement was a night of irony. He who was sinless became, as it were, the great Sinner… He who deserved least of all to suffer now suffered most- more than mortal mind can fathom. He who had brough like- the more abundant life- was subjected to the powers of death and darkness. As the Prophet Joseph Smith taught the brethren of the School of the Prophets, Jesus Christ is called the Son of God because he ‘descended in suffering below that which man can suffer, or, in other words, suffered greater sufferings, and was exposed to more powerful contradictions than any man can be.’”

 

My own understanding of the atonement deepened when I realized that Jesus had personally felt all my pains and suffered the consequences of all my sins. I thought about all the terrible feelings that I have had and all the trouble that will befall me throughout my life and thought how overwhelming it all would be. Then I grasped the fact that all people have just as much pain and suffering as I do, if not more, and that Jesus experienced their whole lives as well.

 

I think it’s been a while since I said this, but Jesus really knows what I need to listen to in the morning to fit in with the study topic of the day because what I heard in The Infinite Atonement this morning was perfect. Tad Callister writes, “The Savior’s plunge into humanity was not a toe-dipping experience. It was a total immersion. He did not experience some pains and not others. His life was not a random sampling, a spot audit; it was a total confrontation with and internalization of every human experience, every human plight, every human trial. Somehow his sponge alone would absorb the entire ocean of human affliction.”

 

This is the only way that the atonement can work. I have a friend that is Christian and while discussing how Christ died for our sins one day, she said that she believed that Jesus took on our pains and sufferings because he lived a mortal life and his individualist mortal experience gave him sufficient understanding to sympathize with us. We can look at Jesus’ mortal life and know that it definitely was no cake walk, and he died in the cruelest way imaginable. However, he never gave birth to a child, he was never raped, he didn’t grow up in an abusive home, he never suffered from cancer, he never drowned, in fact, the vast majority of human suffering wasn’t made available to him simply due to the circumstances of when and where he was born. And even if he was able to somehow experience every negative event ever felt by anyone ever, it wouldn’t be enough because he would experience it from his own perspective of perfect faith, not from our own individualist embodiment.

 

This is why I think that fear played such an important factor to Christ’s experience in the Garden. One of the questions asked in the book this morning was something like, “why did Christ bleed from every pore in the Garden, but not while experiencing everything again on the cross?” The author hypothesized that Jesus’ broken heart was the physical manifestation of his suffering on the cross, but I have another idea. When researching Jesus’ time in Gethsemane, I learned that the condition of bleeding from the pores is caused by significantly and suddenly increased blood pressure. The largest factor known to cause this phenomenon is a sudden, acute sense of fear. Jesus had perfect faith, therefore I would imagine that he never experienced fear before, like when the tempest was raging on the boat and Peter woke Jesus up basically telling him that they were about to die. Jesus could sleep through the storm because he was probably exhausted, but he also had faith that they would live because it wasn’t their time to die, or that if they did die that it would be God’s will.

 

That’s a perfect example of how fear affected the mere mortals surrounding him, but that Jesus was at peace. However, that is not what the rest of the population throughout human history has experienced. Imagine living anciently in a small village watching an army coming straight for you. This is something that probably billions of people have experienced during their lifetimes, and I can’t imagine anything more fear inducing than this. And even though Palestine was occupied by the Romans during Christ’s lifetime, he never had any fear of them. This is why it was completely necessary for the Savior to “live” our lives and feel every sensation, every emotion that will ever befall us.

 

I can only imagine how much fear the average person or animal suffers from during their lifetime, and to have all of that completely new emotion hit for the whole of humanity within 3 hours, no wonder he bled from every pore, I imagine that it would have changed who he was to the core, as far as his compassion and relationship with others. This begs the question, is it possible for us to have faith strong enough to not feel fear? We know that Jesus gained “grace for grace,” just like us, so logically I have to believe that, yes, it is possible for us to have the same degree of faith that renders us fearless. But I imagine that it takes a long time and is very effort intensive. But ultimately, that’s what the goal is right? That’s what gave Abinadi power over king Noah, he was not afraid. Bummed about dying? Sure. But scared, no.

 

The last part of verse 21 is explained in the article by Stephen E. Robinson saying, “First, Jesus Christ did not just assume the punishment for our sins- he took the guilt as well. The sin, the experience itself with all of its negative consequences and ramifications, and not just the penalty for sin, became his. This is a crucial distinction. In the atonement, Jesus does not just suffer our punishment for us, he becomes the guilty party in our place- he becomes guilty for us and experiences our guilt.” To get a better understanding of this concept, I imagined being a drunk driver who gets in an accident and kills someone. The punishment would be jail, and if Jesus took our punishment for us, that means that he would go to jail in our place. But to take on our guilt as well, he would have to experience the court process as the guilty party. He would be the one hated by the family of the deceased. He would be the one who never forgave himself for taking a life. He would be the one who had that on his criminal record. For us, it would be like it never happened and we would never think about it again. But for him, it would be life changing.

 

I’m just going to finish up here with the rest of the quote from the article because it is just so profound. It says, ‘In Christ there is a real transfer of guilt for innocence. Through the oneness of our covenant relationship, my guilt becomes Jesus’ guilt, which he experienced and for which he suffered. At the same time, his innocence and perfection become mine, and I am rendered clean and worthy. In Christ our sins cease to be ours, and as far as the justice of God is concerned, we never committed them. Through the Atonement, we are not merely forgiven- we are rendered innocent once again.”