{"id":46848,"date":"2024-03-31T05:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-31T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=46848"},"modified":"2024-03-29T07:58:46","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T13:58:46","slug":"atonement-in-the-book-of-mormon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/03\/atonement-in-the-book-of-mormon\/","title":{"rendered":"Atonement in the Book of Mormon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is central to our faith and also central to the message of the Book of Mormon. What exactly, however, does the Book of Mormon say about the Atonement of Jesus Christ? In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk<\/em>, Nick Frederick discussed Atonement in the Book of Mormon<\/a>. What follows here is a co-post to the full interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

One thing that comes up at the start of the interview is that we don\u2019t have a single way of viewing the Atonement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a complicated question and the answers that are often given usually depend upon why you think God would require one. Is it to forgive sin? Heal wounds? Satisfy justice? Restore God\u2019s honor? Provide a model for repentance? Deter God\u2019s children from sinning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, how any given individual answers those questions will likely lead to how they define \u201cthe Atonement of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For example, in the Book of Mormon, not everyone approaches the Atonement the same way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s actually really enlightening to see how different Book of Mormon prophets and authors will attach different meanings to the concept of \u201catonement.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehi focuses specifically on a \u201csacrifice for sin\u201d that requires the death and resurrection of the Messiah. As Lehi seems to see it, there is no atonement without a resurrection. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is Jacob who first gives Book of Mormon readers the familiar phrase \u201cinfinite atonement,\u201d but as with Lehi Jacob seems to view the \u201cinfinite atonement,\u201d that which bestows incorruption in place of corruption as being brought to pass through the process of resurrection. There is little sense of a Gethsemane experience in Lehi and Jacob\u2019s words\u2013they seem to be squarely focused upon the messianic resurrection. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abinadi places the emphasis for atonement upon \u201cGod himself.\u201d This is one of the reasons for the lengthy quotation from Isaiah 53, to demonstrate that Jesus is both \u201cFather\u201d and \u201cSon\u201d and as such he possesses the requisite divinity to perform such a sacrifice. …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s from King Benjamin that a lot of the Latter-day Saint emphasis upon Gethsemane comes. It is only King Benjamin who observes that the Savior will bleed from every pore (although this is confirmed in Doctrine and Covenants 19). It is only Benjamin who seems to have in mind the Gethsemane experience when he speaks of atonement. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lesson of the Book of Mormon is that honing in on one experience of the Savior and saying \u201cThat\u2019s the most important one\u201d can be foolhardy. The truth is there are multiple factors involved, some of which we may not even be aware of. That\u2019s why I appreciate the Book of Mormon because it broadens the scope of how we can understand and appreciate the \u201cAtonement of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Between these (and other) figures in the Book of Mormon, we see the core teachings about Atonement of Jesus Christ as \u201cThe physical death and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, the requirement that a divine figure be the one to perform atonement, and the act of shedding blood as atonement.\u201d The Atonement of Jesus Christ, however, seems to be too large of a topic to approach from only one direction to comprehend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Atonement in the Book of Mormon<\/a>, head on over to the Latter-day Saint blog From the Desk<\/em> to read the full interview with Nick Frederick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image of Jesus praying in Gethsemane, created using OpenArt AI image generator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is central to our faith and also central to the message of the Book of Mormon. What exactly, however, does the Book of Mormon say about the Atonement of Jesus Christ? In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk, Nick Frederick discussed Atonement in the Book of Mormon. What follows here is a co-post to the full interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":46855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2890],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-of-mormon","category-from-the-desk"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image_5mWcpMCL_1711565868832_raw.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46857,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46848\/revisions\/46857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}