Jesus Christ is the only one who could have atoned for our sins, and there are four important reasons why he is our Savior.
The Atonement of Jesus Christ is a miraculous gift that provides us all with the ability and power to improve. Because Christ atoned for each one of us, we can all overcome both physical and spiritual death and eventually become like God. But why was it Jesus Christ who fulfilled our need for a Savior? How was he able to atone for the sins of all mankind? From the scriptures and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s article “Atonement of Jesus Christ,” I found four answers to these questions.
Jesus Christ dedicated his life to God’s work. Every single day of his life, Jesus chose obedience and righteousness, living a perfect, sinless life. Elder Holland teaches that as a result, Jesus wasn’t “subject to the spiritual death that comes as a result of sin.” Through his dedication to God and his willingness to choose righteousness continually, Jesus was the only one qualified to redeem us from death and sin.
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Jesus Christ had the necessary godly attributes. Jesus was born as a literal son of God; he had a divine Father and a mortal mother. Because of this, he “possessed the attributes of Godhood, which gave him power over physical death,” as Elder Holland notes. Jesus’s godly heritage made him uniquely capable to rise from death on the third day and fulfill his Atonement.
Jesus Christ chose to be our Savior. In the premortal life, Jesus was the only one willing and able to fully follow God’s will and fulfill the Atonement (Moses 4:1–2). Before we came to earth, “Christ voluntarily entered into a covenant with the Father” to be our Savior. As a result, he was then “foreordained” to fulfill that role (1 Peter 1:19–20), meaning Jesus was the only one authorized to atone for the sins of mankind.
Jesus Christ followed through. Elder Holland teaches that “to meet the demands of the Atonement, the sinless Christ went first into the Garden of Gethsemane, there to bear the spiritual agony of soul only he could bear.” He died on the cross and, three days later, he completed his Atonement and was resurrected. Jesus experienced spiritual agony, physical pain, emotional turmoil, and death for each one of us, so that we could have the power to overcome death and sin through him. He endured to the end and completed the work his Father sent him to do.
Jesus is the Christ because he was qualified, capable, authorized, and complete, thereby becoming the only one who could atone for the sins of all mankind. As Elder Holland says, it is a wondrous matter “that the voluntary and merciful sacrifice of a single being could…sweep all mankind into the encompassing arms of his merciful embrace.” Christ’s willingness and ability to live a sinless life, suffer for our sins in Gethsemane, and die painfully on the cross are evidence of his great love for each and every one of us.
He knew that we would need a Savior, and he chose to step into that role because he loves us too much to leave us at the mercy of death and sin. As we take the time to celebrate and learn more about Jesus Christ—his birth, his life, his work, and his Atonement—we can begin to truly understand how Jesus Christ and his perfect love can change our lives for the better.
Read more in Jeffrey R. Holland’s article, “Atonement of Jesus Christ,” from BYU’s Religious Studies Center to learn about Christ’s Atonement in greater depth.
Source: BYU Religious Studies Center
—Katelyn Uibel, Latter-day Saint Insights
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Find more insights
Watch or read Elder Tad R. Callister’s speech “The Atonement of Jesus Christ” to find more ways to think about Christ’s Atonement.
To learn how you can better apply Christ’s Atonement in your life, read Karlie Kelsch’s Latter-day Saint Insights article, “3 Concrete Ways to Apply Jesus Christ’s Atonement.”
Take a look at Hannah Mortenson’s For the Strength of Youth article, “4 Elements of the Savior’s Perfect Atonement,” to learn more about what made Christ’s Atonement perfect.