In The Master Healer, Sister Carol M. Stephens shares the story of a faithful young woman who suffered a terribly painful experience. As her sympathetic mother repeatedly said that she would do anything to take this pain away from her, this young woman testified through her pain, "You don’t have to; Someone already has."
As powerful and touching as this story was, it got me thinking: How does the Atonement of Jesus Christ affect everyone? I mean, I can understand how the Atonement can affect us. We live after the Atonement. Many events go on to affect the future, even into the eternities. But how can any event affect what happened in the past?
How could our current or future pain be felt by Jesus at the time of His Atonement? For that matter, how did Jesus pay for sins not yet committed? Perhaps our present can affect His past because He foresaw our time. If He could see the future, perhaps He could feel the future, too, including our future pain. As for paying the price for sins not yet committed, perhaps He foresaw that, too, so He knew how much spiritual debt we would incur, and He paid that. Or perhaps, in a method that's far less complicated, and more scripturally supported, though no less difficult to understand, He somehow paid an infinite price, so He could cover all our sins, no matter how many we committed.
So, I get how Jesus' Atonement can affect us, and I kind of get how our actions can have affected Him, but what I still don't and may never understand is how the Atonement could alleviate the suffering that took place before it. There was suffering and sin long before Jesus was born, and while I can imagine souls having to wait until the Atonement to have their sins officially forgiven and paid for, I find it difficult to imagine how the future Atonement could have eased their past burdens.
But maybe it didn't have to. God has great power, and while forgiving sins is strictly an Atonement thing, alleviating suffering doesn't have to be. If God had the means, even before the Atonement, to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt, maybe His omnipotence was sufficient to ease their other burdens, too. Maybe the relief that we normally ascribe to the Atonement could have been brought about some other way.
Or maybe there is a way that the Atonement could affect events that occurred before it, despite my lack of understanding of how that could have worked.
I guess it doesn't really matter how the Atonement works; we should just be grateful that it does. It's just hard for me to wrap my head around it. I don't understand how any event could affect what happened in the past. But that's okay. I don't have to understand it, so long as God does. God knew that things would work out for everyone who lived before the Atonement. It was all part of the plan. I know that God did, or will, make everything turn out alright somehow. Maybe I should just trust Him and stop trying to wrap my head around the infinite reach and power of the Atonement.
1 comment:
I admit to having a little trouble with the opening story, because although Christ took upon himself all our suffering, it did not take away that girl's pain or the pain of the many sick and afflicted. I get that He felt it all and understands and can succor those who suffer. And that can help relieve pain somewhat, but she was not healed and she still suffered. As have and do others that we know. She simply was comforted. I know that because of the Atonement we do not have to pay the full price of sins for which we repent so we are actually spared suffering that way. And sometimes people are healed or given strength to bear their burdens, which God can / could do before and after the Atonement. and in the future, those who suffer will have an end to their suffering and receive blessings so glorious that they feel it was all well worth it. In the meantime, God loves them, Christ sacrificed, and they still hurt. (but it's ok)
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