“I once wondered if those
who refuse to repent but who then satisfy the law of justice by paying for
their own sins are then worthy to enter the celestial kingdom. The answer is
no. The entrance requirements for celestial life are simply higher than merely
satisfying the law of justice. For that reason, paying for our sins will not
bear the same fruit as repenting of our sins.
“Justice is a law of
balance and order, and it must be satisfied, either through our payment or his.
But if we decline the Saviour’s invitation to let Him carry our sins, and then
satisfy justice by ourselves, we will not yet have experienced the complete
rehabilitation that can occur through a combination of divine assistance and
genuine repentance. Working together, those forces have the power permanently
to change our hearts and our lives, preparing us for celestial life.
“By analogy, the
criminals who fill our prisons are not necessarily “rehabilitated” when they
pay their debt to society by serving a fixed number of years. The payment of
that debt may satisfy our sense of retribution, but only a positive process of
character change can rehabilitate a lawbreaker.
“The doctrines of mercy
and repentance are rehabilitative, not retributive, in nature. The Saviour asks
for our repentance not merely to compensate him for paying our debt to justice,
but also as a way of inducing us to undergo the process of development that
will make our nature divine, giving us the capacity to live the celestial law.
The “natural man” will remain an enemy to God forever – even after paying for
his own sins – unless he also “becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ
the Lord, and becometh as a child.” (Mosiah 3:19)
“As King Benjamin here
suggests, the Atonement does more than pay for our sins. It is also the agent
through which we develop a saintly nature. When the Saviour accepts our
repentance and blesses us with his mercy, he restores our spiritual balance
from a negative position to a neutral position.
“This complete process
requires active faith, changes in our lives, and baptism or the meaningful
renewal of baptismal covenants. But when we have taken these sometimes arduous
steps, we are then only ready to enter the “strait and narrow path which
leads to eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:17-18)
-
Elder Bruce C. Hafen, The Broken Hear –
Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, p 7,8
A
river of peace floods my mortal being;
I
struggle to contain such a merciful gift.
With
grace You enlarge
the
sparse capacity of my heart
And
righteousness moves within me
as
the waves of the sea.
Eternal
hope floods my mortal being
And
brings me to Thee;
I
love You more dearly;
I
serve you more freely;
I
become what I alone could never be.
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