C. S. Lewis wrote in ‘Mere Christianity’. . . “supposing God became a man—suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God’s nature in one person—then that person could help us. He could surrender His will and suffer and die, because he was a man; and He could do it perfectly because He was a God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can do it only if He becomes a man. Our attempts at this dying will succeed only if we men share in God’s dying, just as our thinking can succeed only because it is a drop out of the ocean of His intelligence: but we cannot share God’s dying unless God dies: and He cannot die except by being a man. That is the sense in which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what he himself need not suffer at all.
I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man, then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, “because it must have been so easy for him.” Others may (very rightly) rebuke the ingratitude and ungraciousness of this objection; what staggers me is the misunderstanding it betrays. In one sense, of course, those who make it are right. They have even understated their case. The perfect submission, the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus because He was God, but were possible only because He was God. But surely that is a very odd reason for not accepting them. The teacher is able to form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown up and knows how to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher; and only because it is easier for him can he help the child. If it rejected him because “it’s easy for grown-ups” and waited to learn writing from another child who could not write itself (and so had no “unfair” advantage), it would not get on very quickly. If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) “No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank”? That advantage—call it “unfair” if you like. . . To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?
Such is my own way of looking at what Christians call the Atonement. But remember this is only one more picture. Do not mistake it for the thing itself: and if it does not help you, drop it.” ~ C.S. Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity’, Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 60-61. 1943,1945,1952
Additional note. . . God the Father and God the Son are two distinct individuals as shown during Christ’s physical suffering on the cross when our Savior said: ” . . . 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, aEloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou bforsaken me? The Holy Ghost is also a distinct member of the Godhead.
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
