Gerald N. Lund wrote:
“The Savior. . . owed no debt to the law, but he went before it and in essence said: “I am perfect and therefore owe you no suffering. However, I will pay the debt for all mankind. I will undergo suffering that I might pay the price for every transgression and sin ever committed by man.”
And so, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ stood before the law and paid the price in suffering for every sin as though he himself had committed them. Such suffering was beyond the power of any mortal man to endure. We can’t understand how he did it, only that he did, and that “through Him mercy can be fully extended to each of us without offending the eternal law of justice.” (Boyd K. Packer, May 1977, 56). In terms of a [well-known parable] he generated sufficient payment to satisfy the debt of every other man. He met the demands of the law for himself through obedience, and for all others through suffering.
Alma told his son Corianton that mercy could not rob justice, or else, God would cease to be God” (Alma 42: 25). And the merciful love of the Father and the Son did not rob justice of its rightful demands. Rather, it paid justice! Their Love said to Justice, by virtue to the price paid in the Garden, “Here is payment of the wrongs committed. You are paid in full. Now let the captives go free.”. . .
Nothing man could do for himself could bring him past that judgment bar successfully without such an Advocate. That is why eternal life is always a gift, and those who receive it do so by “inheritance.” It is interesting to note that the word inherit and its cognate words are used seventy-eight times in the Doctrine and Covenants, while the word earned and its related words are not used once.~Gerald N. Lund, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 60-61
