George W. Pace said:
The Atonement of Christ is the most important event that has transpired or ever will transpire among all of God’s creations. It is the very source of all life, light, power, truth, and love, and the center and object of all redemptive faith. . . .
In other words, the Atonement is the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even as the human heart pumps life giving blood to all parts of the body, so will the Atonement, if understood properly, act as a great spiritual heart, pumping life giving blood through the ordinances and principles of the gospel to the life and soul of every member of the Church. Is it any wonder that every ordinance and principle. . . .is given from God to man to typify, or foreshadow, the Savior and his atonement?. . .
Even though the Atonement was wrought nearly two thousand years ago, its reality to us and its effect on us can be as great as though we had been contemporaries of the Savior living in Jerusalem. Indeed, under the quiet workings of the Holy Ghost, we can stand, as it were, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as witness of the Savior’s agony; we can stand, as it were, at the foot of Golgotha and obtain an overwhelming awareness of the pain of the cross; we can receive in our hearts a measure, and only as the Spirit can reveal it, of the tremendous pain, sorrow, and humiliation he suffered. We can, in other words, experience in part the majesty of the Atonement and make it the greatest event in our lives. ~George W. Pace, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 64
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