Guilt for Innocence

Stephen E. Robinson wrote:

Since I, on occasion have given into my temptations and Jesus never did, since I am guilty and he never was, how can he understand the sinner? How can the Savior claim to be fully human and to understand humans if he has never experienced human sin and guilt? How can a perfect, sinless being comprehend my private agony of unworthiness? Does he know what it’s like to look in a mirror and despise what he sees looking back at him? Does he know what it is to wander through the ashes of a life destroyed by one’s own choices? Human beings are inevitably the arsonists of their own happiness. What can sweet, sinless Jesus possibly know about the dark side of being human?

According to the scriptures, he knows more about pain, grief, loneliness, contradiction, shame, rejection, betrayal, anguish, depression, and guilt than all of us combined. For in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the hill of Calvary, Jesus took upon himself the sins and the pains of all the world. “Surely  he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.” But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5).

I would like to draw attention to a few aspects of the Savior’s vicarious suffering that often escape notice, but that are important for understanding our relationship with him.

First, Jesus Christ did not just assume the punishment for our sins—he took the guilt as well. The sin, the experience itself with all of its negative consequences and ramifications, and not just the penalty for sin became his. This is a crucial distinction. In the Atonement, Jesus does not just suffer our punishment for us, he becomes the guilty in our place—he becomes guilty for us and experiences our guilt: “For he hath made him to sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5;21).

In Christ there is a real transfer of guilt for innocence. Through the oneness of our covenant relationship, my guilt becomes Jesus’ guilt, which he experienced and for which he suffered. At the same time his innocence and perfection become mine, and I am rendered clean and worthy. In Christ our sins cease to be ours, and as far as the justice of God is concerned, we never committed them. Through the Atonement, we are not merely forgiven—we are rendered innocent once again. . . .

In experiencing both our punishment and our guilt, Jesus learned vicariously through the Atonement what it would have felt like to commit the sins he never committed. Thus, in a sense it would be correct to say that while Jesus committed no sins, he has been guilty of them all and knows intimately and personally their awful weight. Through us, by bearing our guilt, the sinless One experienced the full horror of human sinfulness, not merely the sins of one life, but of all lives—the sins of the world. Thus through his vicarious atonement, Jesus knows more than anyone about the dark side of being human. Even in that he is preeminent among us. ~Stephen E. Robinson, The Gift of the Atonement) Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002) 74-75.