From Believing Christ by Stephen E. Robinson
Continued from a previous post The Comfort of Knowing:
During the events associated with the Atonement, God in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ—took moral responsibility for all the negatives—the suffering, pain, and death that are a necessary part of the plan of God. This plan defended and championed by Jesus before the world was, asks us to live in an imperfect, fallen world. At times it asks us to suffer; it asks some of us to suffer horribly. Therefore it is only fair that the God who administers such a plan and who asks us to live by it should himself be willing to suffer under its provisions more than any of us. And this he did in the events of Gethsemane and Calvary. There Jesus Christ confirmed his right to ask us to suffer for him by his willingness to suffer, bleed, and die for us. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, there are no “fall guys.” Nobody gets stuck with the guys. Nobody gets stuck with the short end of the stick for what God proposes, for he who proposed the plan is the one who suffers the most under it. This gives him the moral right to say, “It is a good plan; it’s the right thing.”
Occasionally, some critics have suggested that Christianity is just another religion of human sacrifice. There might be something to the claim if Jesus were not God, if he were only another human being. After all, if the Atonement is merely a case of God demanding the blood of a human victim in order to be reconciled to humanity and forgive us, how is this any different in principle from grabbing some poor virgin and throwing her into a volcano to save the village, or from burning children on an alter to Moloch to win his good approval? The profound difference is that in these latter cases the intent is that human beings suffer to reconcile God to humanity, while in Christianity God himself—Jesus Christ—suffers and dies to reconcile humanity to himself and to His Father. We’re not trying to reach God and touch his heart with our sacrifices, rather God is trying to reach us and touch our heart with his infinite sacrifice. The sacrificial Lamb of God who died on Calvary was God.
The Humanity of Christ
But according to the scriptures, Jesus was not only divine he was also fully and genuinely human: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) “Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and a faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people for that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.” (Heb.2:17-18; italics added.) ~Stephen E. Robinson, Believing Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992). (p.194-197 Dwarsligger edition). . . continued. . . The Comfort of Knowing III.
