The Redemption of Him Who Created You

Elder Matthew S. Holland said this in general conference: “Thanks to His ‘immediate goodness,’ the instant we come unto Christ—demonstrating faith in Him and a true change of heart—the crushing weight of our sins starts to shift from our backs to His. This is possible only because He who is without sin suffered ‘the infinite and unspeakable agony’ of every single sin in the universe of His creations, for all of His creations—a suffering so severe, blood oozed out of His every pore.” Here Elder Holland connected the Savior’s role as Creator with His great atoning sacrifice. Perhaps it is because He was our Creator that He had the right in the first place to take upon Himself our sins. For, as we know, as brothers and sisters we cannot suffer for the sins of each other; Amulek taught: “Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay” (Alma 34:11). I have wondered at that statement in the past with the question of how then Jesus could sacrifice His blood to atone for the sins of another. Jesus was a Man who came to the earth, and He did just what Amulek said could not be done. So perhaps at least part of what gave Him the right and ability to suffer in the place of us was that He created us.

Multiple scriptures connect the fact that He is the Creator with His role as our Redeemer. The Savior declared to the brother of Jared: “Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters…. Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit” (Ether 3:14, 16). In this incredible encounter where the brother of Jared saw the Savior, he learned both that Christ had created him and redeemed him. The words of the angel to King Benjamin likewise tie these two roles together: “And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people. And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (Mosiah 3:7-8). Similarly, Samuel the Lamanite testified, “And also that ye might know of the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and that ye might know of the signs of his coming, to the intent that ye might believe on his name. And if ye believe on his name ye will repent of all your sins, that thereby ye may have a remission of them through his merits” (Helaman 14:12-13). It was the Creator who suffered and died for us so that we can find a remission of sins through Him.

                Perhaps this is not unlike how things would work in a classroom at school. If one student failed a test, and another had perfect grades, that latter cannot say to the former, “I’ll give you some of my good scores so you can pass the class.” One student cannot offer her own success in the class to another student to help them—we all instinctively know that this cannot be. But the teacher, the creator of the class, can provide a means whereby the failing student can still succeed. The teacher might, for example, give of his own time to provide additional instruction and help to the struggling student, offering them a way for them to retake a test and succeed when the original grades would have made them fail. But he can only do that because of his status as the one who instituted the class (i.e. the one who created it in some sense). No one else other could do it. And so, as our Creator, the Savior has a special relationship with us and can do for us what no one else could do, offering us a way to escape the full justice of what we deserve for our sins. Alma put the ideas of creation and atonement together in this simple question that we should all carefully consider: “Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?” (Alma 5:15) We can have faith in Christ because He both created and redeemed us, doing for us what no one else ever would be able to do.