The Demands of Justice

Yesterday I wrote about how the Book of Mormon answers the important question of why the Savior performed the atonement.  One of the answers that the Book of Mormon prophets emphatically gave is that we would be lost—physically and spiritually—without His atonement.  Christ’s atonement gave Him the power to redeem us from our sins and from physical death.  We might probe deeper, though, and ask why the Lord could not redeem us without going through the suffering of the atonement.  If God has “all power, both in heaven and in earth,” then why did the Son need to suffer so that we could be freed from physical and spiritual death? (Mosiah 4:9) 

               I think that the Book of Mormon does answer this question, at least partially.  First, we learn from Lehi and Alma that if certain conditions did not hold, God could not be God.  Lehi wrote, “And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God” (2 Nephi 2:13).  He taught that without opposition—law and sin, righteousness and wickedness, happiness and misery—God would not be God.  Similarly, Alma told his son Corianton, “The work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:13).  If justice was not upheld, then God could not be God; in other words, though God does have all power, He must still abide by some kind of ultimate laws of justice.  And this principle—justice—seems to be the answer that the Book of Mormon gives for why the atonement had to take place.  For example, Jacob taught that “the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the law given to them” (2 Nephi 9:25-26).  There is a fundamental principle of justice that even God must honor, and the Savior’s atonement satisfies that requirement of justice.  Alma put it this way: “And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also” (Alma 42:15).  Mercy can be given us—we can be saved from our sins and from physical death—because Christ doth “appease the demands of justice” by His sacrifice.  As Amulek stated, “it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice… to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice” (Alma 34:13, 15).  Alma further reiterated that “mercy cometh because of the atonement; and the atonement bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead” (Alma 42:23).  He stressed that without Christ’s atonement “all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence” (Alma 42:14).  God “would cease to be God” if justice were not satisfied, and without the atonement justice would cause us to be cut off from God forever. 

            Together these scriptures seem to suggest that God could not simply wave His hands and offer us free salvation without the Son performing the atonement because justice would not be served.  Perhaps Abinadi described the situation best: “God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men—Having ascended into heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice” (Mosiah 15:8-9).