3. Men as Dependent on the Atonement for Individual Sins as for Redemption from Adam's Sin: As already remarked, men having transgressed the law of God by their own personal violations of it, they are helpless of themselves to make satisfaction to the justice of God;[A] and are just as dependent upon a Redeemer to rescue them from the spiritual effects of their personal transgression of the divine law as from the effects of Adam's fall. Also, under a reign of law, God may not pardon men for their individual sins by arbitrary act of sovereign will. He may no more set aside the claims of justice unsatisfied in the case of men's personal sins than in the case of Adam's first sin. In both cases "a necessary and immanent attribute of Deity" stands in the way of the non-infliction of the penalty due to sin, viz., the attribute of Justice, which not even the attribute of Mercy may displace, or rob of that satisfaction which is due. God must act in harmony with his own attributes.
[Footnote A: The late Elder Orson Pratt, put this doctrine of the helplessness of man to escape the penalty of his own sin in the most forcible manner. He said: "We believe that all who have done evil, having a knowledge of the law, or afterwards in this life coming to the knowledge thereof, are under a penalty, which is not inflicted in this world but in the world to come. Therefore such in this world are prisoners, shut up under the sentence of law, awaiting with awful fear for the time of judgment, when the penalty shall be inflicted, consigning them to a second banishment from the presence of their Redeemer, who had redeemed them from the penalty of the first law. But, enquires the sinner, is there no way for escape? Is my case hopeless? Can I not devise some way by which I can extricate myself from the penalty of the second law and escape this second banishment? The answer is,—if thou canst hide thyself from the all-searching eye of an Omnipresent God, that he shall not find thee, or if thou canst prevail with him to deny justice its claim, or if thou canst clothe thyself with power, and contend with the Almighty, and prevent him from executing the sentence of the law, then thou canst escape. If thou canst cause repentance, or baptism in water, or any of thine own works, to atone for the least of thy transgressions, then thou canst deliver thyself from the awful penalty that awaits thee. But be assured, O sinner, that thou canst not devise any way of thine own to escape, nor do anything that will atone for thy sins, therefore, thy case is hopeless, unless God hath devised some way for thy deliverance" (Remarkable Visions, Orson Pratt's Works).]
4. Identical Principles Operative in Man's Individual Sins as in Adam's Sin: In the case of man's individual violations of law, as in Adam's sin, the inexorableness of law holds good.[A] Thus satisfaction to justice in the case of individual sins like the satisfaction to justice for Adam's sin, must be rendered by God to God, "since only Deity can satisfy the claims of Deity." There is the same act against the honor of God; hence the same question of rank and dignity in the one who makes the Atonement. The same necessity for one not only willing but capable of making the Atonement, by suffering the penalty due to the sins of all men. He must suffer for them; for the ground work of their forgiveness and restoration to union with God must be that the penalty due to their sin has been paid. This or Justice goes unsatisfied—Mercy robs Justice or else the law must take its course and punishment be actually inflicted upon the transgressors which leaves man to a life of eternal misery, alienated from God, separated from the source of spiritual life and light; no longer in union with the power divine that could uplift and direct him to sublime heights of moral and spiritual excellence—man, under such circumstances, would indeed be spiritually dead, and dead eternally, since he is helpless to extricate himself from such conditions, as a sinner can not justify his sin, nor a criminal pardon his own crime. But to leave the punishment to be actually inflicted upon man would thwart the purpose of God with reference to man's earth-life; for God designed that mail's earth-life should eventuate in his happiness, in the union of man with God. "Men are that they might have joy." By other Book of Mormon teachers the plan for man's redemption is called "the plan of happiness," "the great plan of happiness;"[B] and as this happiness depends upon union and communion with God, it is proper to think of the gospel as contemplating the spiritual union of man with Deity.
[Footnote A: Behold justice exerciseth all his demands. * * * What! do ye suppose that mercy-can rob justice? I say unto you, nay; not point urged by the Nephite writer is that God will act in harmony with his attributes, see the context—the whole chapter.]
[Footnote B: Alma xlii:8, 15.]
We conclude then that for man's individual sins as for Adam's sin, though differing in some respects already noted, involves the same necessity of Atonement to the honor of God by one equal with God—hence God.
There is the same inexorableness of law; the same helplessness on the part of man to make satisfaction for his sin, hence man's dependence upon a vicarious atonement, if he is to find redemption at all. There is the same need for capacity in the one making the atonement to make full satisfaction to the justice of God by paying the uttermost farthing of man's obligations to the law; the idea of satisfaction necessarily involves that of penal suffering, coupling together those two ideas, satisfaction and expiation; or satisfaction to Justice through expiation. The Deity who redeems man must pay the penalty due to sin by suffering in man's stead.
5. Motive Force of the Atonement: And what shall prompt a Deity to make such an atonement? Two attributes of the Deity now a long time kept in the back ground, viz., Love and Mercy. We have seen and considered at some length the helplessness of man in the midst of those earth conditions necessary to his progress; God saw it from the beginning; and—
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish but have everlasting life.
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved."
"He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."[A]
[Footnote A: St. John iii:16-19.]