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It appears to me that the latest definitions of “atonement” are bringing us to a new understanding of the nature of God. A while back one of the influential high priests in my ward announced his thought that when those of us who are baptized sin again it causes the Savior to have to suffer some more in the Garden. He said the Lord can do that because he is not limited by time so He can go back to the Garden and suffer some more. It seems to me that if that is true the Lord will not have time for any other errands.

At stake conference last Sunday a speaker emphasized the number of times “Atonement” appears in the Book of Mormon versus the one time it appears in the New Testament. This does not surprise me because the purpose of atonement was to make it possible to be reconciled to God. Since Jesus atoned for our sins during New Testament times it is not surprising that the emphasis in the New Testament was on reconciliation.

The animal sacrifices for the sins of the people practiced by the Children of Israel have been referred to as the prototype of the Savior’s atonement on the cross. I find the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus chapter sixteen to be especially relevant to that comparison. By chapter sixteen the Israelites had disappointed the Lord so many times that the blood of various animals was used to make atonement for the portable tabernacle and the things contained therein. Making an atonement for these sacred things appears to have been for the purpose of restoring them to their previous sacred condition. Thus it appears that atonement can be used in restoring desecrated objects or perhaps in establishing a sacred nature to objects much like we do when a temple or chapel is dedicated. We of course, do not spill blood as was done under the Law of Moses when we dedicate something.

Next, two goats were chosen and one was sacrificed for the sins of the people and Aaron placed his hands on the head of the other, then confessed the sins of the people upon that goat and sent it out of the camp alive, symbolically sending the unrepentant sinners of Israel and their sins away into the wilderness. Sending the scapegoat away showed the Israelites the fate of those for whom atonement was not made while sacrificing the other goat cleansed penitent Israel of her sins allowing them to remain in the camp. This shows another nature of atonement applied to people for it cannot be complete without the separation of the wicked and the righteous, for how pleasant could it be to be in the presence of God If the wicked were also there? This shows atonement to be like a coin. The atonement coin says “Reconciled” on one side and “Rejected” on the other. Thus it was said that Aaron would be making an atonement with the scapegoat.

In Mosiah 3:7 it mentions that Jesus bled from every pore because of the pain he suffered for the wickedness and abominations of his people. Do those who call this suffering in Gethsemane “atonement” ever think that instead of atoning for the sins of the wicked in Gethsemane, Jesus may have been mourning for their loss? Jesus was within hours of suffering one of the cruelest deaths invented by man in order to atone for the sins of the penitent, yet many would have to suffer much longer because they refused to repent. What awful things to be considering, the terrible sinful nature of his people, the fate awaiting those who would not repent, and his own agonizing death. With those things to clutter his mind some insist that one payment for sin on the cross was not enough. He has an hour or two in the Garden of Gethsemane he could use to atone for every persons individual sins, sicknesses, mental and physical stresses. I think it is sadistic and it embarrasses me to contemplate it. The new definition of atonement does not allow Jesus to have the normal concerns of a mortal being and struggle with his decision to allow himself to be crucified. Instead they have him feeling the weight of all the sins of humanity and struggling under that weight until He sweat blood. How much do the sins of humanity weigh?

A century or so ago, one of the smartest men in the church saw the passage in Mosiah and because it was about Jesus suffering and bleeding from every pore, decided it must be about atonement. Since the Savior was already scheduled to atone for our sins on the cross, He must have more things to atone for. Thus, I believe, the idea was born that in order for the atonement to be perfect and complete, Jesus must feel the weight of each and every sin of each and every person in creation infinitely into the past and future. This took us from the problem of how to account for the extra atonement if it only took one death of the Savior for atonement, to the problem of how to account for Jesus atoning (feeling the weight of each and every sin of each and every person) in only a couple of hours in the Garden of Gethsemane. This in turn brought us to the idea that Jesus is not limited by time like us mortals, He can still be in the Garden today suffering and bleeding from every pore in order to weigh each and every sin of each and every person. Now that Jesus is not limited by time and He has time to spare in the Garden, why not think of something else he can be atoning for, and they did. With all that extra time available the Savior might as well be atoning for our sicknesses and stresses.

I can understand that Jesus, by dying on the cross removed our guilt, but what would Jesus accomplish by atoning for our mental and physical pains and sicknesses? We still get sick and we still suffer pain. I left the church for 25 years, but once I was rebaptized the record of that apostasy was deleted. My medical records still give my health history, and if the Savior does or doesn’t atone for my sicknesses what differences will it make in my comfort or my future? The wicked and the righteous still get sick and both usually recover. So what changed regarding sickness since the Savior’s atonement? I am amazed by the astounding mental capabilities of those of you who can comprehend a Savior who is not limited to an existence of one time and place at a time. Wouldn’t that make him like the sectarian God who is omnipresent? I’m beginning to think that your new philosophy is like the emperor’s new clothes. I see through it and I wonder how many others are laughing about it.

Not long ago a full time missionary went to the podium one fast day and declared, “I testify that Jesus atoned for our sicknesses and mental and physical stresses.” I said to myself, “I know what you are full of”, the same thing I said to myself the first time I heard a general authority say it. It’s no wonder I am losing my enthusiasm for missionary work.