Moroni 7:27-28- "to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men; for he hath answered the ends of the law, and he claimeth all those who have faith in him; and they who have faith in him will cleave unto every good thing; wherefore he advocateth the cause of the children of men"
Here we have further demonstration that because of the merits of Christ he has claim upon the rights of mercy from the Father. And he can apply this to whomever he wishes, and the people he claimeth are those that have faith in him. Therefore, he is our advocate. Andrew Skinner explained this verses: "This phrase refers to the Savior's right and ability to decide who receives the full benefits of the Atonement, including forgiveness of sin, and who does not. (He then quotes D&C 45:3-5)."
Further support of this logic comes from Orson F Whitney: "All men rewarded according to their works- saved according to their works, according to the desire of their Father." I really like the usage of the word "according". We know that there are different degrees of salvation just as there are different degrees of good works and men's obedience to law. So it makes sense to me to say that "we are saved by grace, according to our works". This goes well with the advocacy idea. What saves us? Solely the grace and merits of Christ. He is the one that is able to satisfy justice and take claim on mercy from the Father. But, since he asks certain things of us, we are saved according to our works, which is what the scriptures call being judged of our works. At first the Savior acts as our advocate and then he acts as our judge.
The more I think about this format the less I like the phrase "do your best and Christ will make up the rest". Brad Wilcox does his best to derail this train of thought. It is really "do your best and Christ has already payed for everything." As Brad explains, we are not paying Christ back (because he alone satisfied justice) we are simply paying him the amount he has asked of us which in no way adds up or contributes to how much he payed (remember the parable of the piano teacher).
Yes, I do remember the parable of the piano teacher. It speaks more meaningful to me than the parable of the bike. Realizing that probably no parable can be perfect in it's explanation of a perfect/infinite atonement, the piano parable is quite good. If you use the bike parable, you have to acknowledge that the bike was paid in full before the child offered his meager coins.
ReplyDeleteExactly, that is the problem with the bike parable, but like you said, we get in trouble if we think any parable can perfectly teach all aspects of the Atonement
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