The Attributes of Jesus Christ: Without Sin
This is part of a series of Visiting Teaching Messages featuring attributes of the Savior.
Our Savior, Jesus Christ,
was the only one capable of making an atonement for mankind. “Jesus
Christ, the Lamb without blemish, willingly laid Himself on the altar of
sacrifice and paid the price for our sins,” said President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency.1
Understanding that Jesus Christ was without sin can help us increase
our faith in Him and strive to keep His commandments, repent, and become
pure.
“Jesus was … a being of flesh and spirit, but He yielded not to temptation (see Mosiah 15:5),” said Elder D. Todd Christofferson
of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “We can turn to Him … because He
understands. He understands the struggle, and He also understands how to
win the struggle. …
“…
The power of His Atonement can erase the effects of sin in us. When we
repent, His atoning grace justifies and cleanses us (see 3 Nephi 27:16–20). It is as if we had not succumbed, as if we had not yielded to temptation.
“As
we endeavor day by day and week by week to follow the path of Christ,
our spirit asserts its preeminence, the battle within subsides, and
temptations cease to trouble.” 2
Additional Scriptures
From the Scriptures
The
Savior paid the price of our sins through His divine Sonship, His
sinless life, His suffering and the shedding of His blood in the Garden
of Gethsemane, His death on the cross and His Resurrection from the grave. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can become clean again as we repent of our sins.
King
Benjamin taught his people of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and then
asked if they believed his words. “They all cried with one voice,
saying: … the Spirit … has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our
hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good
continually. …
“And
we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will,
and to be obedient to his commandments in all things” (Mosiah 5:1–2, 5).
We
too can have a “mighty change” like the people of King Benjamin, who
“had no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2).
Consider This
How does being pure differ from being perfect?
