"The healing power of charity, bestowed by our Father and made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ, can make it virtually impossible for us even to feel emotions common to the natural man."
— Sheri L. Dew (If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths)

"God uses no magic wand to simply wave bad things into nonexistence. The sins that he remits, he remits by making them his own and suffering them. The pain and heartaches that he relieves, he relieves by suffering them himself. These things can be shared and absorbed, but they cannot be simply wished or waved away. They must be suffered."
"
— Stephen E. Robinson (Believing Christ)

"The cost of oblivius daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realigment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.
Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual.
It was difficult to come back."
— Ian McEwan (Atonement)

"And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son. "
— Zenos (Alma 33:11)

"Man cannot measure the bounds nor fathom the depths of divine forgiveness..."
— James E. Talmage

"It’s when I have to acknowledge the past and all of those nameless, faceless people I’d assassinated, that I unravel inside."
— Cheyenne McCray (The First Sin)

"Jesus came to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found hell rather than heaven opened before him, and he staggered."
— William Lane (The Gospel According to Mark: The English Text With Introduction, Exposition, and Notes)

"As Boettner so aptly observes, for the Calvinist, the atonement "is like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide bridge that goes only half-way across." p. 41"
— David N. Steele (The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, Documented)

"Several expressions Paul uses help to illuminate the wonder of Christ's grace. They suggest, as it might be put, that Jesus is portrayed here as 'Adam in reverse' (cf. Rom. 5:12-21).

(i) His being in the form of God but not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped (v. 6) reminds us of Adams failure. He was created as the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26). But he grasped after equality with God ('you will be like God' [Gen. 3:5], the tempter suggested). By contrast, Jesus, whose right equality with God always was, did not refuse to become obedient (v. 8).

(ii) The Son made himself nothing [emptied himself] ... taking the form of a servant (v. 7). Here we may have an echo of the great prophecy in Isaiah 52:13-43:12, where the Sufferer 'poured out his life to death' (Isa. 53:12). He is described by God as 'my servant' (Isa. 52:13). He did what Adam refused to do: serve God.

(iii) The incarnate Son became obedient to the point of death. In Romans 5:12-21 Paul gives us an exposition of these words by means of an extended comparison between Jesus and Adam. Adam's disobedience brought sin and death into the world; by contrast, Jesus' obedience brings righteousness and life into it."
— Sinclair B. Ferguson (Let's Study Philippians)

"Jesus Fulfills the Eternal Covenant

Scripture represents the Lord Jesus Christ, in all that He did and suffered for His people, as fulfilling the terms of a gracious compact or arrangement which He had entered into with His heavenly Father before the foundation of the world.

1. Jesus was sent into the world by the Father to save the people whom the Father had given to Him. Those given to Him by the Father come to Him (see and believe in Him), and none of them shall be lost. (John 6:35-40)

2. Jesus, as the good shepherd, lays down His life for His sheep. All who are "His sheep" are brought by Him into the fold and are made to hear His voice and follow Him. Notice that the Father had given the sheep to Christ! (John 10:11, 14-18, 24-29

3. Jesus, in His High Priestly Prayer, prays not for the world, but for those given to Him by the Father. In fulfillment of the Father's charge, Jesus had accomplished the work the Father had sent Him to do - to make God known to His people and to give them eternal life. (John 17:1-11, 20, 24-26)

pp. 45-48 "
— David N. Steele (The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, Documented)

"How Jesus Died for "All" and Yet for a Particular People

Some passages speak of Christ's dying for "all" men and of His death as saving the "world", yet others speak of His death as being definite in design and of His dying for particular people and securing salvation for them.

1. There are two classes of texts that speak of Christ's saving work in general terms: (a) those containing the word "world" - e.g., John 1:9, 29; 3:16-17; 4:42; 2 Corinthians 5:19; 1 John 2:1-2; 4:14, and (b) those containing the world "all" - e.g., Romans 5:18; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; 1 Timothy 2:4-6; Hebrews 2:9; 2 Peter 3:9.

One reason for the use of these expressions was to correct the false notion that salvation was for the Jews alone. Such phrases as "the world", "all men", "all nations", and "every creature" were used by the New Testament writers to emphatically correct this mistake. These expression are intended to show that Christ died for all men without distinction (i.e., He died for Jews and Gentiles alike), but the are not intended to indicated that Christ died for all men without exception (i.e., He did not die for the purpose of saving each and every lost sinner).

2. There are other passages which speak of His saving work in definite terms and show that it was intended to infallibly save a particular people, namely, those given to Him by the Father. (Matthew 1:21, 20:28, 26:28; John 10:11, 11:50-53; Acts 2:28; Ephesians 5:25-27; Romans 8:32-34; Hebrews 2:17, 3:1, 9:15, 9:28; Revelation 5:9)

pp. 49-52"
— David N. Steele (The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, Documented)