Terryl Givens talks with Spencer Fluhman about Terryl and Fiona Givens’ book “The Christ Who Heals” and the relationship between the Atonement, grace, and our own actions.

Terryl Givens is a scholar, author, professor and podcast host, and he is also currently Senior Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at BYU.

Selected quotes from Terryl Givens from this interview:

“Atonement is the center, the foundation, of everything we believe and aspire to be as disciples. It’s also the least-theologized concept in Mormon doctrine, which is ironic.”

“The Atonement is what enables us to keep trying, to keep struggling, to keep reforming and conforming ourselves to the pattern of godliness.”

“[Christ’s] promise is that He will heal us of these wounds and deficiencies and errors and harm we incur and inflict on ourselves and others–but there’s no shortcut.”

“In Matthew, as He’s ending in the Sermon on the Mount, we translate, ‘Be ye therefore perfect.’ But that’s not the reading of the original Greek; the original Greek is, ‘Therefore, ye shall be whole.’ It’s a future-tense verb, and the word isn’t ‘perfect,’ it’s ‘whole.’ And so the way I read that is He’s given this beautiful litany of challenges: be meek, be humble, submit yourself to persecution, practice love and charity. And if you do all these things, trust Me: You’re going to be ok. You’re going to be whole one day. It’s a beautiful promise.”

For more information about the Restored Gospel’s unique perspective of the Atonement, read “The Restored Gospel’s Radical Perspective on Atonement and Grace,” watch this interview with both authors of “The Christ Who Heals,” Fiona and Terryl Givens, and check out other resources in our answer to this Big Question: Is there something really unique or revolutionary about our understanding of Christ’s atonement?