“But how does the Atonement motivate, invite, and draw all men unto the Savior? What causes this gravitational pull– this spiritual tug? There is a certain compelling power that flows from righteous suffering– not indiscriminate suffering, not needless suffering, but righteous, voluntary suffering for another. Such suffering for another is the highest and purest form of motivation we can offer to those we love. Contemplate that for a moment: How does one change the attitude or the course of conduct of a loved one whose every step seems bent on destruction? If example fails to influence, words of kindness go unheeded, and the powers of logic are dismissed as chaff before the wind, then where does one turn…In the words of the missionary evangelist, E. Stanley Jones, suffering has “an intense moral appeal.” Jones once asked Mahatma Gandhi as he sat on a cot in an open courtyard of Yervavda jail, “‘Isn’t your fasting a species of coercion?’ ‘Yes,’ he said very slowly, ‘the same kind of coercion which Jesus exercises upon you from the cross.'” As Jones reflected upon that sobering rejoinder, he said: “I was silent. It was so obviously true that I am silent again every time I think of it. He was profoundly right. The years have clarified it. And I now see it for what it is: a very morally potent and redemptive power if used rightly. But it has to be used rightly.”
| The Infinite Atonement
