With His Stripes

A few weeks ago, I was teaching a lesson on repentance in Elders’ Quorum when one of the class members asked an interesting question: “What is the difference between sinning and repenting and not sinning at all.” In thirty-five years of learning and teaching about repentance, I don’t think I’d ever quite thought about that specific question before. As I stood in front of the class and pondered how to respond, thinking about what I knew and had just taught about the Atonement, I came to one inescapable conclusion: there is no difference. I was unprepared, though, for how controversial that statement would prove to be.