“By eternal law, mercy cannot be extended save there be one who is both willing and able to assume our debt and pay the price and arrange the terms for our redemption. Unless there is a mediator … the full weight of justice untempered, unsympathetic, must … fall on us. The full recompense for every transgression, however minor or however deep, will be exacted from us. … But know this: Truth, glorious truth, proclaims there is such a Mediator. ‘For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’ (1 Tim. 2:5.) Through Him mercy can be fully extended to each of us without offending the eternal law of justice” (Packer, “The Mediator,” 54–56).
How can guilt work for our good? (42:29) “There is an appropriate guilt, a proper remorse of conscience, that men and women must enjoy if they are to remain on that strait and narrow path that leads ultimately to eternal life. There is a fine line between the devil’s dissonance (which is evil and demoralizing) and divine discontent (which is of God and is a source for gradual and constant improvement). … No one wants to feel any more guilt than is appropriate. But no one seeking salvation would want to feel any less than is necessary. … ‘For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation,’ while ‘the sorrow of the world worketh death.’ (2 Corinthians 7:10–11; compare Mormon 2:13.)” (McConkie and Millet, Doctrinal Commentary, 3:319).