What Is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?
The Atonement is the sacrifice
Jesus Christ offered to help humankind overcome sin and death—to make us “at one” with God. This redeeming sacrifice occurred in the Garden of
Gethsemane and on the cross at Golgotha. Jesus Christ atoned for our sins, died, and was resurrected. The Atonement is the supreme
expression of the love of Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, “for God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Christians around the world
gratefully acknowledge the matchless gift of God’s Only Begotten Son. We
rejoice that the Life and Light of the World descended from His throne divine
to be born in humble circumstances in a stable in Bethlehem.
As the young Jesus learned lessons
under the tutelage of Joseph and Mary, He increased in favor with God and man,
growing to maturity until fully prepared to work His mortal ministry. We note
with gratitude that He experienced all the challenges of mortality, becoming
hungry, thirsty, and fatigued so that He might know how to succor us in our
afflictions (see Mosiah 3:7).
Baptized in order to fulfill all
righteousness, the Messiah received the gift of the Holy Ghost in its fullness
and went about doing good, preaching the gospel, healing the sick and
afflicted, and preparing His disciples to lead the Church after He was gone.
When His mortal ministry reached its climax, He taught His disciples in the
Upper Room, blessed and broke bread and offered wine as a symbol of His
sacrifice, and then suffered for our sins in Gethsemane. Then on Golgotha, He
cared for us enough to die for us. And on the third day, He broke the bands of
death, rising from the Garden Tomb and making the gift of Resurrection
available for all.
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| Christ Kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane. Intellectual Reserve, Inc. |
Gethsemane
After Jesus completed His tutoring
of the Apostles in the Upper Room, He took the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane
on the Mount of Olives, a place they frequently visited to pray and listen to
their Master. We can picture the gnarled and twisted trunks of the olive trees
in the moonlight, an image that suggests the suffering of the Savior for our
sins.
Jesus then invited His beloved
disciples Peter, James, and John to sit and watch with Him, seeking comfort and
strength from His friends. He commanded them to watch and pray lest they enter
into temptation. Moving away from them a short distance, He began to be pressed
down by the weight of our sins, feeling “sore amazed,” “very heavy,” and
“exceeding sorrowful unto death” (Mark 14:33–34). There He experienced all the
problems of humanity, or “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” (Alma 7:11; emphasis added).
Regarding this experience,
President Joseph Fielding Smith writes: “He carried, in some way that I cannot
understand and you cannot understand, the burden of the combined sins of the
world. It is hard enough for me to carry my own transgressions, and it is hard
enough for you to carry yours. . . . I have seen [people] cry out in anguish
because of their transgressions—just one individual’s sins. Can you comprehend
the suffering of Jesus when he carried, not merely by physical manifestation
but in some spiritual and mental condition or manner, the combined weight of sin?”[1]
Under this tremendous weight of our
sins and afflictions, our beloved Savior fell to the ground and prayed, saying,
“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will,
but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). From unknown eons before the foundations of
the earth were laid, the Firstborn Son had volunteered to become our Savior,
saying, “Thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever” (Moses 4:2). Jesus
had always put the Father before His own, and the welfare of His siblings before
His own. But now the awful weight of the combined sins and anguish of all
mankind caused Him to shrink and wish that He might not partake of the bitter
cup.
“Our finite mortal minds cannot
grasp the tremendous load borne by the Savior in Gethsemane,” writes Andrew C.
Skinner. “But we begin to comprehend what this means in practical terms by
remembering that this earth alone has had some 60 to 70 billion people live
upon it during its temporal history. Each one of these 60 to 70 billion people
has committed sin. . . . Multiply the sins, sorrows, heartaches, and injustices
of these 60 to 70 billion souls by the millions of earths that the Savior
created and redeemed, and we may begin to view the term ‘infinite atonement’ in
a different light.”[2] The
glorious news of the gospel is that the Atonement is not only infinite but also intimate in its personal reach—all of us are within the embrace of
God’s love.
Stephen E. Robinson offers this
perspective: “All the negative aspects of human existence brought about by the
Fall, Jesus Christ absorbed into himself. He experienced vicariously in
Gethsemane all the private griefs and heartaches, all the physical pains and
handicaps, all the emotional burdens and depressions of the human family. He
knows the loneliness of those who don’t fit in, or who aren’t handsome or
pretty. . . . He knows the anguish of parents whose children go wrong. He knows
these things personally and intimately because he lived them in the Gethsemane
experience. Having personally lived a perfect life, he then chose to experience
our imperfect lives. In that infinite Gethsemane experience, in the meridian of
time, the center of eternity, he lived a billion billion lifetimes of sin,
pain, disease, and sorrow.”[3]
Though Jesus was willing to bear
our burdens from before the foundations of the world, the agony of that moment
caused Him, “the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at
every pore” (D&C 19:18). The word Gethsemane
means “olive press.” In the garden, olives were pressed under a great stone
wheel to release their precious oil, which initially comes out a blood-red color,
then later turns clear. In a similar manner, our Savior “was literally pressed
under the weight of the sins of the world,” writes Elder Russell M. Nelson. “He
sweated great drops of blood—his life’s ‘oil’—which issued from every pore.”[4]
Today when we are anointed with consecrated oil, we remember the symbolism of
the oil press of Gethsemane.
Elder Orson F. Whitney shares a
dream that he had of Gethsemane: “I seemed to be in the Garden of Gethsemane, a
witness of the Savior’s agony. I saw Him as plainly as ever I have seen anyone.
Standing behind a tree in the foreground, I beheld Jesus, with Peter, James and
John, as they came through a little wicket gate at my right. Leaving the three
Apostles there, after telling them to kneel and pray, the Son of God passed
over to the other side, where He also knelt and prayed. It was the same prayer
with which all Bible readers are familiar: ‘Oh my Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’
“As He prayed the tears streamed
down his face, which was toward me. I was so moved at the sight that I also
wept, out of pure sympathy. My whole heart went out to him; I loved him with
all my soul, and longed to be with him as I longed for nothing else.
“Presently He arose and walked to
where those Apostles were kneeling—fast asleep! He shook them gently, awoke
them, and in a tone of tender reproach, untinctured by the least show of anger
or impatience, asked them plaintively if they could not watch with him one
hour. There He was, with the awful weight of the world's sin upon his
shoulders, with the pangs of every man, woman and child shooting through his
sensitive soul—and they could not watch with him one poor hour!”[5]
Applying this to our own lives, may we never fall asleep at our post but serve
faithfully always.
As Christ suffered, the Father sent
an angel to comfort and strengthen Him in His hour of need (see Luke 22:43). If
heaven offered help for the Savior of the world in His hour of need, surely mercy
is available for us, who are much weaker. In this light, Elder Jeffrey R.
Holland says, “I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In
doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us
unaided in the challenges that we face. ‘[N]or will he, so long as time shall
last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child]
upon the face thereof to be saved.’ On occasions, global or personal, we may
feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and
dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even
then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those
angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown,
mortal and immortal.”[6]
After the Savior finished praying
the third time, He woke the Apostles, saying that the betrayer was on his way.
Judas immediately came to betray our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
Golgotha
Late that night and into the next
day, our Lord and Savior was accused by Annas and Caiaphas, arraigned before
Pilate, mocked by Herod, and finally sentenced to die at Golgotha, the place of the skull.
President Spencer W. Kimball writes movingly
of the Savior’s patience: “He who created the world and all that is in it, he
who made the silver from which the pieces were stamped which bought him, he who
could command defenders on both sides of the veil—stood and suffered.”
Then he adds:
Unworthy men
lashed him, the pure and the Holy One, the Son of God. One word from his lips
and all his enemies would have fallen to the earth, helpless. All would have
perished, all could have been as dust and ashes. Yet, in calmness, he suffered. . . .
How he must have
suffered when they violated his privacy by stripping off his clothes and then
putting on him the scarlet robe!
Then, the crown of
thorns. How painful and excruciating! And yet, such equanimity!
Such strength! Such control! It is beyond imagination.[7]
Soldiers forced Jesus in His
drained and weakened condition to carry the cross, the instrument of His death.
On the hill of Golgotha, they pounded nails into His hands and feet, and then,
fearing the weight of His body would tear the flesh, they pounded nails into
His wrists as well.
To imagine our Savior hanging on
the cross is almost too painful to visualize, but this is one of the most
important things we can do as we partake of the sacrament. Each week when we
partake of the Bread of Life, we remember His body, which was broken for us.
Each week when we partake of the Living Water, we remember His blood, which was
shed for us.
The eternal message of the
Atonement is that He cared for us enough to die for us:
I stand all amazed at the love
Jesus offers me,
Confused at the grace that so fully
he proffers me.
I tremble to know that for me he
was crucified,
That for me, a sinner, he suffered,
he bled and died. . . .
I think of his hands pierced and
bleeding to pay the debt!
Such mercy, such love, and devotion
can I forget?
No, no, I will praise and adore at
the mercy seat,
Until at the glorified throne I
kneel at his feet.
Oh, it is wonderful that he should
care for me
Enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to
me![8]
Even as Christ hung on the cross, He
showed compassion to all around Him. Regarding His oppressors, He cried,
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Later, in
what is one of the most magnificent displays of love in all recorded scripture,
the dying Christ invited John to care for Mary as his own mother (see John
19:26). There is perhaps no more moving testimony of His love and compassion as
He looked to help others in the midst of the violence being done to Him.
While Jesus hung on the cross, He
felt the agony of Gethsemane return. In Gethsemane, Christ drank from the
bitter cup so that we might not have to, but Gethsemane “was not the end of the
bitter cup. At Golgotha the bitter cup was refilled and drunk again.”[9]
Overcome by grief, Jesus felt that the end was near. At this hour, He felt a
final agony—the loss of His Father’s companionship. We picture the Father in
His courts on high, grieving at the death of His dearly beloved Son and finally
turning away in anguish. Unlike Abraham and Isaac, this time there was no ram
in the thicket. This time the sacrifice must go on.
Feeling the loss of His Father’s
companionship, Jesus cried aloud, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”
(Matthew 27:46). At last, He prayed
submissively, “Father, it is finished; thy will is done!” (Joseph Smith
Translation, Matthew 27:50, footnote a).
These words place finality on His
earlier prayer in Gethsemane. Now the Father’s will had been done.
Having completed all He was sent on
earth to do, Jesus then cried with a loud voice, “Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Yielding up His life, our great high priest then
parted the veil of eternity. There he entered the world of spirits and preached
to the assembled multitude the joyous message of “the resurrection and the
redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of
repentance” (D&C 138:19). While His body was buried in the tomb of Joseph
of Arimathea, His spirit continued to be about His Father’s business. In the
spirit world, Christ organized His great missionary force to preach the good
news of the gospel to the wicked and disobedient, fulfilling the prophecy that
Messiah would “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison
to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1; see D&C 138:18).
Garden Tomb
Jesus rose from the tomb on the
third day, unlocking the gates of death and making resurrection possible for
all mankind. This was the crowning moment of the Atonement. Jesus had opened
for all of us the gateway to immortality and eternal life. No wonder all
Christendom joins in singing the Easter hymn,
He is risen! He is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice.
He has burst his three days'
prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered, man is free.
Christ has won the victory.[10]
Just as death entered the world in
the Garden of Eden, the Atonement was wrought in the Garden of Gethsemane, and
the firstfruits of the Resurrection rose from the Garden Tomb. How appropriate
it was that Mary Magdalene supposed that Jesus was a gardener, for these
transcendent events had all been accomplished in gardens!
Trees are recurring themes in these
locations: the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden, the olive trees in
Gethsemane, the dead tree of the cross of Calvary, and ultimately the tree of
life. These events are linked together in Christ.
Long ago, within a garden,
Mother Eve ate of a tree.
Death would be our awful burden;
Only one could set us free.
Humbly suff’ring in a garden,
Kneeling near an olive tree,
Pressed beneath sin’s awful burden,
Jesus prayed to set us free.
In a tomb within a garden,
People went to where He lay,
Angels told them, “He is risen,”
On that glorious Easter day.
Come to Christ and be forgiven,
Taste the fruit of Father’s tree,
Sweetest fruit of all His garden,
Come to him and be set free.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Jesus came to set us free.
Son of God and true Messiah,
Songs of joy we raise to thee.[11]
Accepting the Gift
At Easter, we
celebrate the Atonement of Jesus Christ as “the greatest of all gifts.”[12]
Through the Atonement, Jesus made salvation free to all those who come unto Him
and forsake their sins (a conditional gift). Through His death and
Resurrection, Jesus freed all of us from the bonds of death (an unconditional
gift). As Latter-day Saints, we rejoice in the Atonement as “the central fact,
the crucial foundation, the chief doctrine, and the greatest expression of
divine love in the plan of salvation.”[13]
[1] Joseph
Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation,
1:129–30; quoted in Andrew C. Skinner, Golgotha
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), 8.
[2] Andrew
C. Skinner, Gethsemane (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 2002), 57.
[3] Stephen
E. Robinson, Religious Education prayer meeting, February 12, 1992.
[4] Russell
M. Nelson, “Why This Holy Land?” Ensign, December 1989, 17–18.
[5] Orson F.
Whitney, Through Memory’s Halls: The Life
Story of Orson F. Whitney (Independence, MO: Zion’s Printing and
Publishing, 1930), 82–83.
[6] Jeffrey
R. Holland, “The Ministry of Angels,” Ensign,
November 2008, 31.
[7] Spencer W. Kimball, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Ensign,
December 1980, 6–7.
[8] Charles H. Gabriel, “I Stand All Amazed,” Hymns, no. 193.
[9] Skinner,
Golgotha, 1.
[10] Cecil Frances Alexander, “He Is Risen,” Hymns, no. 199.
[11] Poem by
author, “Long Ago within a Garden.”
[12] Packer,
Mine Errand from the Lord, 46.
[13] Jeffrey
R. Holland, in Jesus Christ and His
Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 1992), 23–24.
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