The Atonement- Part 1- The Garden Revealed

Luke 22:44 "sweat was as it were great drops of blood"

Mosiah 3:7 "even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore"

D&C 19:18 "which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup"

 

      Brace yourselves, this one has been two months in the making.  Ever since my discussion with the three Christian UC-Riverside students (Sam & I refer to them as the 3 Nephites just for fun), I have been thinking a lot about Gethsemane and the Cross.  I searched every valid source I could find (the scriptures, books & professors) and although I was able to find a ton explaining how both are crucial to the Atonement, I wasn't able to find the origin of our belief that Gethsemane was where Christ suffered the most (a belief not shared by other Christians).  In all my searching the earliest documentation I could find was in Doctrine of Salvation by Joseph Fielding Smith.  It wasn't until Education Week that I was able to certify my discoveries.  In one of those "you're meant to be there" experiences, I was inspired and guided to go to Clyde Williams seminar.  He explained how in the Church we have the misconception that the doctrine of Gethsemane has been taught ever since the Restoration.  Originally I was disturbed by the fact that we could teach certain truths that the great prophet Joseph Smith didn’t teach.  However, I now see that this is a necessity and also a glorious evidence of the restoration.  

      Although Joseph Smith did not openly teach that Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane was a part of the Atonement, the Book of Mormon (see Mosiah 3:7 above) and Doctrine & Covenants (see D&C 19:18 above) both teach that blood came from every pore of Christ's body during the moment of his greatest suffering. In other words, if Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon instead of translating it and wrote Doctrine & Covenants instead of receiving revelation from God, he would never write things that he himself didn't understand or teach.  So instead of asking myself, how can we teach something Joseph Smith didn’t teach? The better question is, how could Joseph Smith have “written” from his own intellect things that he didn’t already know or at least not teach openly? (Personally, I think Joseph probably did know the meaning of Gethsemane eventually.  I imagine he asked God what these two scriptures were referring to and received an answer, but that the Lord told him that such truths needed to be revealed slowly in the future.  Imagine if the Church would have preached this from the very beginning, it would have received even more backlash and it would have been even harder to get the Kingdom established.) Nevertheless, these verses were not understood as being applicable to the Garden of Gethsemane until the mid-1900s.  Prior to that time it was assumed that those scriptures were referring to the cross.  This is demonstrated by a quote from Brigham Young, "At the time he was to be crucified...the Father withdrew Himself, withdrew His Spirit, and cast a veil over him.  That is what made him sweat blood."  However, the first glimpses of it that I could find was in Talmage's 1915 Jesus the Christ where we read, "Christ's agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as to intensity and cause.  The thought that he suffered through fear of death is untenable (in other words, doesn't make any sense, he can't grasp that reasoning).  Death to him was preliminary to resurrection...it was not physical pain, nor mental anguish alone, that caused him to suffer such torture as to produce an extrusion of blood from every pore...no other man, could have suffered so...the cross could not exceed the bitter anguish through which he had successfully passed."  Nevertheless, the first public authorized pronunciation I could find of this came  in a 1947 Conference Report where Joseph Fielding Smith had received further light on these scriptures.  "Now, when he (Jesus Christ) said that if we do not repent we will have to suffer even as he did, he had no reference to being nailed to a cross, but it was the torment of mind, of spirit, that he had reference to, before he ever got to the cross, and if men will not repent, they will have to suffer even as he suffered...We get into the habit of thinking, I suppose, that his great suffering was when he was nailed to the cross by his hands and his feet and was left there to suffer until he died.  As excruciating as that pain was, that was not the greatest suffering that he had to undergo, for in some way which I cannot understand, but which I accept on faith, and which you must accept on faith, he carried on his back the burden of the sins of the whole world...so great was his suffering before he ever went to the cross, we are informed, that blood oozed from the pores of his body." Likewise, we now interpret Luke 22:44 (see above) differently than when Joseph Smith made his JST translation of the Bible.  For instance, now our manuals state,"Luke's is the only Gospel that mentions the blood during the agony of Gethsemane.  For this reason many commentators have said Luke only used a metaphor, that it was not actually blood but only like blood.  In this revelation [D&C 19] Jesus dispelled that idea."

     Non-LDS Christians don't err in not acknowledging Gethsemane (according to the knowledge they have of just the Bible) neither do they err for believing the Cross is the only part of the Atonement (again, according to their knowledge).  They only err in fighting modern revelation which shows that their understanding of the Atonement is only half complete at best.  So when someone opposes our stance of how Gethsemane is just as important as the Cross, we should help them understand that it isn't based solely off the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, or Doctrine and Covenants (for each of these speak mainly of blood and of the Cross).  But that it is based off a modern prophet, whose words are just as valid as those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  For had Joseph Fielding Smith lived in Christ's time, I'm positive people would have accepted his words as true today.  (Nevertheless, anyone that wants a strictly Biblical proof of Gethsemane need look no further than Revelations 19:15 and Isaiah 63:3 which say "I have trodden the winepress alone".  Gethsemane means olive/wine-press, and is a perfect symbol of the pressing down of all our sins on Christ's back to the point that his blood oozed out like the wine of the new covenant.  Likewise this phrase is found in D&C 76:107, 88:106, 133:50.)

      In conclusion, the reason why our belief in the importance of Gethsemane is so different from other religions is because we have the benefit of modern day revelation.  Obviously, to someone solely relying on the Bible it would be impossible for them to accept such a truth.  Another great example of the need for Latter-day Prophets.  Finally, Gethsemane was where his greatest suffering was, and thus where he descended below all things so he could comprehend all of our experiences (a necessary aspect of the Atonement) but remember that the Cross was where he gave his life for us, finished his work and is just as essential (see 3 Nephi 27:14).  Let us not be guilty of ignoring the Cross like others ignore the Garden, since then the Atonement would be just as incomplete.  (I have left out the last crucial aspect of the Atonement,  the Resurrection, since that was not the focus of this particular discussion, namely the location of Christ's greatest suffering and bleeding).

     (The concept that current truths may not have been taught by Joseph Smith is not unique to just this principle, as Clyde Williams told me, “many people have the impression that Joseph Smith walked out of the sacred grove with an instructions manual for the Church.”  In other words, we must remember that certain truths of the gospel have been restored slowly several years after Joseph’s assassination. Another example is that of Divine Investiture of Authority.  Although it is demonstrated in Mosiah 15, it is not truly preached and understood as Doctrine until the early 1900s.)