Gethsemane and the Atonement

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• Gethsemane and the Atonement

LDS Extensions Teach of Me April 19, 2009
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Time for a Quizzical!!!

1. Alma the Atonement must be an infinite and
   eternal ___________ .
2. In what garden did the Atonement take place?
3. Which disciples were near Jesus during the
   Atonement?
4. How many times did Christ appear before Pilate?
5. True / False Because of the pain He knew Hed
   have to bear, Christ avoided visiting the garden
   prior to the Atonement.

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Time for a Quizzical!!!

1. Extra credit Which two disciples were brothers,
   and who was their father?
2. Extra credit How far away was it described that
   the disciples were from Jesus during the
   Atonement?

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Atonement
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• How did it feel to Christ during the Atonement?
• How did the Atonement work?
• How is it possible that he could take upon the
  sins of the world?

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Preliminary Thoughts
In some mysterious, incomprehensible way, Jesus
assumed the responsibility which naturally would
have devolved upon Adam but which could only be
accomplished through the mediation of Himself,
and by taking upon Himself their sorrows,
assuming their responsibilities, and bearing
their transgressions or sins.
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Preliminary Thoughts
In a manner to us incomprehensible and
inexplicable, He bore the weight of the sins of
the whole world, not only of Adam, but of his
posterity and in doing that, opened the kingdom
of heaven, not only to all believers and all who
obeyed the law of God
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Preliminary Thoughts
but to more than one-half of the human family
who die before they come to years of maturity, as
well as to the heathen, who, having died without
law, will through His mediation be resurrected
without law, and be judged without law, and thus
participate, according to their capacity, works,
and worth, in the blessings of His
atonement. John Taylor, Mediation and Atonement,
148-150
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The Atonement

• We do not know how it was done
• It involved all pains, not just suffering from
  effects of sin

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Preliminary Thoughts
Thus, in addition to bearing our sins-the
required essence of the Atonement-the "how" of
which we surely do not understand, Jesus is
further described as having come to know our
sicknesses, griefs, pains, and infirmities as
well. Another "how" we cannot now comprehend!
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Preliminary Thoughts
Jesus thus not only satisfied the requirements of
divine justice but also, particularly in His
Gethsemane and Calvary ordeals, demonstrated and
perfected His capacity to succor His people and
his empathy for them.
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Preliminary Thoughts
The agonies of the Atonement were infinite and
first-hand! Since not all human sorrow and pain
is connected to sin, the full intensiveness of
the Atonement involved bearing our pains,
infirmities, and sicknesses, as well as our sins.
Maxwell, Not My Will, But Thine, 51
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Agonies of Atonement were infinite and
first-hand

• Alma 349
• Must have an atonement or we will perish
• verse 12 14
• What is the last sacrifice?
• infinite atonement by infinite being (Jesus)
• Christ suffered for each of us individually in
  turn, one by one

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A Need for an AtonementProcess of Creation

• DC 2931-32
• How are things created?
• first spiritually, second temporally
• then second spiritually, then temporally

Why?How is this possible?
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A Need for an AtonementProcess of Creation

• first spiritually, second
  temporally
• then second spiritually, then temporally

Pre-existence ? Spirit bodies ? physical bodies
Death ? spiritual bodies ? Resurrected physical
bodies
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A Need for an AtonementProcess of Creation

• Resurrection needs the Atonement
• Being born again, spiritually begotten and
  resurrected with spiritual blood
• We are not done being created until exalted

Before Resurrection is possible, overcoming death
must come first. This is only possible through
the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
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The Gospels and Gethsemane

• John 18
• Matthew 26
• Mark 14
• Luke 22

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John 181-2

• Gethsemane, near the brook Cedron, was a place
  where Jesus often went to find solace and retreat
• He spent some of this best hours and joys there,
  and is now ironically going to experience the
  most pain and darkness there from Atonement.

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John 181-2

• He who enjoyed a fullness of the spirit was now
  devoid of the spirit
• He who was sinless became, as it were, sin for us
• He who deserved least of all to suffer suffered
  the most
• He who brought life, the abundant life, was
  subject to death and darkness

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Matthew 2636-46

• Gethsemane garden of the oil press
• Olive Oil ? Food, medicine, fuel
• If it be possiblelet this cup pass
• Is he trying to get off?
• Did he think there was another way instead of
  Atonement?
• yes, He knew there was no other way
• Lets look in John.

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Submission or Succumbed?

• John 1227 1811
• Now is my soul troubled and what shall I say?
  Father, save me from this hour but for this
  cause came I unto this hour.
• Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword
  into the sheath the cup which my Father hath
  given me, shall I not drink it?
• There was no other good enough to pay the price
  of sin. He only could unlock the gate of Heaven
  and let us in. hymn194
• Both Son and Father submitted to the plan!

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Jeffery R. Holland
I am a father, inadequate to be sure, but I
cannot comprehend the burden it must have been
for God in His heaven to witness the deep
suffering and Crucifixion of His Beloved Son in
such a manner. His every impulse and instinct
must have been to stop it, to send angels to
intervenebut He did not intervene.
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Jeffery R. Holland
He endured what He saw because it was the only
way that a saving, vicarious payment could be
made for the sins of all His other children from
Adam and Eve to the end of the world. I am
eternally grateful for a perfect Father and His
perfect Son, neither of whom shrank from the
bitter cup nor forsook the rest of us who are
imperfect, who fall short and stumble, who too
often miss the mark. Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign,
May 1999, 1415
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Look againMatt 2640

• Disciples fell asleep
• Ignorance?
• Wanted support, but his friends were not there.
  Christ had to endure it all, at times without the
  Spirit or friends, that He may know how to fully
  succor us today.
• Why isnt there more written about the Atonement?

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Sleep a negative thing?
Finite minds can no more comprehend how and in
what manner Jesus performed his redeeming labors
than they can comprehend how matter came into
being, or how Gods began to be. Perhaps the very
reason Peter, James, and John slept was to enable
a divine providence to withhold from their ears,
and seal up from their eyes, those things which
only Gods can comprehend. Bruce R. McConkie,
Mortal Messiah 4124
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Mark 1432-34

• footnote 33a-b
• Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and
  other worlds, astonished! Jesus knew
  cognitively what He must do, but not
  experientially. He had never personally known the
  exquisite and exacting process of an atonement
  before. Thus, when the agony came in its
  fullness, it was so much, much worse than even He
  with his unique intellect had ever imagined!
• Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, May 1985, 73

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Mark 1435-36

• In that most burdensome moment of all human
  history, with blood appearing at every pore and
  an anguished cry upon His lips, Christ sought Him
  whom He had always soughtHis Father. Abba, He
  cried, Papa, or from the lips of a younger
  child, Daddy. This is such a personal moment it
  almost seems a sacrilege to cite it. A Son in
  unrelieved pain, a Father His only true source of
  strength, both of them staying the course, making
  it through the nighttogether.
• Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign, May 1999, 16

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Luke 2240-46

• Angel (verse 43)
• Adam/Michael who brought sin into the world, is
  helping Jesus who is trying to take sin out of
  the world and us
• The Angel showed compassion.
• What is compassion?
• Even Christ needed compassion

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Luke 2240-46 Pray Earnestly

• Now, here is a marvelous thing. Note it well.
  The Son of God "prayed more earnestly"! He who
  did all things well, whose every word was right,
  whose every emphasis was proper - the Son of God
  "prayed more earnestly," teaching us, his
  brethren, that all prayers, his included, are not
  alike, and that a greater need calls forth more
  earnest and faith-filled pleadings
• Bruce R. McConkie, SWBRM 143

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Luke 2240-46 Pray Earnestly

• Pray more earnestly
• greater need calls for more earnest and
  faith-filled pleadings

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Great Drops of Blood

• Blood, or in reality sweat?
• Without the Book Of Mormon, people think sweat
  was like blood
• Scriptures
• Mosiah 37
• DC 1918

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Great Drops of Blood Why?
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. Death to Him was preliminary
to resurrection and triumphal return to the
Father from whom He had come, and to a state of
glory even beyond what He had before possessed
and, moreover, it was within His power to lay
down His life voluntarily.
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Great Drops of Blood Why?
He struggled and groaned under a burden such as
no other being who has lived on earth might even
conceive as possible. 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 but a spiritual agony of
soul such as only God was capable of
experiencing.
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Great Drops of Blood Why?
No other man, however great his powers of
physical or mental endurance, could have suffered
so. In that hour of anguish Christ met and
overcame all the horrors that Satan, "the prince
of this world" could inflict. In some manner,
actual and terribly real though to man
incomprehensible, the Savior took upon Himself
the burden of the sins of mankind from Adam to
the end of the world. Talmage, JTC 613-614
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Agony and Pain

• Christ's agony in the garden is unfathomable by
  the finite mind Talmage
• an agony
• Greek phrase ? an agonia ?
• being in a fight

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DC 18 Worth

• How much is a house worth?
• How much is a car worth?
• How much is education worth?
• We put a price on materialistic possessions, but
  what about the worth of a soul?
• How much is it worth?

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DC 18 Why is the worth of Souls Great?
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DC 18 Worth of Souls

• Is the worth of souls great in the sight of God,
  or despite God?
• Many believe God has no part in our lives
• Is being a good person enough?
• Not everyone has heard the gospel
• Work to your best ability for what youve been
  given. True effort is the key.
• God sent is only son to suffer and die for us. A
  Soul is worth much because of the high cost it
  took to redeem it
• We must be worthy of this redemption and gift

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Infinite Atonement

• Alma 3410
• What does it mean to be an infinite Atonement?
• Atoned for before and after time Christ lived
• For all of Gods children, regardless of where
  they live
• Even though it is infinite, what must we do to
  qualify for the blessing of the Atonement?

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Boyd K. Packer
Before the Crucifixion and afterward, many men
have willingly given their lives in selfless acts
of heroism. But none faced what the Christ
endured. Upon Him was the burden of all human
transgression, all human guilt. And hanging in
the balance was the Atonement. Through His
willing act, mercy and justice could be
reconciled, eternal law sustained, and that
mediation achieved without which mortal man could
not be redeemed.
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Boyd K. Packer
He, by choice, accepted the penalty for all
mankind for the sum total of all wickedness and
depravity for brutality, immorality, perversion,
and corruption for addiction for the killings
and torture and terrorfor all of it that ever
had been or all that ever would be enacted upon
this earth. In choosing, He faced the awesome
power of the evil one who was not confined to
flesh nor subject to mortal pain. That was
Gethsemane!
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Boyd K. Packer
How the Atonement was wrought, we do not know. No
mortal watched as evil turned away and hid in
shame before the light of that pure being. All
wickedness could not quench that light. When what
was done was done, the ransom had been paid. Both
death and hell forsook their claim on all who
would repent. Men at last were free. Then every
soul who ever lived could choose to touch that
light and be redeemed.
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Boyd K. Packer
I cannot with composure tell you how I feel about
the Atonement. It touches the deepest emotion of
gratitude and obligation. My soul reaches after
Him who wrought it, this Christ, our Savior of
whom I am a witness. I testify of Him. He is our
Lord, our Redeemer, our advocate with the Father.
He ransomed us with His blood. Humbly I lay claim
upon the atonement of Christ.
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Boyd K. Packer
I find no shame in kneeling down in worship of
our Father and His son. For agency is mine, and
this I choose to do!   Atonement,
Agency, Accountability, Ensign, May 1988, 72  
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You and the Atonement

• Nobody could have done the Atonement except for
  Jesus
• The Atonement is for ALL types of healing
• He gave Himself up willingly for you
• Forgiveness not forgiving yourself is like
  rejecting the sacrifice Christ did for you
• A video from an apostle