“The Purifying Power of Gethsemane,” Ensign, Apr. 2011, 56–59
Gospel Classics
The Purifying Power of Gethsemane
Bruce R. McConkie was born on July 29, 1915, in Michigan, USA. He was sustained to the First Council of the Seventy on October 6, 1946, and was ordained an Apostle on October 12, 1972. He died on April 19, 1985, in Salt Lake City, Utah. This address was delivered in general conference on April 6, 1985.
I feel, and the Spirit seems to accord, that the most important doctrine I can declare, and the most powerful testimony I can bear, is of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His Atonement is the most transcendent event that ever has or ever will occur from Creation’s dawn through all the ages of a never-ending eternity.
It is the supreme act of goodness and grace that only a god could perform. Through it, all of the terms and conditions of the Father’s eternal plan of salvation became operative.
Through it are brought to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Through it, all men are saved from death, hell, the devil, and endless torment.
And through it, all who believe and obey the glorious gospel of God, all who are true and faithful and overcome the world, all who suffer for Christ and His word, all who are chastened and scourged in the cause of Him whose we are—all shall become as their Maker and sit with Him on His throne and reign with Him forever in everlasting glory.
In speaking of these wondrous things, I shall use my own words, though you may think they are the words of scripture, words spoken by other apostles and prophets.
True it is they were first proclaimed by others, but they are now mine, for the Holy Spirit of God has borne witness to me that they are true, and it is now as though the Lord had revealed them to me in the first instance. I have thereby heard His voice and know His word.
In the Garden of Gethsemane
Two thousand years ago, outside Jerusalem’s walls, there was a pleasant garden spot, Gethsemane by name, where Jesus and His intimate friends were wont to retire for pondering and prayer.
There Jesus taught His disciples the doctrines of the kingdom, and all of them communed with Him who is the Father of us all, in whose ministry they were engaged and on whose errand they served.
This sacred spot, like Eden where Adam dwelt, like Sinai from whence Jehovah gave His laws, like Calvary where the Son of God gave His life a ransom for many, this holy ground is where the sinless Son of the Everlasting Father took upon Himself the sins of all men on condition of repentance.
We do not know, we cannot tell, no mortal mind can conceive the full import of what Christ did in Gethsemane.
We know He sweat great gouts of blood from every pore as He drained the dregs of that bitter cup His Father had given Him.
We know He suffered, both body and spirit, more than it is possible for man to suffer, except it be unto death.
We know that in some way, incomprehensible to us, His suffering satisfied the demands of justice, ransomed penitent souls from the pains and penalties of sin, and made mercy available to those who believe in His holy name.
We know that He lay prostrate upon the ground as the pains and agonies of an infinite burden caused Him to tremble and would that He might not drink the bitter cup.
We know that an angel came from the courts of glory to strengthen Him in His ordeal, and we suppose it was mighty Michael, who foremost fell that mortal man might be.
As near as we can judge, these infinite agonies—this suffering beyond compare—continued for some three or four hours.
His Arrest, Trial, and Scourging
After this—His body then wrenched and drained of strength—He confronted Judas and the other incarnate devils, some from the very Sanhedrin itself; and He was led away with a rope around His neck, as a common criminal, to be judged by the arch-criminals, who as Jews sat in Aaron’s seat and who as Romans wielded Caesar’s power.
They took Him to Annas, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, and back to Pilate. He was accused, cursed, and smitten. Their foul saliva ran down His face as vicious blows further weakened His pain-engulfed body.
With reeds of wrath they rained blows upon His back. Blood ran down His face as a crown of thorns pierced His trembling brow.
But above it all He was scourged, scourged with 40 stripes save one, scourged with a multi-thonged whip into whose leather strands sharp bones and cutting metals were woven.
Many died from scourging alone, but He rose from the sufferings of the scourge that He might die an ignominious death upon the cruel cross of Calvary.
Then He carried His own cross until He collapsed from the weight and pain and mounting agony of it all.
Upon the Cross
Finally, on a hill called Calvary—again, it was outside Jerusalem’s walls—while helpless disciples looked on and felt the agonies of near death in their own bodies, the Roman soldiers laid Him upon the cross.
With great mallets they drove spikes of iron through His feet and hands and wrists. Truly He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.
Then the cross was raised that all might see and gape and curse and deride. This they did, with evil venom, for three hours from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Then the heavens grew black. Darkness covered the land for the space of three hours, as it did among the Nephites. There was a mighty storm, as though the very God of nature was in agony.
And truly He was, for while He was hanging on the cross for another three hours, from noon to 3:00 p.m., all the infinite agonies and merciless pains of Gethsemane recurred.
And, finally, when the atoning agonies had taken their toll—when the victory had been won, when the Son of God had fulfilled the will of His Father in all things—then He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30), and He voluntarily gave up the ghost.
In the Spirit World
As the peace and comfort of a merciful death freed Him from the pains and sorrows of mortality, He entered the paradise of God.
When He had made His soul an offering for sin, He was prepared to see His seed, according to the messianic word.
These, consisting of all the holy prophets and faithful Saints from ages past; these, comprising all who had taken upon them His name, and who, being spiritually begotten by Him, had become His sons and His daughters, even as it is with us; all these were assembled in the spirit world, there to see His face and hear His voice.
After some 38 or 40 hours—three days as the Jews measured time—our blessed Lord came to the Arimathean’s tomb, where His partially embalmed body had been placed by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.
His Resurrection
Then, in a way incomprehensible to us, He took up that body which had not yet seen corruption and arose in that glorious immortality which made Him like His resurrected Father.
He then received all power in heaven and on earth, obtained eternal exaltation, appeared unto Mary Magdalene and many others, and ascended into heaven, there to sit down on the right hand of God the Father Almighty and to reign forever in eternal glory.
His rising from death on the third day crowned the Atonement. Again, in some way incomprehensible to us, the effects of His Resurrection pass upon all men so that all shall rise from the grave.
As Adam brought death, so Christ brought life; as Adam is the father of mortality, so Christ is the father of immortality.
And without both, mortality and immortality, man cannot work out his salvation and ascend to those heights beyond the skies where gods and angels dwell forever in eternal glory.
A Knowledge of the Atonement
Now, the Atonement of Christ is the most basic and fundamental doctrine of the gospel, and it is the least understood of all our revealed truths.
Many of us have a superficial knowledge and rely upon the Lord and His goodness to see us through the trials and perils of life.
But if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah, we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.
May I invite you to join with me in gaining a sound and sure knowledge of the Atonement.
We must cast aside the philosophies of men and the wisdom of the wise and hearken to that Spirit which is given to us to guide us into all truth.
We must search the scriptures, accepting them as the mind and will and voice of the Lord and the very power of God unto salvation.
As we read, ponder, and pray, there will come into our minds a view of the three gardens of God—the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Garden of the Empty Tomb, where Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.
The Creation, Fall, and Atonement
In Eden we will see all things created in a paradisiacal state—without death, without procreation, without probationary experiences.
We will come to know that such a creation, now unknown to man, was the only way to provide for the Fall.
We will then see Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, step down from their state of immortal and paradisiacal glory to become the first mortal flesh on earth.
Mortality, including as it does procreation and death, will enter the world. And because of transgression, a probationary estate of trial and testing will begin.
Then in Gethsemane we will see the Son of God ransom man from the temporal and spiritual death that came to us because of the Fall.
And finally, before an empty tomb, we will come to know that Christ our Lord has burst the bands of death and stands forever triumphant over the grave.
Thus, Creation is father to the Fall; and by the Fall came mortality and death; and by Christ came immortality and eternal life.
If there had been no Fall of Adam, by which cometh death, there could have been no Atonement of Christ, by which cometh life.
His Atoning Blood
And now, as pertaining to this perfect Atonement, wrought by the shedding of the blood of God—I testify that it took place in Gethsemane and at Golgotha, and as pertaining to Jesus Christ, I testify that He is the Son of the living God and was crucified for the sins of the world. He is our Lord, our God, and our King. This I know of myself, independent of any other person.
I am one of His witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in His hands and in His feet and shall wet His feet with my tears.
But I shall not know any better then than I know now that He is God’s Almighty Son, that He is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through His atoning blood and in no other way.
God grant that all of us may walk in the light, as God our Father is in the light, so that, according to the promises, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, will cleanse us from all sin.
Detail from Not My Will, But Thine, Be Done, by Harry Anderson © Pacific Press Publishing
Detail from The Doubtful Thomas, by Carl Heinrich Bloch, used by permission of the National Historic Museum at Frederiksborg in Hillerød, Denmark