Across the library

The Atonement of Jesus Christ

The doctrine at the center of everything else — and the Latter-day Saint version is not the standard Christian one. The suffering covers more than sin, the emphasis falls on Gethsemane, and scripture has the Savior describing it himself. What the sources say, every quote linked.

Everything else Latter-day Saints teach depends on this doctrine — and the Latter-day Saint version of it is not the standard Christian one. The suffering covers more than sin. Restoration scripture includes the Savior describing it in the first person. And the emphasis falls on Gethsemane, not only the cross. This page collects what the sources say, from the Book of Mormon to a proclamation signed by fifteen apostles in 2000, and every quote links to its source.

An infinite atonement

The phrase Latter-day Saints use most — infinite atonement — comes from Jacob, teaching in the Book of Mormon why nothing smaller would work:

Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more.

2 Nephi 9:7, Book of Mormon

Amulek makes the same argument from the direction of sacrifice — the entire law of Moses pointing at one event:

For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice.

Alma 34:10, Book of Mormon

And behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal.

Alma 34:14, Book of Mormon

He knows how to succor

Here is a place where Latter-day Saint teaching goes further than most of Christianity. The suffering did not cover sin alone — Alma taught that it covered pain, sickness, and infirmity, and he gives the reason why:

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

Alma 7:11, Book of Mormon

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

Alma 7:12, Book of Mormon

Jacob says the same thing with the widest possible reach:

And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam.

2 Nephi 9:21, Book of Mormon

In his own words

This is the biggest difference of all. No other Christian canon has the Savior describing his own suffering in the first person. Latter-day Saint scripture does — a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1830, addressed to Martin Harris:

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; but if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; 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, and shrink—nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.

Doctrine and Covenants 19:16–19

Gethsemane

Notice where D&C 19 puts the suffering: the trembling, the bleeding at every pore. That is the garden, not the cross — and Latter-day Saints give Gethsemane a weight most Christian traditions reserve for Calvary alone. The fullest treatment in a church book is James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ, written at the request of the church's leadership and finished in 1915, in a room of the Salt Lake Temple:

Christ's agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as to intensity and cause.

James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, chapter 33 (1915)

He struggled and groaned under a burden such as no other being who has lived on earth might even conceive as possible.

James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, chapter 33 (1915)

The living witness

On the two-thousandth anniversary of the Savior's birth, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles published The Living Christ — a single page, signed by all fifteen:

He gave His life to atone for the sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.

The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles, January 1, 2000

His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son.

The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles, January 1, 2000

From Jacob on the small plates to the fifteen signatures on The Living Christ, the teaching holds steady: the atonement is infinite, it covers every kind of human pain and not only sin, and scripture lets the Savior describe it himself. All of the sources above are indexed here in full.