Cross or Garden?

Let’s be clear: the atonement of Jesus Christ—the once-for-all sacrifice that paid for the sins of the world—happened on the cross. It was not some quiet, inner spiritual event in a garden. It was public, bloody, brutal, and final. That’s what the Bible teaches plainly. That’s what Christians have believed for 2,000 years. So how did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) come to teach that the atonement happened primarily in the Garden of Gethsemane?

The answer lies not in Scripture, but in the theological inventions of Joseph Smith and later LDS leaders who reinterpreted the events of the Passion week to fit a different gospel. While Mormons do not deny the cross outright, they shift the focus to Gethsemane as the location where the “real” suffering for sins took place. This is deeply problematic, not only because it contradicts the biblical record, but because it distorts the very heart of the gospel: the cross of Christ.

According to the Bible, Jesus Himself consistently pointed to His death on the cross as the centerpiece of His mission. In John 12:32–33 (NLT), He says, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” The next verse explains: “He said this to indicate how he was going to die.” Paul affirms this clearly in 1 Corinthians 1:18: “The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.” Nowhere in Scripture does the Garden of Gethsemane take center stage as the place where atonement was made. In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed in agony, anticipating the wrath He would bear on the cross—but the Bible is unambiguous: atonement was made through His blood, shed at Calvary (Romans 5:9; Hebrews 9:22; 1 Peter 2:24).

So where did the Mormon idea come from? Joseph Smith and later LDS leaders, including Bruce R. McConkie and Jeffrey R. Holland, elevated Gethsemane to a place the Bible never gives it. In the LDS scripture Doctrine and Covenants 19:16–18, Jesus is portrayed as saying He bled from “every pore” during His suffering in the garden—something the Bible never records as literal. Luke 22:44 mentions that His sweat became “like great drops of blood,” which could simply be a simile indicating extreme anguish. But even if we take it literally, it’s not presented as the moment of atonement—it’s the preparation for it.

In a now-famous talk at the LDS General Conference on April 6, 1985, Bruce R. McConkie declared: “In a garden called Gethsemane, outside Jerusalem's walls, [Jesus] went where none other had ever gone. He suffered, sweating great drops of blood from every pore...” Then he added, “It was in Gethsemane that Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world.” That statement directly conflicts with Hebrews 9:28, which says, “So also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people.”

This teaching leads to a major theological problem: it confuses where salvation was accomplished and undermines the once-for-all nature of Christ’s death. The Christian faith rests entirely on the work Christ did on the cross (Colossians 1:20). It is the blood of the cross, not sweat in a garden, that reconciles us to God.

It’s not just a detail—it’s the heart of the gospel. If you move the atonement away from the cross, you lose the biblical gospel. You end up with a different Jesus, a different salvation, and a different message altogether. That’s why Paul warned in Galatians 1:8 that if anyone preaches another gospel, “let that person be cursed.”

The good news of Christianity is this: Jesus died for your sins, on a cross, according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3). He took the wrath of God that you and I deserved and finished it. “It is finished,” He said—not in a garden, but from the cross (John 19:30).

Source Bibliography (MLA Format)

The Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Tyndale House Publishers, 2015.

The Book of Mormon. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981.

Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981.

McConkie, Bruce R. The Purifying Power of Gethsemane. General Conference Address, 6 April 1985.

Holland, Jeffrey R. None Were With Him. General Conference Address, April 2009.

MacArthur, John. The Gospel According to God: Rediscovering the Most Remarkable Chapter in the Old Testament. Crossway, 2018.

Sproul, R.C. The Truth of the Cross. Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007.

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