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posted 11 April 2006 ***
The April 2006 edition of the Ensign magazine
features the latest in a series entitled Gospel Classics, a series that
reproduces key statements from different generations of Mormon leaders
on specific themes. You
can read it here.
The theme is, appropriately, the sacrifice of Jesus. The main heading
is itself a clue to where the emphasis of the Mormon Easter lies, From
the Garden to the Empty Tomb, and the words of the current Mormon president,
Gordon B Hinckley, confirm that, for Mormons, it is not the cross that
will get their attention this, or any other Easter:
"Because our Saviour lives, we do not use
the symbol of His death as the symbol of our faith."
Note that the cross is no more than "the symbol of His death". This
is because, in Mormon soteriology the focus is the Garden, not the cross.
Looking through the article one gets the sense of a message devoid of
meaning because it is devoid of the cross. This is strange when you
consider that the focus of all four gospels, as well as the bulk of
the message of the rest of the New Testament, is the cross. There are
only two references to Gethsemane in the New Testament (Matthew 26:36;
Mark 14:32), and one reference to the Mount of Olives in relation to
the same incident in the gospel of Luke (Luke 21:39). By contrast, there
are twenty-eight references to the cross in the New Testament. One might
object that the frequency of a word is not, in itself, an indication
of its importance in a text but, given the weight and emphasis placed
on Gethsemane in Mormonism, one would expect more to be made of Gethsemane
in the Gospels if that is truly where, as Mormons claim, the atonement
occurred. If Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, could write:
"When I came to you brothers…I resolved
to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified"
(1 Corinthians 2:2)
To those same Corinthian saints he wrote:
"Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks
look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to
Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those whom God has called,
both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians
1:22-24)
The message of the Gospel is the message of the cross. The following
is an article we produced some time ago to address this question of
Gethsemane or Golgotha. It is good to be reminded again this Easter
where our eyes should be.
Many Live as Enemies of the Cross of
Christ (Philip.3: 18)
The April 2002 Ensign magazine of the Mormon Church carried a small
piece in which a bishop told of the insight he gained into the depth
of the Saviour's love (p.19). It struck me as an eloquent illustration
of the subtlety of Mormon deception. It is a moving story of a man bravely
bearing the weight of responsibility for his erring flock but who is
aware of his own shortcomings. Reflecting on this predicament he asks
himself, "If I feel pain when someone commits
sin, I cannot imagine the pain the Saviour must have experienced".
The whole tone is Christian, the caring bishop, the repentant church
members, thoughtful reflection on the suffering Saviour, the atonement
in Gethsemane. Yes, you read that right, Gethsemane. In his reflections
the bishop declares,
"As terrible as Christ's suffering on the cross
was, perhaps it was not as great as His suffering in Gethsemane. When
he sweat drops of blood as He bore the weight of all the sins of mankind,
the great agony of the Atonement took place."
Does it matter? Gethsemane or Calvary? After all there is faith in the
atonement and that is what counts. It does matter because if you look
to the wrong place you may be looking to the wrong event and the wrong
Saviour. If you do not understand where, Calvary, and why the cross
then you will not understand the atonement of which you bear witness,
be it ever so eloquently. Bear in mind Paul's warning to the Corinthian
church, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith"(2 Cor.13:5).
Remember also that there are false Christs, a false spirit, a false
gospel and false apostles (2 Cor. 11:3-5) and so we should be careful
in whom we put our trust, where we look for our help, Gethsemane or
Calvary. Consider the following.
The Biblical Apostle Peter first publicly declared the Good News of
Christ's triumph at Pentecost saying,
Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus
of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders
and signs which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.
This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge;
and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him
to the cross. But God raised him from the agony of death, because it
was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. (Acts 2:22-25)
From that time the theme of the cross has been another constant in the
Christian faith. The Biblical Apostle Paul wrote,
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Christ),
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on
earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on
the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)
When you were dead in your sins and in the circumcision of your sinful
nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against
us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the
cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public
spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 213-15)
The Mormon Apostle Jeffrey R Holland, speaking from the Mount of Olives,
declared,
"It was here in the Garden of Gethsemane, on that
last night in mortality, that Jesus left His Apostles and descended
alone into the depth of agony that would be His atoning sacrifice for
the sins of mankind." (p.14)
Lest anyone misunderstand the place of the cross
in Mormon thinking let me quote thirteenth Mormon president, Ezra Taft
Benson,
"It was in Gethsemane that Jesus took on
Himself the sins of the world, in Gethsemane that His pain was equivalent
to the cumulative burden of all men, in Gethsemane that He descended
below all things so that all could repent and come to Him." (Teachings
of Ezra Taft Benson, p.14)
The cross is merely an afterthought, a fact clearly illustrated in the
words of Mormon Apostle Bruce R McConkie,
"As He came out of the Garden, delivering himself
voluntarily into the hands of wicked men, the victory had been won.
There remained yet the shame and the pain of his arrest, his trials,
and his cross. But all these were overshadowed by the agonies and sufferings
in Gethsemane. It was on the cross that he 'suffered death in the flesh',
even as many have suffered agonising deaths, but it was in Gethsemane
that 'he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and
come to him'" (The Mortal Messiah, McConkie, pp 127-28)
What more subtle way could there be to empty the cross of its power
with words of human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:17) than to empty it into
Gethsemane? While Biblical Apostles look to the cross (John 3:14) Mormon
Apostles dismiss the cross declaring "he 'suffered death in the flesh'
even as many have suffered agonising deaths". But it is the cross not
the garden - oh, yes, the cross not the garden. If they could but grasp
the significance of the cross, the total loss and abandonment he suffered,
the weight he bore, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Not
the comforted and strengthened Jesus of the garden (Luke 22:43), but
the abandoned and desolate Saviour of the cross. Not the garden where,
in exquisite anguish, he anticipated his sacrifice in intimate association
with heaven, but the cross where heaven looked away for the sin he bore.
As far away as a man is from the cross, so far is he from Christ (Galatians
6:14).
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