The Father withdrew his spirit

Two discussions, one with my oldest daughter, and one with my son, clarify my thoughts for this letter.

My daughter mentioned that her Relief Society teacher stated in class that God the Father withdrew his spirit from The Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane as well as while he was upon the cross, because he could not tolerate the sin that Christ took upon himself. This intrigued me, since I had never heard this particular facet of the atonement expressed before.

My son told me a story that their High Council representative (Brother Lund) related in Sacrament Meeting concerning a tour of the Holy Land he took some years ago. Brother Lund said that there was a devout Baptist on the tour who felt it was his responsibility to point out to Brother Lund every error in LDS doctrine concerning Christ and his ministry. Brother Lund finally said asked him if he was going to continue to do this for the entire tour, because it was ruining Brother Lund’s enjoyment of the tour. The man said that he was sorry, and would not continue with his harsh words. They eventually became friends. When it came time for them to visit the Garden of Gethsemane, Brother Lund’s friend indicated that he was going to skip that part of the tour. Brother Lund was perplexed by this, and asked him why. His friend explained that to Baptists, the Garden of Gethsemane was just the place where Jesus was betrayed and captured. After Brother Lund explained the LDS view of the Garden, his friend said that he had never understood that scripture in that way before.

Many people across the world do not recognize that Christ suffered the atonement in the Garden as well as on the cross. They do not understand that when Christ “sweat, as it were, great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44, D&C 19:18), he was atoning for our sins in a way that we can never understand. Neal A. Maxwell describes it thus:

…through the Atonement; awful and agonizing beyond our capacity to comprehend; the possibility existed that, if not fully submissive, Jesus could "draw back." He did not have to die! Thus, He voluntarily experienced "the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God" (D&C 76:107; see also 88:106). Severe, divine justice was administered; because God "cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance"; which worked its will upon Jesus as He bore all human sins, including those of the "vilest of sinners" (D&C 1:31; Mosiah 28:4).

Since as Elder Maxwell stated, God “cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” God the father had to withdraw his spirit. He could not remain in the presence of sin. The Savior was left alone to finish his supernal mission. Brigham Young explains:

For this express purpose the Father withdrew His spirit from His Son, at the time he was to be crucified. Jesus had been with his Father, talked with Him, dwelt in His bosom, and knew all about heaven, about making the earth, about the transgression of man, and what would redeem the people, and that he was the character who was to redeem the sons of earth, and the earth itself from all sin that had come upon it. The light, knowledge, power, and glory with which he was clothed were far above, or exceeded that of all others who had been upon the earth after the fall, consequently at the very moment, at the hour when the crisis came for him to offer up his life, the Father withdrew Himself, withdrew His Spirit, and cast a veil over him. That is what made him sweat blood. If he had had the power of God upon him, he would not have sweat blood; but all was withdrawn from him, and a veil was cast over him, and he then pleaded with the Father not to forsake him.

Elder Maxwell continues:

“Hence Jesus was in the position of treading the winepress totally "alone." Truly "there was none with [Him]." (Isaiah 63:3; see also D&C 76:107; 88:106; 133:50.)

Craig Ostler, an instructor in Church History at Brigham Young University, says the following about the atonement:

"As a divine being Christ could not fully experience humanity unless he also experienced spiritual death. All humanity are spiritually dead, or "cut off from the presence of the Lord" (Helaman 14:16). I propose that the Spirit could not objectively give Christ the experience of knowing spiritual death, by its very definition, which is to be without the Spirit of God. That could only be understood through the subjective experience—to actually have the Spirit forsake him, to suffer in both body and soul the effects of separation. The separation from the Spirit allowed the condescension of the Son of God to be complete."(The Apostle Paul, His Life and His Testimony: The 23d Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1994], 159, from Chapter Nine, What Is a Mortal Messiah?)

Robert J. Mathews says the following about the both the presence of God the Father in the Savior’s life and the withdrawal of God the Father:

Now, let us consider the case of Jesus, who had the Holy Ghost all the days of his life (and the Holy Ghost is the Comforter). Indeed, the Savior had the help of the Holy Ghost from the time he was born. At every trial and at every endeavor and at every temptation, he had the strength of the Holy Ghost to be with him. But as he went into the Garden of Gethsemane and began to take upon him our sins, the Father withdrew the Spirit from him, and Jesus worked out the Atonement alone. This withdrawal of the Spirit is the agony described by the Savior in the verses above, an agony which, as he told Martin Harris, "in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit." It appears that the Father withdrew the Spirit from his Son in the Garden of Gethsemane so that Jesus might tread the winepress alone (see D&C 133:50). Jesus alone is our Redeemer and Savior. He committed no sins; nothing he had done caused the Spirit to withdraw from him. It was our sins he carried and for which he suffered. (Robert J. Matthews, A Bible! A Bible! [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990], 282)

So we can see that there are at least four reasons why God the Father removed himself from the Savior during the atonement, both in the Garden and on the cross.

1. He had to voluntarily assume the awful burden of the sins of the entire world, and could not do so as long as he was in the presence of and supported by the Father.
2. He had to be alone – on his own – to atone for the sins of the world. He could not do so with the help and support his Father had provided.
3. Christ had to suffer spiritual death to truly experience what every mortal man and woman feels when they leave the presence of God the Father and come to earth.
4. Heavenly Father could not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance and so had to withdraw.

So just as other denominations tend to oversimplify the events in the Garden of Gethsemane, it is an oversimplification to say that God the Father withdrew his spirit simply because he could not tolerate sin. Probably there are other factors to consider that we have not identified here. I would encourage each of you to do your own research and perhaps make additions to these thoughts. Two quotes to consider as additional reasons why The Father withdrew his spirit:

Martha Nibley Beck and John C. Beck, Breaking the Cycle of Compulsive Behavior [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1990], 126 - 127
The Lord's joy in the sinner that repents, His constant urging that we must all repent and encourage others to repent, comes from His knowledge of what it feels like to suffer the understanding of one's own guilt. That is partly what Gethsemane was for, to let the Savior understand through His own experience what we suffer when we sin.

Ezra Taft Benson, Come unto Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983], 7.)
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.

The mortal mind fails to fathom, the tongue cannot express, the pen of man cannot describe the breadth, the depth, the height of the suffering of our Lord—nor His infinite love for us.

Yet there are those who arrogantly declare the most pernicious heresy: that the blood which extruded from the physical body of our Lord on that night had no efficacy for the redemption of man. They would have us believe that the only significance to Gethsemane was that Jesus made His decision there to go to the cross. They say that any suffering Jesus endured was only personal, not redemptive for the whole human race. I know of no heresy more destructive to faith than this, for the individual who so accepts this delusion is beguiled to believe that he can achieve salvation on the basis of his own merit, intelligence, and personal effort.