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The living Christ or the crucified Christ? John Hilton III’s 5-Minute Fireside teaches we don’t have to choose

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Editor’s note: This article was originally published on LDSLiving.com in April 2021.

As Latter-day Saints, it is not uncommon to hear phrases like, “The most important part of Christ’s Atonement was in Gethsemane” or “Yes, Christ was crucified, but lots of other people were too. What’s unique about the Savior’s Atonement happened in Gethsemane.” According to John Hilton III's 5-Minute Fireside, “The problem with those statements is simple—they’re not true.”

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John Hilton III’s 5-Minute Fireside: The Living and Loving Christ

“The scriptures and our Church leaders described the Savior’s Atonement taking place in both Gethsemane and Calvary. Surprisingly, though, while many of us focus more on Gethsemane, Christ’s Crucifixion is more frequently emphasized in both the scriptures and the words of our prophets,” Hilton teaches.

► You may also like: Do Latter-day Saints de-emphasize the importance of Christ’s Crucifixion? John Hilton III weighs in

Hilton goes on to support this claim before emphasizing that as Latter-day Saints, we do not have to choose between Calvary and Gethsemane. He quotes Jennifer Lane, a religious educator at BYU–Hawaii, who said, “He is the life and the light of the world: Christ as the sacrifice, and Christ as the living Word. We don’t have to pick which one to focus on because we can’t have one without the other.”

Watch the full 5-minute Fireside here.


Considering the Cross.

Read more about the place of the cross in Latter-day Saint beliefs and the power of Christ’s Crucifixion in Considering the Cross: How Calvary Connects Us with Christ, available at Deseret Book stores and at deseretbook.com.


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