The Atonement: Gethsemane vs. Golgotha—And Why It Matters

“What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The words hit like a wave. Cari, who never cried in front of anyone, began sobbing. Right there in that so-called “apostate” church, the Holy Spirit pierced her heart—not with shame, but with security. She had spent her whole life trying to be good enough, but that line—“What can make me whole again?”—revealed the truth. Only Jesus. Only his blood. Not her striving. Not her earnest repentance. Not her temple work. Only the cross.

That day, Cari began to think differently about the atonement and the significance of Jesus shedding his blood. All her life, she had been taught that the atonement was accomplished primarily in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus sweated drops of blood. But now, all she could see was Golgotha’s bloody sacrifice—where Jesus died for her on the cross.

What about you? Where do you picture Jesus when you think of the atonement? Is it the Garden of Gethsemane, where he fell on his face in anguish, overwhelmed by sorrow to the point of death? Or is it the hill of Golgotha, where he hung pierced and forsaken under the full weight of divine wrath?

This question is not simply about imagery—it’s about redemptive reality. It’s about where the wrath of God was absorbed, where forgiveness was purchased, and where the temple curtain was torn in two. The atonement is the very heart of the Christian faith because if we misunderstand the atonement, we misunderstand the gospel. Without the gospel, there is no hope of eternal life with our Heavenly Father.

Mormonism teaches that the atoning sacrifice of Christ was primarily accomplished in Gethsemane, with Jesus literally sweating blood in spiritual agony. But the Bible points again and again to the cross—the blood-soaked hill called Golgotha—as the place where sin was paid for, once and for all. The difference is profound. A subtle shift of emphasis can distort the gospel itself. In fact, nothing would please the enemy more than to shift the spotlight off the cross, obscuring the very act that sealed his defeat.

So, let’s carefully explore the atonement through seven vital truths: The True Cost, The True Place, The True Savior, The True Need, The True Blood, The True Victory, The True Danger, and The True Invitation. As we walk through these “true” themes, we will see more clearly why it is not Gethsemane but Golgotha that stands at the center of our salvation—and why Cari and so many others have come to weep tears of relief and joy when they finally understand the beautiful words “nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Cost: Atonement’s Price Paid in Full

Not mere empathy, but exchange. Not just comfort, but cleansing.

What was the atonement, really? In Mormon teaching, Jesus is often portrayed as the ultimate empathizer—one who suffered our pains in Gethsemane so he could understand and “succor us in our struggles.” But the Bible presents him not merely as a sympathetic comforter in our grief but as the sacrifice for our guilt. Jesus didn’t come just to feel our pain; he came to bear our penalty. He came to die under God’s wrath in our place.

In other words, the atonement was a substitutionary sacrifice. On the cross, Jesus stood in our place, bearing the holy wrath of God that we deserved. The Bible says, “Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). He, the Righteous One, was punished so that we, the unrighteous, could be forgiven.

The Holy One took the place of rebels; the Sinless One was crushed for sinners. As Scripture declares: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross” (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus “had no sin” of his own, yet God made him to “be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The atonement was not a symbolic drama or a therapeutic gesture. It was a violent transaction in which real justice was satisfied. Blood was shed, wrath was absorbed, and a debt was paid in full. Think of a courtroom: We stood guilty of capital offenses, but Jesus stepped forward and took the judgment in our place. Think of a battlefield: We were pinned down and doomed, but Jesus threw himself on the grenade. He absorbed the deadly blast of judgment so that we could walk free.

This is why the Bible stresses death as the cost of sin. Sin isn’t a mere slip-up that God can brush aside; it’s cosmic treason that demands a penalty. Paul reminds us, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). For God to remain just, that death penalty must be paid by someone. In the Old Testament, that price was temporarily paid by the death of innocent animals—the sacrificial lambs and goats that took the place of the guilty worshipper.

Those sacrifices were vivid object lessons: every sin deserves bloodshed, and every forgiveness comes at the cost of an innocent life. Ultimately, those sacrifices pointed to Jesus, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He alone could pay the true cost of our sins with his own blood.

Jesus, therefore, did not merely empathize with sinners; he exchanged places with sinners.

Here’s the contrast:

• Empathy may feel our pain, but expiation (the removal of our guilt) acts on our behalf.
• Empathy walks beside us in our sorrow, but expiation steps into our place to bear our judgment.

Expiation is a word that means our guilt has been taken away; Jesus “carries away” our sins like the Scapegoat of old. He not only feels for us—he does for us what we could never do for ourselves. This expiation is not just about comfort in our sorrow; it is about cleansing from our sin. What Jesus accomplished at the cross was not mere solidarity with us—it was substitution for us. He didn’t just come to suffer with us but to save us by taking our place.

At the cross, Jesus willingly paid the full price required by God’s justice. The debt we racked up by our sin was death, and he died to pay it. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” Paul writes (1 Corinthians 15:3). Notice: Christ died. Not just suffered emotionally, not just prayed fervently—he died. That was the cost. His death wasn’t incidental to our salvation; it was essential. For us to be made whole, Jesus had to give his life.

“For my pardon, this I see—nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Place: From Garden to Golgotha

The Garden was the place of surrender; the Cross was the place of satisfaction.

Where was the price paid? Not under olive trees in Gethsemane but on a wooden cross at Golgotha.

Jesus’ journey of suffering began in the Garden of Gethsemane, but it culminated at Golgatha. Mormonism often elevates Gethsemane as the chief location of atonement—teaching that in the garden, Jesus took on the sins of the world and “bled from every pore.” Yet the Bible never says that Jesus bled in Gethsemane. In Luke 22:44, we read: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (italics added). The original Greek uses the word hōsei, which means “like” or “as if,” indicating that his sweat was not blood itself, but compared to blood in either appearance or intensity. Luke is describing the severity of Jesus’ emotional distress, not a literal bleeding. It was a night of anguish, not atonement.

Indeed, Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane was immense. There, under the ancient olive trees, he cried out in distress and surrendered his will to the Father. But Gethsemane was a preparation, not the payment. The real payment for sin was made at Golgotha, the place of execution.

The Bible speaks with one voice on this: our redemption was accomplished by Jesus’ death on the cross. “Christ died for our sins,” not merely suffered for them​. We are saved, the New Testament repeatedly teaches, through the blood Jesus shed in death. “We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7)​. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22)​. Forgiveness required a sacrifice unto death, and that happened on Golgotha, Calvary’s hill.

God designed the Old Testament sacrificial system to foreshadow the true place of atonement. In Israel, the high priest did not take the sacrifice into a garden to pray over it—he took it to an altar to be slain. The life of the innocent was poured out to cover the sins of the guilty. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood,” God explained, “and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:11, ESV). Blood on the altar was required to atone for sin because the blood signified a life given in place of another. Gethsemane was not that altar. In Gethsemane, no life was taken; no final sacrifice was offered. It was at Golgotha, on the altar of the cross, that Jesus’ life was poured out as an offering for sin.

Consider what happened at the crucifixion and why the location matters. There, on the hill of Golgotha, Jesus was “lifted up” like the bronze serpent in the wilderness to save all who look to him​ in trust (John 4). There, “He was made a curse for us,” taking the curse of the law that we deserved (Galatians 3:13). There, he “drank the full cup” of God’s wrath on our behalf​ (Isaiah 51:22, Jeremiah 25:15, Revelation 14:10). It was there on the cross, not in the garden, that “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

The New Testament never once attributes our atonement to Gethsemane. Not once. Instead, every time Scripture describes how we are redeemed, justified, or reconciled, it points to Jesus’ death and the blood of his cross. For example: “God was pleased…to reconcile to himself all things…making peace through the blood of his cross”​ (Colossians 1:20). Peace with God was made not in the garden’s anguish, but in the blood of Calvary.

Let’s be clear: Gethsemane was the Garden of Surrender, but Golgotha was the Place of Satisfaction. In Gethsemane, Jesus yielded his will; at Golgotha, Jesus fulfilled God’s will. Gethsemane was filled with perspiration, but Golgotha brought about propitiation.

Propitiation means turning away God’s anger by satisfying justice. God was justly angry because of our sin—our rebellion against him and rejection of his ways. Propitiation is the act by which Jesus took God’s righteous anger upon himself. At the cross, justice was satisfied, God’s wrath absorbed, and the penalty for our sin fully paid.

At Gethsemane, Jesus was sorrowed, but at Golgotha, Jesus was sacrificed. In the garden, Jesus suffered alongside his disciples, but on the cross, Jesus substituted himself for sinners. The contrast can be summed up in a few lines:

• Gethsemane was perspiration; Golgotha was propitiation.
• Gethsemane was sorrow; Golgotha was sacrifice.
• Gethsemane brought suffering; Golgotha brought substitution.

In the end, Jesus’ prayer in the garden showed his willing heart, but it’s his death on the hill that accomplished our salvation. The garden showed his resolve; the cross achieved our redemption. As another refrain of that hymn declares:

“Oh! Precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.”

The True Savior: No One Else Could Do It

Not a helper, but a Holy One. Not a partner in our salvation but a perfect substitute.

If the atonement was a sacrifice for sin, who could offer such a priceless sacrifice? Who could be qualified to stand in for all humanity? Certainly not you or me—we each have our own sin and guilt. Not an angel or apostle, or mere priest or prophet—no finite creature could bear the infinite weight of the world’s sins. The only one who could atone for the sins of the world had to be utterly sinless, infinitely worthy, and divinely powerful.

This is why only Jesus Christ could accomplish the atonement. Jesus was not merely a great teacher or a moral example; he is God in human flesh. He alone lived a perfect, sinless life. He alone had no debts of his own to pay and thus could pay ours. All the foreshadowing sacrifices in Scripture had to be “without blemish” for this reason—only a spotless offering would suffice. Jesus fulfilled this to perfection: He is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). As the eternal Son of God, he had infinite worth to bear an infinite penalty; as a true man, he could rightfully represent humanity.

Because of who he is, Jesus’ sacrifice is enough. Forever enough. No further addition is needed. The cross is not Jesus doing 50% so that we can do the rest. He did 100%. He paid it all. One drop of his precious blood is of greater value than all our vain works multiplied by a million. The apostle Peter writes​, “You know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed… but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

Only the holy, spotless Savior could be our substitute.

So when we gaze at the cross, we are not seeing merely a kind teacher suffering unjustly; we are seeing God’s own Son pouring out his life for us. The cost was immense, but the one paying it was fully capable. Jesus’ divinity guaranteed the value of his sacrifice; his humanity guaranteed its relevance to us. And because of who he is, the work he finished is utterly sufficient to save to the uttermost.

This truth confronts every system that says, “You still have a part to play in your salvation.” It lovingly but firmly says to Mormonism—and to all religions of human effort—“Stop trying to be your own savior. Trust the one who already did it all.”

Jesus did not come primarily to model morality. He came to rescue the guilty. He came not to inspire us to be better but to substitute himself in our place.

• Not a coach, but a Christ.
• Not a mentor, but a mediator.
• Not inspiration, but intercession.

He didn’t just know about holiness—he was holiness embodied. He didn’t just offer help—he offered himself. He was not just the perfect example of righteousness—he is our only exchange for righteousness. As Paul wrote: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). As the hymns says:

“This is all my righteousness—nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Need: Why the Atonement Was Necessary

Not an enhancement—but an essential. Not a second chance—but a sin-cleansing sacrifice.

Gethsemane shows us Jesus’ sorrow, but Golgotha shows us the seriousness of our sin. In the garden, Jesus wrestled with the weight of what lay ahead; on the cross, he bore the full weight of divine judgment. Gethsemane reminds us that our sin grieved him—Golgotha proves that our sin condemned us.

The need for the atonement is not rooted in sentimentality but in justice. Sin is not a weakness to be coached through; it is a rebellion that must be punished. In the quiet shadows of the garden, we glimpse the cost. But it was under the darkened sky of Golgotha where the payment was made.

The contrast could not be starker:

• Gethsemane reveals the agony of anticipation; Golgotha reveals the agony of execution.
• Gethsemane invites us to witness Jesus’ resolve; Golgotha invites us to receive Jesus’ redemption.
• Gethsemane stirs compassion; Golgotha demands conviction.

Jesus didn’t endure Gethsemane so that we could admire his perseverance—he went through it to reach the cross, where the real work was finished.

We needed more than a model of sincerity—we needed a substitute. And that’s exactly what Jesus became for us: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Why did Jesus have to die? Why was blood required?

Because sin is not a spiritual speed bump—it is a death sentence. We haven’t just fallen short; we’ve fallen under judgment. Every lie, every lustful thought, every prideful moment is cosmic rebellion against a holy God. The Bible is clear that our sin carries a deadly wage: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

God does not overlook sin, nor does he adjust the standard based on our sincerity. He is light; in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). His justice is perfect, and he will not leave the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:7). This is not a flaw—it is holiness. And it is precisely why the cross was not optional but necessary.

Isaiah foretold what would happen: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed… and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5–6).

Jesus died because nothing else could cleanse us. Not confession. Not recommitment. Not religious rituals. Not our best efforts to improve. As Hebrews 9:22 states, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Only a sinless substitute absorbing divine wrath in our place could secure our salvation.

In Mormonism, there’s often a hopeful belief that trying hard enough and repenting sincerely enough will bring forgiveness. But how do you know when you’ve done enough? How do you measure sincerity? What if your repentance isn’t as deep as you think? What if your effort is never enough?

That’s the beauty of the gospel: Jesus was enough—because we never could be.

He didn’t die to enhance our progress. He died to exchange our guilt for his grace. He didn’t bleed to offer a ladder to climb. He bled to carry us home.

He bore what we could never bear. He paid what we could never pay, so that we can sing:

“What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Blood: The Power of Christ’s Sacrifice

Throughout Scripture, blood is the vivid symbol of atonement. This can be unsettling—why so much emphasis on blood? Because “the life of the flesh is in the blood”​ (Leviticus 17:11), and sin’s price is life. Blood represents a life poured out in death. From Genesis to Revelation, God is teaching us that sin kills, and only by the shedding of blood can sin be washed away.

In the Old Testament, God established a covenant with his people through blood sacrifices. Every day at the temple, priests slaughtered lambs and goats, and the blood was splashed on the altar. It was a messy, graphic illustration that atonement comes at the cost of life. Hebrews 9:22 summarizes it: “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” No amount of tears, contrition, or good deeds could erase sin—only blood on the altar, only life given for life.

All those rivers of animal blood were foreshadowing one ultimate sacrifice. Jesus Christ fulfilled every picture and prophecy of those rituals. He became our Passover Lamb, whose blood causes the angel of judgment to pass over us. He became our Scapegoat, carrying our sins away into the wilderness of death. He became our High Priest, entering the Most Holy Place not with the blood of goats, but with his own blood on our behalf. “He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12)..

The blood of Jesus matters because it is the means by which our sins are cleansed. His blood carries the power of his divine life. When Jesus bled on the cross, it wasn’t an accident or merely a sign of suffering—it was the pouring out of his life as an offering for sin. As Isaiah prophesied, “he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). The blood of Jesus covers our sins so completely that God’s justice sees them no more. It is, figuratively speaking, the spiritual detergent that washes the filth of sin from our souls and the receipt in blood that our debt has been paid.

This need for a sacrifice for sin is why the New Testament writers exult in the blood of Christ. They don’t recoil from it; they rejoice in it. Paul writes, “In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”​ (Ephesians 1:7). John says that “the blood of Jesus…purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Peter calls it “precious blood…a lamb without blemish” (1 Peter 1:19). In heaven, the song of the redeemed is, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain…for You purchased for God persons from every nation by your blood!” (Revelation 5:9).

Not in Gethsemane, but at Golgotha, Jesus bled from the nails in his hands and feet and from the spear thrust into his side—having already been scourged and crowned with thorns before being led to the cross.

Each wound declared, “This is the price of your forgiveness.” His blood was not spilled in vain; it was offered to God for us. The book of Hebrews says Jesus, our High Priest, carried his own blood into the heavenly sanctuary to secure our eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12)​.

In other words, the moment Jesus died, his blood met the demands of God’s justice, and forgiveness was forever secured for those who trust in him. With his final breath, he declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30)—and it was.

Because of Jesus’ blood, our sins can be forgiven and forgotten by God. Because of his blood, we who were far off have been brought near (Ephesians 2:13). Because of his blood, a new covenant is established, one that promises, “I will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 8:12). Nothing but Jesus’ blood could do this. Not our tears or toil, not our prayers or penance—nothing but the blood. As the hymn says:

“No other fount I know—nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Victory: “It Is Finished!”

Not the end of a story, but the triumph of the cross.

How do we know that Jesus’ atonement was successful? What gives us confidence that his sacrifice truly accomplished our salvation? The answer explodes from the pages of the Gospels: the empty tomb. On the cross, Jesus shouted triumphantly, “It is finished!” (John 19:30)​. Three days later, God emphatically proved that declaration true by raising Jesus from the dead.

If Golgotha was the battle, the Garden Tomb was the victory parade. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s great “Amen!” to the work his Son completed on Good Friday. Think of the resurrection as a receipt stamped with “Paid in Full.” As Romans 4:25 puts it, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”​ In being raised, Jesus was vindicated as the true Savior, and we are assured that his payment for sin was accepted. Had Jesus stayed dead, we would have no certainty that the debt of sin was fully paid. But because he lives, we know the check cleared, the prison door is open, and death itself has been defeated.

The resurrection was not a separate, unrelated miracle; it was the direct outcome of the cross. Jesus conquered sin and death by first absorbing sin’s penalty and dying. Once the penalty was paid, death had no claim on him. He broke death’s power from the inside out. Thus, when he stepped out of the tomb in radiant life, it proved that sin’s wages had been fully spent on him and could demand nothing more. Our great High Priest emerged from the Holy of Holies after offering his blood, signaling that the sacrifice was acceptable to God.

At that moment, all the forces of evil were put to open shame. Satan’s arsenal (sin, guilt, death, fear) was plundered. Jesus is alive, never to die again. This is a true victory. As he told Martha before raising Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die”​ (John 11:25). Because Christ lives, we who trust in him will also live.

The cross and the resurrection together form the full picture of the atonement’s triumph. On the cross, Jesus paid for our sins; by the resurrection, he powerfully declared that the payment was complete. Colossians 2:14-15 says that at the cross, God canceled the record of debt against us, and Christ disarmed the powers and authorities, triumphing over them. The empty tomb is the evidence of that triumph. As a result, Paul can taunt death by saying, “Where, O death, is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). It’s gone. Jesus has won.

Romans 1:4 says that Jesus “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.” When God raised Jesus, he was showing the world: the sacrifice was accepted. The atonement was complete. Death no longer has the final word. Sin has been paid for in full, and the grave has been conquered. Jesus didn’t just make a path—he completed the work and secured eternal life for all who trust in him.

• The stone was rolled away, not so Jesus could get out, but so we could look in.
• The tomb was empty because the debt had been canceled.
• The risen Savior stands as proof that our sin has been buried forever.

So, we don’t worship a martyr who died and remains dead; we worship a living Savior who accomplished redemption. He is now seated at God’s right hand as our interceding High Priest, proof that his work is done. The temple veil ripped open when Jesus died​, showing that access to God is now available. And Jesus’ resurrected life guarantees that he can give eternal life to all who come to him.

• Gethsemane was the beginning.
• Golgotha was the battle.
• The Garden Tomb was the banner: PAID IN FULL​.

Put another way:

• Gethsemane was preparation.
• Golgotha was propitiation—where God’s wrath was satisfied.
• The Garden Tomb was proclamation.

The atonement doesn’t end in darkness. It bursts forth in light. Jesus rose, and in doing so, he opened a living way into God’s presence for all who trust in him. And because of this, we can say and sing:

“This is all my hope and peace—nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Danger: A Crossless Atonement

Not a shift of scenery, but a shift of salvation.

If everything we’ve seen about Christ’s finished work at the cross is true, then shifting the focus away from the cross is not a harmless mistake—it is a grave spiritual danger. Yet, this is precisely what happens in LDS teaching. By emphasizing Gethsemane over Golgotha, Mormonism subtly but seriously obscures the finished work of Christ. It’s a bit like celebrating a general’s earnest war-room strategy session while ignoring the actual victory he achieved on the battlefield.

Why does this matter so much? Because if the spotlight moves off the cross, the message of the gospel gets distorted. When Gethsemane is portrayed as the primary place of atonement, the nature of the atonement itself is often reshaped into something like empathetic suffering or moral support rather than a complete substitutionary sacrifice.

For example, LDS leaders have taught that it was in Gethsemane that Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world and won the victory, with the cross being essentially an afterthought​. Many Latter-day Saints think of Christ’s atonement mainly as his suffering to understand our pains rather than his dying to remove our sins.

This shift has serious implications. If Jesus’ sacrifice is seen as incomplete or not centered on the cross, believers may feel that the weight of finishing the work falls on their shoulders. Indeed, in LDS doctrine, there is a heavy emphasis on our own efforts: our repentance, our obedience, our endurance to the end, as contributing to or at the very least completing the atonement’s effects. The tragic consequence is a religion of constant striving without assurance that the price has been fully paid. The focus on Gethsemane’s “anguish” can lead one to think Jesus primarily came to help us try harder or to empathize as we struggle rather than to save us completely by his finished work.

Let’s unmask the danger plainly: a crossless (or cross-diminished) atonement leaves people still in their sins. If one does not understand that “Jesus paid it all” on the cross, they will inevitably attempt to pay for their own sins through works and suffering. Instead of resting in Christ’s righteousness, they labor under the impossible burden of establishing their own. Satan would love nothing more than for religious people to honor Jesus’ name but miss the power of his crucifixion. If the devil can get us to focus on anything other than “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2), then we remain in bondage. The apostle Paul warned the Galatians that to add our works to Christ’s finished cross-work is to fall for “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6–7). We dare not dilute the cross with any other centerpiece.

Mormonism’s emphasis on Gethsemane, then, is not a minor doctrinal quirk. It is a pivot that leads away from the only source of true spiritual life. It tends to recast Jesus more as a coach than a Redeemer, more as an example than a substitutionary sacrifice. It subtly encourages people to “drink the bitter cup” of their own trials but downplays that Jesus drained the cup of God’s wrath in our place​. In doing so, it can leave sincere people—like Cari once was—working themselves to spiritual exhaustion: always learning about Christ’s empathy, always hoping for his help, but never resting in his finished work.

The danger is eternal: if we trust in anything other than the blood of Jesus to make us right with God, we will remain lost. If we locate the climax of atonement anywhere but the cross, we are left with an incomplete sacrifice and an incomplete salvation. Satan’s tactic is often not to deny the atonement outright but to redirect attention away from the cross where it was accomplished. But a half-truth posing as the whole truth becomes a deadly lie.

We must keep our eyes on Jesus lifted up on Calvary, for he said, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Golgotha must eclipse Gethsemane in our understanding, or we risk missing Christ’s saving power.

And in that saving power, we sing boldly:

“Naught of God that I have done—nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

The True Invitation: “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus”

Not a call to try harder but an invitation to rest in what’s already been done.

Finally, we come to the personal question: How will you respond to what Jesus did for you? This is the true invitation of the gospel. It’s not an invitation to try harder or do more but to come and rest in the finished work of Christ. It’s an invitation to trade your unbearable burden of sin and your boasting in your own self-righteousness for the light yoke of a Savior who has already carried that burden and those boasts to the cross.

Friend, Jesus died for you. He didn’t die for the righteous (for none are righteous); he died for sinners like you and me. The Bible assures us, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”​ (Romans 5:8). That means he saw you at your worst and yet gave his best. He died not for the worthy, but for those who know they are unworthy and need mercy. Consider who his atonement covers:

• He died for the weak – those who feel they can’t possibly do enough.
• He died for the weary – those worn out by trying to earn God’s favor.
• He died for the wandering – those who have strayed and feel lost.
• He died for Mormon missionaries, waking up each day anxious to prove their worthiness.
• He died for the teenager who never feels “clean enough.”
• He died for the devoted mom who fears she hasn’t repented sincerely enough.
• He died for the bishop, who lies awake, worried he hasn’t endured to the end successfully.
• He died for the one who has tried, and tried, and tried — yet still feels unworthy.
• He died for the temple recommend holder who, even after all the ordinances, still feels shame.
• He died for the ex-Mormon, who wonders if there’s any grace left for them.
• He died for the sinner, the struggler, the soul crushed beneath a system of perpetual pressure.

Friend, he died for you.

Jesus did not give his life to offer you a second chance to “do everything right.” He gave his life to give you his righteousness because you could never be perfect on your own. He didn’t shed his blood to help you merit heaven; he shed his blood so that his merit is counted as yours. In him, the work is finished. The striving can cease. The burden is lifted. “It is finished,” he cried​—and he meant it (John 19:30).

Now he extends nail-scarred hands and invites you: Come to Me. Come to the cross in humble faith. Don’t stop at the Garden of Gethsemane (merely reflecting on Jesus’ empathy or example), and don’t rush past Calvary to the empty tomb without first kneeling in awe at the foot of the cross. Come to the hill called Golgotha, the place of a skull, stained with the holy blood of the Lamb. Come to the feet of the Savior who bled and died for you and who now lives to intercede for you.

Lay down any thought of earning God’s favor. Don’t try to earn what Jesus already finished. Don’t hold onto your perspiration; hold onto his propitiation. All your religious efforts, all your personal righteousness, are insufficient. But Jesus’ blood is entirely sufficient. It is more than enough.

Cari’s story has a happy ending: that day in Germany, she found the one thing that can make her whole again. As she learned more about the depths of her own sins and the depths of her savior’s love, she turned from trusting her own efforts and trusted in “nothing but the blood of Jesus.” You can do the same right now. Jesus offers full forgiveness and eternal life as a gift. It’s received by trusting in what he has done—not by striving to prove yourself. When you trust that his blood shed on the cross was for you—his atonement covers your sins entirely, and you become a child of God.

Imagine the relief: no more performing to try to earn forgiveness, no more wondering, “Have I done enough?” You can say with confidence Jesus has done it all. All the justice that was against me fell on him. All the righteousness I lacked is given through him. Nothing more is needed. Nothing less will do. Nothing else can save.

In that precious blood, dear friend, is everything you need. Come, and live. Come, and rejoice with us in the Lamb who was slain—and who lives, victorious, forevermore.

This is the heartbeat of the gospel. This is the truth that made Cari weep with joy. This is the song we now sing:

“Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”