The Come, Follow Me lesson for study this week concerns the events of the last few hours of the Savior’s mortal ministry. This post focuses on a single detail mentioned only in the gospel account of Luke:
Jesus has gone to the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, with some of his disciples. He withdraws from them a short distance, kneels, and begins to pray. His prayer grows more intense – “he prayed more earnestly” – until “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44)
In the midst of his great agony, Luke tells us, “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.” (Luke 22:43)
This verse stands in contrast to the moment on the cross when Jesus will cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34) – in the garden, at least, although his Father did not “remove this cup from” him (Luke, 44:42), the Savior knew he was not alone, and found strength from the presence of an angel.
This moment has caught the religious imagination of many artists – in this example, the work of Carl Bloch.
The religious imagination of general Christendom has also wanted to know the identity of that angel. My impression, after some googling, is that the world is generally evenly split in opinion between Gabriel and Michael, with a minor vote for Raphael – the three archangels named in the Bible – with a smattering of preference for angels not actually mentioned in the Bible, but who appear in legend and folklore.
Latter-day Saints have historically been satisfied to know that Jesus was not alone, without feeling any particular desire to identify the angel. I can find nothing by Joseph Smith or other Church presidents naming or even wondering about the identity of the angel (if you know of something I’ve missed, please do comment, with citation).
Quite a few general conference speakers have quoted the passage from Luke 22 without remarking on the angel in particular, or, when specifically mentioning the angel, ask no question about his identity. In April 1985, for example, Neal A. Maxwell, discussing the agony of the Lord, said, “No wonder an angel appeared to strengthen him!” The just-retired Gospel Doctrine New Testament manual drew attention to Luke 22:43, asking “What can this teach us about our Heavenly Father? (Answers could include that he will strengthen us as we humbly do his will.)” without pausing to consider who that angel might have been. J. Reuben Clark, Jr., noting in April 1954 that some scholars asserted that Luke 22:42-44 were not original to the Biblical text, condemned such “doubt-raising” claims, observing that Joseph Smith made no change to these details in the Joseph Smith Translation (he does not discuss the angel in particular, but supports other details of these verses – the Savior’s bleeding at every pore – with citations to modern revelation). President Clark does not opine on the identity of the angel in his examination. This concern, conclusion, and absence of discussion on the angel’s identity are also present in S. Kent Brown’s volume on Luke in the BYU New Testament Commentary. These examples are representative of the great body of LDS teaching where this passage from Luke is quoted.
As far as I can determine, the first Latter-day Saint to explore the possible identity of the angel in Gethsemane is Bruce R. McConkie, in the final years of his life.
Speaking at BYU on 17 February 1981, he said:
We see great gouts ((Drops; this archaic word is preserved in contemporary English use almost solely through its appearance in Hamlet: “I see thee still; And on thy blade and dudgeon [the blade’s handle] gouts of blood, Which was not so before.”)) of blood drop from every pore. An angel—surely it is mighty Michael himself—comes down from heaven and strengthens him. He trembles because of pain and suffers in both body and spirit. He comes off triumphant; and in a way incomprehensible to us, he bears the sins of all men on conditions of repentance.
Later in the same year, with publication of Vol. 4 of his The Mortal Messiah, he wrote:
As Luke records: ‘There appeared an angel unto [Jesus] from heaven, strengthening him.’ The angelic ministrant is not named. We know that on the Mount of Transfiguration ‘Moses and Elias. . . appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Luke 9:30–31); and if we might indulge in speculation, we would suggest that the angel who came into this second Eden was the same person who dwelt in the first Eden. At least Adam, who is Michael, the archangel—the head of the whole heavenly hierarchy of angelic ministrants—seems the logical one to give aid and comfort to his Lord on such a solemn occasion. Adam fell, and Christ redeemed men from the fall; theirs was a joint enterprise, both parts of which were essential for the nation of the Father’s children.
He repeats this supposition in April 1985:
We know that an angel came from the courts of glory to strengthen him in his ordeal, and we suppose it was mighty Michael, who foremost fell that mortal man might be.
Acknowledging Elder McConkie’s authority as an apostle, his lifetime of thought about gospel topics, and his systematic organization of his beliefs about the life of the Savior embodied in his Messiah series, it is still worthwhile to examine these statements:
So far as I have been able to find (and of course I’m willing to be corrected), no other general authority has endorsed Elder McConkie’s identification of the angel in Gethsemane as Michael, or Adam. This supposition has not been repeated in any other Church leader’s talks or writings, to the best of my knowledge and searching capacity. It has not been adopted as doctrine or even as a useful supposition by Church leaders.
Elder McConkie does not claim revelation as the source of his ideas – rather, he specifically identifies its source as “logic.” His oft-stated summary of Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement as the “Three Pillars of Eternity” (see his 1981 BYU speech linked above) may have guided his thinking into the neat symmetry of Christ walking with Adam in the Garden of Eden paired with Adam strengthening Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. If other factors entered into his logic, I do not see them set out.
He plainly identifies his identification as an “indulge[nce] in speculation,” a “suggest[ion],” a suppos[ition].” He offers no evidence, no support beyond his own longing for a parallel between Eden and Gethsemane.
BYU Religious Education professor Robert L. Millet repeated Elder McConkie’s statement from The Mortal Messiah in a 1984 Ensign article on Adam/Michael. He lends credence to the speculation by his introduction to the passage: “There is one other occasion in which Michael as a disembodied spirit may have played a particularly significant role in the plan of our Father.”
The 2002 book Gethsemane by Andrew C. Skinner, written when he was a BYU Religious Education professor, goes farther. He cites but does not quote Elder McConkie’s 1985 Conference address. He endorses Elder McConkie’s strong emphasis on the so-called “three pillars of eternity” (“The Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement are inextricably linked as the three pillars of eternity, the three central events upon which the Father’s plan rests”) without crediting either the idea or even the quoted words to Elder McConkie. He asks a series of rhetorical questions that create the impression of evidence without actually laying out an argument in support of the identification of the angel: “Why Michael? Why would our Heavenly Father choose him, or why would he have been allowed to perform so noble a task? … Who better than Adam to aid and assist the Savior during his time of extreme distress than he whose actions had brought about mortality? Who better to thank the Savior for paying the debt that his actions had introduced (sin, suffering, and the other myriad effects of the Fall) than Adam himself? Who better to strengthen the Great Creator than he who, as one of the gods, assisted the Savior in laying the foundations of the very planet where the Savior himself, as well as all the children of Adam, would someday reside?” (Curiously, in my view, the form of these questions hints that Adam as an individual, as a participant in the Fall, stands more in need of the Atonement than the rest of us.) And then he concludes his discussion with a statement that assumes the identity of the angel has been established beyond all doubt:
The Father could not assist his Son directly, but he sent an angel to strengthen him. The human family was saved by one of its own, and the Saving One was strengthened by one of his own— his many times over great-grandfather Adam.
An excerpt from Dr. Skinner’s Gethsemane, including the bald statement that the angel in Gethsemane was indeed Adam, was posted recent on LDSLiving, no doubt because of the topic of this week’s Sunday School lesson. That is the sole reason for this post: I think it will be all too easy for too many people to pick up on the supposed “new knowledge” of the identity of the angel in Gethsemane for the sake of novelty. I think it would be doing a disservice to yourself, to your family, to your Sunday School fellows, to repeat that claim. People tend to remember the sensational new “fact” while forgetting the highly speculative nature of its origin, and the unauthorized elevation of that speculation to established fact. This is how Mormon folklore begins and spreads. This is not a good idea, in my opinion. There is enough to cover in the last hours of the Savior’s life – it is enough to know that an angel (some angel, any angel) came to strengthen the Savior in his hours of deepest agony – and a focus on that agony, and its purpose, should not be sidetracked by the desire to say something novel, to share “secret” knowledge.
In my opinion.
The point of this post isn’t to invite your own speculations about who the angel might have been, as is happening on the Facebook announcement.
Please don’t record such speculations here.
Thank you for your efforts to reign in the folklore! Too often it ends up taking precedence over the teaching of the gospel of Christ.
“Surely it is mighty Michael himself”? I wish I could say this was the first time I had ever seen BRM asserting his own reasoned beliefs as established fact. I’m glad to see he was at least more careful to qualify the statement as speculative when he was writing about it rather than speaking.
(Still, “mighty Michael” is such a great epithet.)
Thank you for this! I’m always startled when people present as fact some tidbit of information that seems to have no scriptural or apostolic support. It happens too often.
Good job!
Solid work, Ardis.
I miss having a High Priests group that provided me with a ready forum for speculation regarding truths yet to be revealed.
What I find intriguing is the level of speculative focus on *who* was chosen to execute the *noble task* of giving succor to the Lord as He was executing His noble task. In elevating the importance of that, the focus on the primary noble task is diminished. Further, my experience from a lifetime of giving many forms of succor, is that if your focus is on the nobility of your task rather than alleviating suffering, you’re doing it wrong. I suspect narcissism at play somewhere, but I’m dubious of the worth of teasing that out.
In my opinion the entire discussion is a speculative detour from the object of primary importance, that exposes narcissistic tendencies of the persons so fascinated with pursuing it.
Good call. I have always wondered about the events that Luke, writing much after Mark and Matthew, as I understand it, includes details to which he certainly was not a first hand witness. Still, I like the idea, but agree that there is enough to consider in those passages without worrying about who might have been dancing on that particular head of a pin.
Bingo, MDearest! As a matter of scholarly concern, I never mind anybody asking questions or obsessing on the possibilities, even when I think a question doesn’t matter. But in a setting of teaching the gospel, as Sunday School should be (whether at home or in a ward), the focus should be ON THE GOSPEL, in this case, the Savior and the Atonement.
As I was [narcissistically] promoting my own opinion, my comment neglected to recognize the quality of your research tracking any possible revelation regarding the identity of this personage with post-restoration authority, and your deft analysis of what the record shows. But I noticed as I read the post.
If I make it to heaven, Ardis will be a full professor teaching my Sunday school class.
This is really important, Ardis. How often does speculation, however well-intended, trickle down (and up) and take on a life and authority of its own? I don’t know that I much mind speculation. I just wish it came with caution, humility, restraint, and were greeted with a dose of skepticism.
Some comments are coming in that I am choosing not to post, with apologies to thoughtful commenters. The purpose of this post is to caution against speculation on peripheral points IN CONNECTION WITH THIS SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON, and (as requested in comment 1), I do not want to fault the use of one speculation while hosting a chain of alternative speculations.
Please, while you may have personal reasons for suggesting one identity or another for the angel at Gethsemane, all such suggestions are personal logic/desire/sentiment, and have no place in a Sunday School discussion.
My apologies to those whose comments are not appearing here for that reason.
I found this comment fromJohn Gill’s Exposition of of the New Testament (mid-17th century):
And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven
Whether this was Michael the archangel, as some have conjectured, or Gabriel, or what particular angel, is not for us to know, nor is it of any importance: it is certain, it was a good angel:
So there certainly was speculation BRM could have drawn on for his Michael conjecture. On the other hand, a source was scarcely necessary, since there is a limited set of named archangels to choose from.
Great post, Ardis!
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I wish you were in my Sunday School class! I got blindsided yesterday in my lesson by a class member’s bizarre speculation about the identity of the angel. I think I just said, “Oh. Interesting.” and moved on.
Ardis,
I am racking my brain and can’t recall who, but IIRC, some artist depicted the angel as female. Now wouldn’t that stir the Gospel Doctrine speculation pot!
Excellent post.
That’s about the only thing you can do, Lauren …
Good work. Thanks.
Thank you, Ardis, for the research and report. Without speculating (I hope), I note that nothing in the scripture tells us anything about the gender of the angel.
A peripheral matter: If I recall correctly (others are far more likely than I to be able to confirm or correct), when the Church first started using Bloch’s painting of the angel comforting Christ in Gethsemane it had the angel’s wings removed (painted over, or however). A few years ago the Church started reproducing the painting without removing the angel’s wings. I understand the literalism (and fear of misplaced literalism) that motivated the removal. I wonder what discussion or concerns led to abandoning the removal. In any event I have in the past used the Block painting in teaching NT and found that the wings prompted concern by a few and resulted in what I thought a healthy discussion of symbolism.
Thanks again for noting the danger of becoming committed to a particular speculation and of teaching it as if it were not merely speculation, however “logical.”
Really excellent, Ardis. I completely agree with your concluding statement as well.
I have wondered whether the following statement from another apostle was an indirect response to Elder McConkie’s writing.
Neal A. Maxwell, “Enduring Well”, Ensign, April 1997:
“An angel, whose identity we do not know, came to strengthen Him…”
All I will add is that I love that painting. The tenderness it conveys breathes even more life into the scriptural passage that it describes. I love the sense of caring and concern from the angel and the apparent comfort that the Savior draws from it. Beautiful.
Bart Ehrman propesed that the appearance of the angel is proof that the text was tampered with as it disrupts the chiastic structure of the previous and following verses. What should be an abcddcba chiasmus becomes a abcdEdcba with the angel being E.
Good work, Ardis. It’s not fun being the person who works to make myths fade, so thank you.
I bristle at the “doctrinal-creep” concerning Gethsemane generally. (For example, the sensational mention of “drops of blood” in Gethsemane has been elevated by some to a doctrine that has almost completely supplanted what happened at Calvary. Boo hiss!) I hadn’t thought much about this other point of speculation–the identity of the angel in Gethsemane. I’m glad you reminded us about how folklore begins and spreads.
I wonder if we’ve expended from DC 19 and Modish 3:7 to be able to answer a question that broader Christianity struggles with, one an innocent primary child brought up this week in response to Jesus being the only one that could suffer and die for us: what about the other two that were crucified with Him, they went through the same thing.
I don’t anticipate that you will print this but do think that it is relevant because Skousen makes the association in 1980 (pre-dating McConkie) & Tad Callister is a General Authority
“So far as I have been able to find (and of course I’m willing to be corrected), no other general authority has endorsed Elder McConkie’s identification of the angel in Gethsemane as Michael, or Adam.” – Ardis E. Parshal
Cleon Skousen
Days of the Living Christ Vol 2 July 1992, p. 693 “Whom would the Father have selected for an errand as important as this one? We surmise it might have been Michael, whom we know as Adam. After all, Michael was the Savior’s valiant general in the war in heaven. He had been the Savior’s closest associate during the labors of Creation. He was the one who initiated the Fall so that the Father’s children might obtain temporal bodies and learn the difference between good and evil.”
A Personal Search for the Meaning of the Atonement Dallas, Texas Mission conference, December 18, 1980 “So he (Heavenly Father) had to send an angel. I wish we had the conversation. We can only guess what the angel might have said. But he ministered to Jesus and he probably said, “You don’t have to do this. Everybody has their free agency. But the Father knew you would do it and that’s why you were ordained from the preexistence because He knew you would. But you don’t have to. If you don’t do it, everything in which your hand participated by way of creation will go back to outer chaos. The earth, the animals, the plants, the human beings, their bodies, all the other planets on which there are similar families that you helped create – they all go back to chaos. The only way they can be preserved and perpetuated and exalted is to have you do this.”
Tad R. Callister
The Infinite Atonement, 2000, p.123-124 “While we do not know with certainty the identity of this heaven-sent comforter, there are at least four reasons why it may indeed have been Adam. First, Adam, who was a joint creator of this earth and father of mortal man, would have had a supreme interest in man’s ultimate destiny, Certainly he had a vested interest to se that this earth and all its creations were not created in vain. Second, it seems appropriate that he who triggered in part the need for the Atonement should now be the agent for mankind to assist Him who pled for its redemption. Third, as taught by Joseph Smith, Adam has a presiding role in the hierarchy of divine beings, since all “angels are under the direction of Michael or Adam,” and thus it seems no messenger would be more suited to strengthen and bless than he who was the presiding archangel. Fourth, Adam enjoyed a unique relationship with the Savior. Not only did he join with him in the creation process, but likewise as he led the heavenly forces in battle (Rev 12:7). Now, once again, Adam might momentarily stand by him as the Savior participated in the most crucial battle of all. Adam could not take the Savior’s place (for the Savior must bear this alone), but what he could do, he no doubt wanted to do. Perhaps he was there to console him, to comfort him, to support him, maybe even to bless him.”
I’ll happily publish this, Mike; thanks. It’s entirely relevant, and I appreciate your spelling out the sources.
Can you clarify this, though? If I’m reading this right, Skousen gave a talk in 1980 that was later (1992) published in book form?
Skousen gave the Dallas, Texas mission address in 1980 Wherein he explained that the Angel gave the Savior the opportunity to back out of the Atonement.
In the Book written in 1992, he names the Angel specifically as Michael.
The relevance is that since Michael is father of mankind and was the first man taught the gospel, he was the only person that could logically make this offer. We see from the Fall that Michael is amazingly selfless and was willing to die to comfort Eve. (Skousen carefully lays out these ideas in his landmark book, The First 2,000 Years, 1953)
I suspect that if Michael was said Angel; when he saw our Savior suffering, he was not thinking of giving a pep talk. More likely he was heart-broken and felt personal remorse for starting the events that led up to Gethsemane…
And if Michael did free the Savior from this horrible burden. The Savior would have been able to perceive the Atonement as a loving gift instead of an obligation.
There are many other reasons why I like this line of thought…
Regardless, I agree that it is esoteric material.
Leave it to a crank like Cleon Skousen to invent a “reason” for the angel’s visit, one that has NO warrant but has serious doctrinal implications. Likewise, there is no justification for the further inferences you draw about Michael’s “right” to make such an offer, or the baseless conjecture about Adam’s willingness to die for Eve … thwarting the entire purpose of the Creation.
Okay. I do appreciate your comment, Mike, with these additional sources on the unnecessary speculation on the identity of the angel. I’m now closing comments on this post, repeating the caution, especially to teachers, that the identity of the angel is rank speculation, no matter who is doing the speculation, and that even in the short life of this one we can see the creeping of false doctrine as a clearly-labeled “indulgence in speculation” has developed into statements of “fact.”