Gethsemane, The Oil Press

The atoning sacrifice of Christ began in the Garden of Gethsemane. The word ‘gethsemane’ is of Hebrew origin, and means ‘oil press’. At the time of Christ’s life, olive oil was pressed out of the olives by crushing them with a large, wheel-like stone on a stone basin, as depicted in the picture below:



When the oil is first pressed, it is a brownish-red color, but it later turns into the typical golden-green color of olive oil. The symbolism here is that Christ was like an olive, the crushing stone was the sins of the world, and the red-brown oil oozing out of the olive was the blood of Christ that was like sweat coming out of every pore, falling down to the ground (see Luke 22:44). The atoning blood-oil of Christ can be applied by God to us, or perhaps we can even say that God anoints us with it, in order to forgive our sins, purify our hearts, and fill us with joy (see Mosiah 4:2-3).