Blood atonement: From a sinner’s own blood to Christ’s blood alone
During the 1856–57 Mormon Reformation, Church President Brigham Young publicly taught that some sins could not be remitted by the blood of Jesus Christ and that a sinner’s own blood could atone. A future Church president and a future apostle restated the teaching as true doctrine in 1954 and 1966. The Church now says blood atonement “is not a doctrine” and attributes the earlier language to hyperbole.
The short answer
Did Brigham Young teach that a sinner’s own blood could atone for sin?
Yes. His published 1856 and 1857 sermons describe a sinner’s blood as an atoning offering for sins he said Christ’s blood would not remit. The Church’s own historical discussion acknowledges the teaching.
The defining contrast
A sinner’s blood. Christ’s blood.
The contrast is theological, not merely rhetorical. The earlier sermon says a sinner’s own blood could supply an atonement that Christ’s blood could not. The current page assigns all redemption and forgiveness to Christ’s atoning blood.
“There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come.” Such sinners, Young said, would be willing to have their blood shed as an offering, and “the smoking incense would atone for their sins.”
“Blood atonement is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” It instead teaches that “all redemption comes because of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ,” making forgiveness and salvation possible for everyone.
What this establishesYoung’s paragraph does not describe ordinary civil punishment. It says bloodshed could function as an offering that atoned for sin. The current Church page identifies the same idea and rejects it as Church doctrine.
The repeated record
Young expanded the teaching four months later
The February sermon matters because it supplies the theological sequence in Young’s own published argument: grave sin, an insufficient claim on Christ’s atonement, the sinner’s blood, atonement, and possible exaltation.
Blood offered for forgiveness
Young placed the teaching within a discussion of death and the spirit world. He said some transgressions could not receive forgiveness in mortality or afterward, and that without the sinner’s blood the sins would remain upon the person in the spirit world.
Anticipating that hearers would call it “strong doctrine,” Young said cutting people off from the earth was “to save them, not to destroy them.” He then said that “men can commit sins which it can never remit,” with “it” referring to the blood of the Son of God in the preceding clause.
Atonement, salvation, and exaltation
Young asked listeners to imagine a person who knew that a gross sin barred the exaltation he desired and that he could not attain it without his blood being shed. He then described the claimed result: “by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved and exalted with the Gods.”
Young extended the argument from self-love to love of neighbor: if bloodshed were necessary for another person’s salvation, he said, spilling that blood would be an act of love. He added that he had seen “scores and hundreds” whose prospects would have been better if their blood had been spilled as an offering.
Grave sin → Christ’s blood does not atone → the sinner’s blood is shed → the sin is atoned → the sinner may be saved and exalted.Summary of Young’s argument in Journal of Discourses 4:219–20
Publication recordBoth reports identify George D. Watt as reporter. The September discourse was delivered in the Bowery and the February discourse in the Tabernacle. They were also printed in the Deseret News on October 1, 1856, and March 18, 1857, before appearing in the 1857 Liverpool volume; those printings derive from the same reporting process and are corroborating publications, not independent eyewitness transcripts.
Not one speaker, not one decade
The First Presidency in 1856; a future Church president in 1954
The teaching was not confined to Brigham Young or to revival rhetoric. His counselor preached it the same day, and twentieth- century leaders republished it as the true doctrine.
“Let that committee shed their blood”
“I say, that there are men and women that I would advise to go to the President immediately, and ask him to appoint a committee to attend to their case; and then let a place be selected, and let that committee shed their blood.”
Grant, second counselor to Brigham Young, continued: “We have those amongst us that are full of all manner of abominations, those who need to have their blood shed, for water will not do, their sins are of too deep a dye.” Delivered in the Bowery the same day as Young’s sermon; reported by J. V. Long.
“Rebuking Iniquity,” Journal of Discourses 4:49 · page scan ↗“This is the doctrine of Joseph Smith, and I accept it”
“But man may commit certain grievous sins—according to his light and knowledge—that will place him beyond the reach of the atoning blood of Christ. If then he would be saved he must make sacrifice of his own life to atone—so far as in his power lies—for that sin, for the blood of Christ alone under certain circumstances will not avail.”
Smith called this the “true doctrine of blood atonement” and told a critic: “This is the doctrine of Christ our Redeemer, who died for us. This is the doctrine of Joseph Smith, and I accept it.” He denied that the Church practiced blood atonement on apostates. The material, first published about fifty years earlier, was republished in 1954 in a compilation by Bruce R. McConkie, pp. 133–36. Smith became Church president in 1970.
Doctrines of Salvation 1:133–36 · electronic transcription ↗“The true doctrine of blood atonement”
“But under certain circumstances there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must then have their own blood shed to atone for their sins.”
McConkie’s entry “Blood Atonement Doctrine” denied any historical practice of Church killings and called critics’ charges slanderous. It then affirmed the theology itself and quoted Joseph Fielding Smith. McConkie became an apostle in 1972. The book was his authored reference work, not an official Church publication.
Mormon Doctrine (1966), “Blood Atonement Doctrine” ↗The Mormon Reformation context
Revival rhetoric amid fear and reform
The sermons came during the 1856–57 Mormon Reformation, a campaign of repentance, confession, rebaptism, and renewed covenant keeping. Memories of expulsion and violence in Missouri and Illinois remained fresh, while conflict with federal officials and non-Latter-day Saint settlers was increasing in Utah Territory.
The Church’s current histories say leaders sometimes used extreme, Old Testament-inflected language comparable to the hellfire preaching of Protestant revivalists. The 2025 page says most Latter-day Saints appear to have understood some forceful language as hyperbole intended to provoke repentance.
The published paragraphs make a specific theological claim: Young said some sins lay beyond Christ’s blood and that a sinner’s own blood could atone.
The institutional explanation
The Church’s account: hyperbole and private counsel
The Church points to Young’s private counsel to interpret his public sermons as rhetoric rather than an execution procedure.
A concrete case received different counsel
Cedar City stake president Isaac Haight wrote Young about a man who offered to have his blood shed after confessing a sexual sin. Young’s March 5, 1857 reply told Haight to instruct the man to repent, be baptized, and “go and sin no more.”
In this case, Young prescribed repentance and baptism rather than the bloodshed described in his public sermons.
The doctrine is rejected
The current page acknowledges that early leaders used “blood atonement” for the idea that certain sins could be forgiven only through the sinner’s blood. It then characterizes some of the rhetoric as hyperbole and states that blood atonement is not Church doctrine.
The page does more than deny an organized practice. It makes the positive theological claim that all redemption comes through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, making forgiveness and salvation possible for all.
Limit of the explanationHyperbole does not account for 1954 and 1966. Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie were not revival preachers provoking repentance; in calm doctrinal reference works they denied any practice of Church killings and affirmed the theology itself: that Christ’s blood “alone under certain circumstances will not avail.” The current page does not mention either book.
What changed
Sufficiency, category, and explanation
Separating the theological change from the historical-practice question keeps the documentary finding precise.
Sufficiency
Young taught that Christ’s blood could not remit some sins. The Church now says all redemption comes through Christ’s blood.
Additional offering
Young described the sinner’s blood as an offering that could atone. Current teaching rejects any additional human atonement.
Doctrinal category
Young called the language “strong doctrine” and developed its saving logic. The Church now says blood atonement is not its doctrine.
Historical treatment
Current histories acknowledge the teaching while interpreting some of its force as revivalist hyperbole rather than an execution policy.
Biblical context
Christ’s offering and the end of sin offerings
Hebrews places the shedding of blood within an argument that culminates in Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. Quotations below use the English Standard Version.
Hebrews 9–10
One offering secures redemption
“By a single offering he has perfected for all time.”
Hebrews says Christ entered by his own blood and secured eternal redemption. Its conclusion is that where forgiveness exists, “there is no longer any offering for sin.” Hebrews 9:22 should therefore be read inside this covenant argument, not as authority to shed a sinner’s blood.
Hebrews 9:11–14; 10:10–18, ESV ↗First John and Romans
Christ’s blood cleanses and justifies
“The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
First John connects cleansing with walking in the light and confession. Romans 3 locates justification and propitiation in God’s grace and Christ’s blood. Neither passage adds the sinner’s blood as a second atoning sacrifice.
1 John 1:5–9; Romans 3:23–26, ESV ↗Severe warnings
Judgment is not a command to atone by killing
Mark 3 and Hebrews 6 and 10 contain difficult warnings about unforgivable sin, apostasy, and deliberate sin. Christian interpretations differ. None of these passages instructs Christians to shed a sinner’s blood as an additional offering.
Civil punishment is a separate question. Romans 13 discusses governing authority; it does not teach that an executed person’s blood atones for sin.
Read the warning and civil-authority texts, ESV ↗The New Testament’s answer to the question Young, Grant, Smith, and McConkie raised is direct: Christ’s single offering is sufficient, and his blood “cleanses us from all sin.” No passage teaches that a sinner’s own blood completes what Christ’s blood cannot.
Finding
From a sinner’s blood to redemption through Christ alone
Young publicly taught in September 1856 that some sins could not receive forgiveness through Christ’s blood and that a sinner’s own blood could atone. His counselor Jedediah M. Grant urged that a committee “shed their blood” the same day. In February 1857 Young expanded the teaching, describing the bloodshed as saving, exalting, and loving. In 1954 and 1966 Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie restated the theology as true doctrine.
The Church now says blood atonement is not its doctrine and teaches that all redemption comes through Jesus Christ’s blood. Its current page explains the earlier teaching as hyperbole of a time of “fiery preaching” and does not mention the twentieth- century restatements.
Sources and limitations
Read the record
The central quotations were checked against BYU’s scans of the 1857 Liverpool volume. Current Church materials supply both the present doctrinal position and the institutional qualification.
The Journal of Discourses texts are stenographic publications, not audio recordings or canonized texts. The Church says the collection was sometimes transcribed inaccurately and is not by itself an authoritative source of doctrine. Both sermons here identify George D. Watt as reporter, and the same reports appeared in the Deseret News before the Liverpool volume. This audit did not establish publicly accessible transcriptions of Watt’s original shorthand for these two dates. The repeated, extended reasoning and the Church’s own acknowledgment of the historical teaching make the central comparison stronger than dependence on one isolated phrase. The Isaac Haight reply was checked through the linked public catalog record and the official history’s transcription; the catalog’s image link did not reliably resolve to the cited manuscript page.