One Hill, All Worlds

While listening to General Conference over Easter weekend, I found myself thinking about the phrase the infinite atonement, a phrase we hear often but perhaps do not always stop to fully consider. We tend to think of it in terms of time, meaning Christ’s atonement reaches backward and forward forever.

But as I listened, another question began to form in my mind. If there were worlds created before Earth, as Latter-day Saint scripture teaches, and if Earth was organized in a similar way and for the same purpose as those earlier worlds, then how does the Atonement fit into that larger universe? Did the infinite atonement performed here apply to those worlds as well, or were there other atonements on other worlds? In other words, is there one infinite atonement, or are there infinite atonements?

This question is one of those ideas that begins as a small stone in the shoe and gradually becomes something much larger. In Latter-day Saint theology, the universe is not an empty stage with Earth as the lone setting. It is a populated universe, ordered, purposeful, and ongoing. Scripture teaches God created worlds without number, and those worlds were created through Jesus Christ. This alone changes the scale of the Christian story. Christianity, in this view, is not simply the story of one small planet. It is the story of a universe. Earth becomes one world among many, part of a repeating pattern rather than a singular experiment.

The idea Earth was organized from existing matter and formed in a similar way and for the same purpose as other worlds suggests creation is not a one-time event, but a process. It has happened before, and it will happen again. Worlds are formed. Spirits come to those worlds. Mortal life unfolds. Agency is exercised. And, inevitably, there is a fall and the need for redemption.

From there, the question becomes unavoidable. If other worlds existed, and if they were populated by the children of God, did those worlds experience a fall as Earth did? And if they experienced a fall, did they require redemption? And if they required redemption, was there an atonement on each world, on an infinite number of hills scattered across creation? Or was there one hill, one sacrifice, one moment that answered the needs of all worlds?

Official Latter-day Saint doctrine lands firmly on one side of this question. The teaching is there was one Savior, Jesus Christ, and one infinite atonement, and this single act applies not only to Earth, but to all worlds created by God. The word infinite is taken literally. It does not simply mean the atonement lasts forever. It means its reach extends everywhere: one act, performed in one place, at one time, with consequences extending across all creation.

This idea leads to a striking image. On one small planet, in a provincial corner of the Roman Empire, a man carries a cross up a hill outside a walled city. To those who watched it happen, it looked like a local event, another execution carried out by an occupying government. Yet in Latter-day Saint thought, the moment was not a local event at all. It was a cosmic event. What happened on that hill did not belong only to the people who lived within walking distance of it. It belonged to all of God’s children, everywhere. One hill, all worlds.

Why Earth? Latter-day Saint leaders have offered an interesting answer to this question as well. Some early church authorities taught Christ came to a world wicked enough to reject and crucify Him. In other words, Earth was not chosen because it was the most righteous world, but because it was the world where the necessary sacrifice would actually be carried out. It is a sobering thought. The most important event in the history of the universe occurred here not because humanity was better than other worlds, but because it was worse.

If this idea is accepted, then Earth occupies a strange position in the Latter-day Saint cosmic story. It is both ordinary and unique. Ordinary because it is one of many worlds following a similar pattern of creation, fall, and mortal testing. Unique because it is the world where the Redeemer climbed that hill, and in doing so, performed the atonement that would reach beyond this world to all the others.

This leads to a deeper way of looking at the phrase the infinite atonement. We often think of infinite as meaning endless time, something going on forever. But infinite can also mean endless distance. Endless reach. Endless scope. The atonement is infinite not only because it lasts forever, but because it reaches everywhere. Its shadow falls across every world God has created. Its promise rises with every resurrection on every world. One hill, all worlds.

There is something else implied in this theology people sometimes overlook. If Christ’s atonement applies to all worlds, then the inhabitants of those worlds are, in a very real sense, part of the same family story as ours. The universe becomes not a collection of unrelated civilizations, but a single extended family spread across creation, all connected to the same God, the same Savior, and the same defining moment of redemption.

This idea changes the scale of everything. It means the New Testament is not just a record for Earth. It is, in a way, a record for the universe. It also means the life of Christ was not just a teaching mission to one people, but an act with consequences for all people everywhere, whether they live on this world or another.

So are there many atonements? Latter-day Saint doctrine says no. There is one infinite atonement. One sacrifice. One Redeemer. One hill.

And from that one hill, the reach of that act extends outward farther than we can see, to worlds we will never visit, to people we will never meet in this life, but who, in the economy of God, are connected to us by Christ’s single act of redemption.

One hill, all worlds.