February 23,
2020
#25 FEBRUARY
17-23, 2 NEPHI 25
Personal Note
Thanks so much to each of you who have been reading my blog
posts about the Book of Mormon for the past nearly two months. I don’t know if
anyone (other than my dear wife Lori) has tried to read them all. But whether
you’ve read only a few or most of them, thank you for taking the time to do so.
I feel that I owe you an apology for taking up precious minutes or hours of
your life. I don’t know if you are anything like I am; sometimes I groan inside
when I get a long email from family member or friend or from a news service or
even from the Church and I know I should and want to read it, but have so many
other things to do (including other emails to read) that I don’t know when I’ll
get time. So I save it to my unread list in my inbox hoping to get back to it,
but sometimes I never do. It may be the same for you with my blog posts and
emails. I really don’t want these to be a burden on anyone. I’m sorry if they
have been for any of you.
This
Book of Mormon blog has turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated! I
naively thought I could spend a couple of hours a week to write some pithy
short essay about each week’s Book of Mormon reading assignment and get on with
it. Perhaps that should be the goal for me to try to get to. But each week
there is so much to say! I just love the Book of Mormon! When I read it and
study about it, thoughts and impressions just bubble up inside of me and I can’t
rest until I write about them. But I’m afraid that what I write is overkill –
it’s too much! So I apologize. I don’t even write all that I’d like to. I try
to filter what I write to what I feel will be most helpful and interesting. It’s
a little like when Lori comes home from shopping with a bunch of packages and
says, “But, Honey, you should see all the things I didn’t buy!” You should be
grateful I don’t write all that I could about these chapters!
Anyhow,
thanks to each of you for however much you have read of these blogs over the
past few weeks. My original target audience for this blog was and still is you,
our children, your spouses and our grandchildren. I have no illusion that any
of you, our grandchildren, are reading these blogs, but maybe you are getting
some of it in Come, Follow Me discussions with your parents. I hope that
maybe someday you will discover these posts and read them. Maybe in doing so, you
will discover your grandfather “Pops” in a way and in a depth you otherwise
would not have done. My greatest desire is for all of you, our posterity, to
stay on the covenant path so there will be no empty chairs when our family
gathers in the next life. My hope and prayer are that something of what I write
will help each of you learn to love the Book of Mormon and help you make good
choices that will keep you on that path.
My
other original target audience is you, the good people of England and Wales,
with whom we served as missionaries in the Chester Stake. I hope that these
blog posts are helpful to you, especially those of you who are new or returning
members, as you deepen your gospel understanding and love for the Book of
Mormon.
And
to each of the remainder of you, my extended family, friends and some good people
I’ve never even met, thanks so much for reading! I’ll try to be careful with
your precious time and respectful of all the options you have for what to read.
I’m honored and humbled that you or anyone would take time to read anything I
write. I promise to do my best for each of you.
2 Nephi Chapter 25
My soul delighteth in plainness!
This is a great chapter – one of my favorites in the Book of
Mormon! I decided to save this chapter for a separate blog post rather than tack
it on at the end of a long post about the Isaiah chapters and have it get lost.
I’ll try to be brief, but there are some real treasures in this chapter.
Nephi
has just written 13 chapters of Isaiah into his Small Plates. If you thought
they were tough to read, can you imagine what it must have been like to inscribe
them onto the plates? And it was no small task for Joseph Smith to translate
them. Obviously, Nephi felt it was important. We talked about some of his
reasons in the last post. But it’s kind of funny how he starts this chapter. He
admits right off that Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of
my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying
among the Jews.(v. 1) Further he says, there is none other people that
understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it
be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews.(v. 5)
Hello, Nephi! Then how in the world are we supposed to understand Isaiah, since
we didn’t grow up in Jerusalem and don’t understand the things of the Jews?
Nephi
realizes that neither his posterity nor the rest of us will understand much of Isaiah,
so he is going to help us out. If Isaiah is obscure (and he is!), then Nephi will
by contrast be clear! He says that the things he writes will be plain and easy
to understand. Wherefore I shall prophesy according to the plainness
which hath been with me from the time that I came out from Jerusalem with my
father; for behold, my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that
they may learn (v. 4). Further, I proceed with mine own prophecy,
according to my plainness; in the which I know that no man can err; (v.
7) He uses the word plainness three times in two verses to describe how
he will write so that we won’t be mistaken. Maybe we can be forgiven for not
understanding Isaiah, but he will not leave us any excuse for not understanding
what he will now write.
Nephi
will now go on for 9 more chapters to write some of the clearest, most plain
and understandable prophecy and explanation of doctrine found anywhere in
scripture. These next chapters, his final entry on the Small Plates, are a scriptural
treasure beginning with this chapter 25. Nephi is going to “go out in style” on
the Small Plates. And we are blessed because he did!
Prophecies of the Jews and their Messiah
Nephi confirms the words of his father and his brother Jacob
that Jerusalem, or at least much of it, has been destroyed along with most of
the inhabitants and those who weren’t destroyed have been carried off captive
to Babylon (v. 10) He then prophesies that notwithstanding they have been
carried away they shall return again, and possess the land of Jerusalem;
wherefore, they shall be restored again to the land of their inheritance.(v.
11) (How plain is that? No misunderstanding there! I love reading Nephi! I can
understand him!) And that’s just what happened. After 40 years in Babylon, the
Jews were allowed to return to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem and the
temple.
After
centuries of war and conflict, the Only Begotten of the Father, yea, even
the Father of heaven and of earth, shall manifest himself unto them in the
flesh (v.12) But the Jews will reject Him. Why will they reject their
Messiah? For the same reasons that people reject Him today. Look at the reasons:
because of their iniquities, and the hardness of their hearts, and the stiffness
of their necks (v. 12). The Jews rejected their Messiah and the world
rejects Him today because of (1) their lives given to sin and sinfulness, (2)
the insensitivity of their hearts to the things of the spirit and (3) their pride,
greed and desire for wealth, power and position. We need to be careful not to
fall into the worldly traps that distance us from the Lord in the same ways.
Nephi
confirms the prophecy of Jacob that they, the wicked Jews using the Romans as
their “hit men”, will crucify Him. Then he goes on to make additional new prophecy
not yet given that after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three
days he shall rise from the dead (v. 13). This is the first prophecy in the
Book of Mormon that He will be in tomb for three days.
Don’t
miss the next statement that Nephi makes: All those who shall believe on his
name shall be saved in the kingdom of God! (v. 13) Did you get that? If we
believe on His name, we will be saved! Nephi will have more to say about that
in a few verses.
Nephi
then adds his personal witness and testimony: for I have seen his day, and
my heart doth magnify his holy name.(v. 13). Nephi knows whereof he speaks.
He has seen! He knows!
More prophecy of the Jews
Nephi then proceeds to prophesy in plainness about what will
happen to the Jews after they crucify their Messiah. I’ll briefly summarize:
· Jerusalem will be destroyed again.
· The Jews will be scattered among and by other nations.
· Babylon will be destroyed.
· After being scattered, the Jews will be scourged for the
space of many generations.
· Eventually the Jews will be persuaded to believe in
Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all
mankind—and when that day shall come that they shall believe in Christ, and
worship the Father in his name, with pure hearts and clean hands, and look not
forward any more for another Messiah.
· When that happens, the Lord will set his hand again the
second time to restore his people from their lost and fallen state. Wherefore,
he will proceed to do a marvelous work and a wonder among the children of men.
· The Lord will bring forth His word to the Jews to convince
them of the true Messiah, the One who was rejected by them. He will be the
Messiah [who] cometh in six hundred years from the time that my father
left Jerusalem and the One whose name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of
God. Nephi wants to be sure the Jews know to which Messiah he refers, the
only true Messiah (vs. 14-19)
There is none other name given
To further emphasize that he is speaking of the true
Messiah, Nephi refers to three commonly held foundational stories of the
Israelite nation in support of his prophecy. He writes of (1) Moses leading the
Israelites out of Egypt, (2) Moses having power to heal the people bitten by
the poisonous serpents and (3) Moses getting water from a rock. To his
posterity, these stories are the like pioneer stories in our day, stories of
our people, stories which inspire faith and show evidence of the hand of God in
their lives and ours. In each case, Moses is acting as a type of Christ in
delivering his people, healing them and giving them Living Water.
Then
Nephi adds his testimony that as these things are true, and as the Lord God
liveth, there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus
Christ, of which I have spoken, whereby man can be saved. (v. 20)
Here
is the crux of the matter – we are saved by and through the Son of God, the
Messiah of the Old Testament who is Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of
the New Testament.
At
this point, Nephi refers to his writing on the plates and the promise he has
received that these things shall go from generation to generation as long as
the earth shall stand; and they shall go according to the will and pleasure of
God (v. 22).
He
then gives us the reason why he writes on the plates. Don’t miss this!
For
we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren,
to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by
grace that we are saved, after all we can do. (v. 23) (emphasis added)
The
reason Nephi writes on the plates is so that his children and his brethren will
believe in Christ. And that is the reason why I write in this blog – so that
you, my children, my grandchildren, my brothers and sisters, and my friends will
know that Jesus is the Christ. I add my testimony to that of modern apostles
and prophets, though I am one of the least of His servants:
Jesus
is the Living Christ, the immortal Son of God. He is the great King Immanuel,
who stands today on the right hand of His Father. He is the light, the life,
and the hope of the world. His way is the path that leads to happiness in this
life and eternal life in the world to come. God be thanked for the matchless
gift of His divine Son. (The Living Christ)
In
Nephi’s words:
The
right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One
of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your
might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in
nowise be cast out. (v. 29)
For we know that it is by grace that
we are saved
It
is interesting – as I was growing up in the Church, we hardly ever heard anyone
speak in conferences or sacrament meetings about grace. It seemed almost taboo.
But beginning in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, grace began to creep
into the Church lexicon much more. Now it is often the subject of talks,
articles and even books. Here is a good summary of the grace vs works issue
from the Millet and McConkie Commentary. It’s a little long, but worth
it:
Salvation—which
is exaltation or eternal life—comes through the merits and mercy and
condescensions of God: it comes by grace. It is a divine gift made available
through the love of the Father and the selfless sacrifice of the Son. There are
many things which are simply beyond the power of man to bring to pass. Man can
neither create nor redeem himself; such activities require the intervention of
beings greater than he.
Satan
would have Christians err on this doctrine in one of two directions. First of
all, there are those who contend that man is saved by grace alone, and that no
works of any kind are of value. Such persons might reconstruct Nephi’s language
as follows: “We are saved by grace; after all, what can we do?” “Salvation by
grace alone and without works,” Elder McConkie observed, “as it is taught in
large segments of Christendom today, is akin to what Lucifer proposed in the
preexistence—that he would save all mankind and one soul should not be lost. He
would save them without agency, without works, without any act on their part.
“As
with the proposal of Lucifer in the preexistence to save all mankind, so with
the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, without works, as it is taught in
modern Christendom—both concepts are false. There is no salvation in either of
them. They both come from the same source; they are not of God.” (“What Think
Ye of Salvation by Grace?” p. 49.)
On
the other hand, there are those who become so obsessed with their own
“works-righteousness,” with their own goodness, that they do not look to Christ
as the true fountain of all righteousness. Men and women must rely “wholly upon
the merits of him who is mighty to save” (see 2 Nephi 31:19). In the purest
sense, the works of righteousness which a person performs—ordinances of
salvation and deeds of Christian service—are necessary but are insufficient to
lead to salvation. No matter what a man may do in this life, his works will not
save him: he will always fall short and thus be “an unprofitable servant”
(Mosiah 2:21) without the grace or divine assistance of God. Indeed, it is only
after a person has so performed a lifetime of works and faithfulness—only after
he has come to deny himself of all ungodliness and every worldly lust—that the
grace of God, that spiritual increment of power, is efficacious. In the
language of Moroni: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny
yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all
ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his
grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ”
(Moroni 10:32; italics added).
“‘Salvation
is free.’ (2 Nephi 2:4.) Justification is free,” wrote Elder Bruce R. McConkie.
“Neither of them can be purchased; neither can be earned; neither comes by the
law of Moses, or by good works, or by any power or ability that man has.
. . . Salvation is free, freely available, freely to be found. It
comes because of his goodness and grace, because of his love, mercy, and
condescension toward the children of men.” Continuing, Elder McConkie explained,
“Free salvation is salvation by grace. The questions then are: What salvation
is free? What salvation comes by the grace of God? With all the emphasis of the
rolling thunders of Sinai, we answer: All salvation is free; all comes by the
merits and mercy and grace of the Holy Messiah; there is no salvation of any
kind, nature, or degree that is not bound to Christ and his atonement.” (Promised
Messiah, pp. 346–47.)
After all that we can do
I just need to make one final comment to explain my
understanding of a phrase used by Nephi, at least as it was translated into
English by Joseph Smith. Verse 23 quoted above is the best scriptural
resolution that is found anywhere in holy writ of the faith vs works argument
that raged over centuries in the western Christian world, even sending many to
their deaths. As Nephi wrote, we do all we can to be obedient and keep the
ordinances and commandments of the gospel but it is through the grace of Jesus
Christ and His atonement that we are saved.
We
don’t save ourselves by doing all we can. That’s how we stay in the covenant
relationship with Christ. That’s how we show Him our love and gratitude for all
He has done for us. We can’t do it without Him. We can’t even do “all we can
do” without His help. So His grace, His enabling power, is there for us and
with us all along the covenant path.
But
some have misunderstood the word after in this phrase after
all we can do. I don’t like to try to edit the scriptures, but perhaps a
more helpful preposition would be “as we do all we can do” or “while
we do all we can do” or “in addition to all we can do.” We don’t have to
go it alone until we reach the end of our rope, until we are hanging over the
cliff by our fingernails, before the Savior and His grace rescue us, as
suggested by the word after. The Savior, by the power of His atonement
and through the enabling power of His grace, is with us all the way along the
path of life as we strive to do all we can do, not just at the end of the road.
And when we don’t even do all that we can do, when we fall short, as we all do
more often than we want to, He is still there with us and for us. We are saved
by the Savior’s grace while we strive, however imperfectly, to do all we can
do. With the Savior and His enabling power, His amazing grace, life is
good! Because of Him, there is always hope!
Thanks
to Nephi for writing so clearly! We have two more weeks of studying Nephi’s
remarkably clear and understandable prophecies and doctrinal explanations. These
are some great chapters coming up. I’m looking forward to exploring them with
you.
Thanks for reading!
Have a good week!
Richard
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