jesus christ

Stand Ye in Holy Places

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Elder Russell M. Nelson said this in a devotional he gave on December 10, 2002 at BYU:

The time is coming when those who do not obey the Lord will be separated from those who do. Our safest insurance is to continue to be worthy of admission to His holy house. How blessed we are to have temples available. The greatest gift you could give to the Lord at this or any other time of year is to keep yourself unspotted from the world, worthy to attend His holy house. His gift to you will be the peace and security of knowing that you are worthy to meet Him, whenever that time shall come.

“Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen” (D&C 87:8).

See this video:

Promises of Calling & Election in JS Lesson 13

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Live in strict obedience to the commandments of God, and walk humbly before Him, and He will exalt thee in His own due time. -Joseph Smith  ((HC 1:408.))

Last week was the Joseph Smith manual chapter 13 lesson for Priesthood and Relief Society entitled, “Obedience: ‘When the Lord Commands, Do It.'”  This was an excellent lesson, and I particularly liked the the last section.  Unfortunately, if most wards’ lessons are like my own, you may not have got to that point in the manual by the end of class.  In my own Elder’s quorum we only made it through the first 3-4 pages of the lesson.  But I believe there are some powerful messages from Joseph in the last 5 pages that could easily be missed. I’m glad that my wife and I read the whole lesson before attending church, or we too would have missed this.  [Read more…]

Temple imagery in “Gabriel’s Revelation” Discovery

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Gabriel's Revelation or "Dead Sea Scroll in Stone"

Gabriel's Revelation or "Dead Sea Scroll in Stone"

The scholarly world is aflutter over the latest discovery of a 3-foot tall tablet being called “Gabriel’s Revelation,” “Hazon Gabriel,” or the “Vision of Gabriel.”  It contains 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink on stone, and has been dated to the first century BCE.  The tablet was found near the Dead Sea in Jordan around 2000, and has been associated with the Qumran community who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.  For this reason, it has been called a “Dead Sea scroll in stone.”  An exciting discovery, indeed.

The discussion has been primarily about a certain line of the text which tells of a messiah dying and resurrecting in three days (line 80).  Many scholars are pointing to this as evidence of a resurrection theology in existence in Judaism before the coming of Jesus Christ, therefore raising questions of the conception among some that a messianic 3-day resurrection was a uniquely novel Christian principle.  This is not news to Latter-day Saints, who already firmly believe that Christianity has been known and practiced since Adam (see Moses 5:6-8).

But I want to look at this text from a different angle than that which is making the headlines.  Since this text has been categorized as an apocalyptic text, the Greek apokálypsis meaning “lifting of the veil” or end of days, delivered from the angel Gabriel, it is likely that we should find temple imagery here too.  And we are not left wanting.  [Read more…]

Sacrificing our will to the will of our Father

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Offering sacrifice and burnt offeringsI had contemplated entitling this post “A Change in Temple Sacrifice Following Christ,” but since today is Father’s Day, I thought this title was more appropriate.

From the time they left Jerusalem until the time of Christ’s ministry among his descendants in the Americas 600 years later, Lehi and his family offered sacrifice and burnt offerings to the Lord (1 Ne. 5:9; 1 Ne. 7:22; Mosiah 2:3). Such was part of the law of Moses which they sought to keep diligently, as the Israelites had been observing for thousands of years (Mosiah 12:28-29; Mosiah 13:27-28; Alma 25:15-16; 2 Ne. 25:24, 30; Alma 30:3). But even then, they remembered that the law of Moses was in similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was to come to the earth and work out an infinite atonement by the shedding of his blood and body (Alma 34:14).

When Christ visited the inhabitants of the Americas he explained how the law of Moses was fulfilled in him, and how things were to become new:

And he said unto them: Marvel not that I said unto you that old things had passed away, and that all things had become new.
Behold, I say unto you that the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses.
Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel; therefore, the law in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an end. (3 Ne. 15:3-5)

The law of Moses was fulfilled, but this did not mean that the covenant ended: [Read more…]

Possible Prayer Circle in 3 Nephi 17

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Look to the Children - Minerva Teichert (1888–1976)Mark Greene posted a comment a few days ago on my multi-part paper The Genesis of the Round Dance that I thought was very insightful:

In thinking further about your interesting paper on the genesis of the ring dance, I remembered that there is a marvelous example of a prayer circle and therefore a type of ring dance in the Book of Mormon. While teaching 2500 people at the temple of Bountiful, Christ organized them in concentric rings of righteousness and then He prayed with them. He was the center of these rings. Then came a ring of little children; next a ring of fire and angels; with the outer ring made up of righteous adults (see 3 Nephi 17:12, 15, 23-25). The message in forming these concentric rings of righteousness was in visual representation of the Savior’s imperatives found in 3 Nephi 11:37-38. To come unto Christ and become like Him we as adults must become sanctified little children.

I think that this might very well have allusions to a type of prayer circle when Christ visited the New World. Where else might we find hidden treasures such as this in the Book of Mormon?