To be honest, these chapters have taken me months to study and ponder. I have read only one or two verses a day to really understand their deeper meaning. There is no way I could list everything I have learned here, but I want to share some significant highlights that really stood out to me.
1. Nephi quotes Isaiah in 1 Nephi 20 to teach of Christ. As I read this chapter I discovered some powerful commentaries that I will share here.
In 1 Nephi 20:10, the Lord says, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." No person goes through this life without suffering some sort of afflictions. That is why we are here--to struggle and go through trials, and ultimately to learn to turn to our Savior for guidance.
In a talk given in the 1997 BYU Women's Conference, it was said,
"No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven."
In the book All These Shall Give Thee Experience, it states,
"He knows, being omniscient, how we will cope with affliction beforehand. But we do not know this. We need, therefore, the refining that God gives to us, though we do not seek or crave such tribulation.
"Is not our struggling amid suffering and chastening in a way like the efforts of the baby chicken still in the egg? It must painfully and patiently make its own way out of the shell. To help the chick by breaking the egg for it could be to kill it. Unless it struggles itself to break outside its initial constraints, it may not have the strength to survive thereafter.
"He knows, being omniscient, how we will cope with affliction beforehand. But we do not know this. We need, therefore, the refining that God gives to us, though we do not seek or crave such tribulation.
"Is not our struggling amid suffering and chastening in a way like the efforts of the baby chicken still in the egg? It must painfully and patiently make its own way out of the shell. To help the chick by breaking the egg for it could be to kill it. Unless it struggles itself to break outside its initial constraints, it may not have the strength to survive thereafter.
"Afflictions can soften us and sweeten us, and can be a chastening influence. (See Alma 62:41) We often think of chastening as something being done to punish us, such as by a mortal tutor who is angry and peevish with us. Divine chastening, however, is a form of learning as it is administered at the hands of a loving Father. (See Helaman 12:3.)
"Elder James E. Faust of the Council of the Twelve has said, 'In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through the refiner's fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong.' (Ensign, May 1979, p. 53.) Elder Faust continued, 'This change comes about through a refining process which often seems cruel and hard. In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master.'"
I love the idea that we are soft clay in Christ's hands. He gives us afflictions to shape us and mold us, to help us grow into the Christlike beings He wants us to become.
2. Later in the Book of Mormon, Abinadi preaches repentance using the words of Isaiah. As I read about the atonement of Jesus Christ in Mosiah 14, I loved this commentary that I found from Elder Melvin J. Ballard:
"'In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even He could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room, so as not to look upon the last struggles, so He bowed his head, and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that He had for his Son. Oh, in that moment when He might have saved his Son, I thank him and praise him that He did not fail us, for He had not only the love of his Son in mind, but He also had love for us. I rejoice that he did not interfere, and that his love for us made it possible for him to endure to look upon the sufferings of his Son and give him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer. Without him, without his sacrifice, we would have remained and we would never have come glorified into his presence. And so this is what it cost, in part, for our Father in Heaven to give the gift of his Son unto men."
I love the idea that we are soft clay in Christ's hands. He gives us afflictions to shape us and mold us, to help us grow into the Christlike beings He wants us to become.
2. Later in the Book of Mormon, Abinadi preaches repentance using the words of Isaiah. As I read about the atonement of Jesus Christ in Mosiah 14, I loved this commentary that I found from Elder Melvin J. Ballard:
"'In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even He could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room, so as not to look upon the last struggles, so He bowed his head, and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that He had for his Son. Oh, in that moment when He might have saved his Son, I thank him and praise him that He did not fail us, for He had not only the love of his Son in mind, but He also had love for us. I rejoice that he did not interfere, and that his love for us made it possible for him to endure to look upon the sufferings of his Son and give him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer. Without him, without his sacrifice, we would have remained and we would never have come glorified into his presence. And so this is what it cost, in part, for our Father in Heaven to give the gift of his Son unto men."
Continuing to read Mosiah 15, I found more commentaries about the great sacrifice of our Savior. One comes from Tad R. Callister in his book The Infinite Atonement:
Incredible.
3. Mosiah 15:2-3 caught my eye because I have heard confusion around the concept of Christ being the Father and the Son. I wanted to understand better this concept, and here is the insights I found through my research (through multiple resources that I did not record...Anybody who is interested in researching this topic more can ask me for resources):
- The roles of Father and Son when referring to Christ are symbolic rather than biological.
- To the House of Israel, Christ is Father because the people become His sons and daughters.
- To God the Father, Christ is Son because He subjects His will to the Father.
- What the Father does for His Son, the Son does for His sons and daughters.
- Christ is the Father:
- Of those who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is made possible through His atonement.
- Of this earth--He created the earth under the direction of the Father.
- Because He has been given the power to represent and act for His Father on the earth.
- In the sense of the dictionary definitions of "father": "one to whom respect is due," "one who cares as a father might," "an originator, source, or prototype," and "one who claims or accepts responsibility."
- Christ is the Son:
- Because He was the Firstborn of God in the Spirit.
- As the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh.
- Because He submitted His will to His Father.
Christ's will was completely swallowed up in the will of His Father. (See Mosiah 15:7.) In his book That Ye May Believe, Neal A. Maxwell said that this means "being totally enveloped--without question, protest, reservation, or resentment. It is 'all the way,' not halfway. Choosing such spiritual submission is the highest act of deliberate, individual will."
Because Christ submitted completely to His Father's will, He represented His Father on earth and thus can be referred to as the "Father." This research really helped me to understand the concept of Christ taking the roles of both the Father and the Son.
4. In Mosiah 16:3, Abinadi teaches about the Fall of Adam and Eve, and how that requires us to use the atonement of Jesus Christ to be saved. I learned that the Fall was not a fall from God's grace, but a fall from innocence. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they "fell" into a state of knowledge. That necessary knowledge came at a price, but that knowledge gave them power. In the book Gospel Doctrine, Bryan Richards explains this idea further:
"Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve lacked the power that they had after they had learned the difference between good and evil. Similarly, a child is powerless, spiritually speaking, compared to the servant who is spiritually mature and yet has become as a little child, meek, submissive, etc. For Adam and Eve and us, it is a long road through the wilderness of the carnal, sensual, and devilish to return the innocence we had as a child (and that Adam and Eve had in the garden). But this is all according to the wisdom and knowledge of God. For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he…becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father (Mosiah 3:19). The Lord loves purity and innocence, but He would rather we make this difficult journey, from childhood innocence to the innocence of the childlike servant because the virtuous servant is so much more powerful. This power comes by virtue of his knowledge of good and mastery over evil."
5. Because Christ overcame both physical and spiritual death (both effects of the Fall; see Mosiah 16:7-8), these are the comforts we can receive when we experience the "sting of death" (as illustrated by Bryan Richards again):
- The compassion and mercy of Christ when someone loses a loved one.
- The knowledge of God's plan of salvation.
- Sealing ordinances of the temple.
- Death not being frightful or painful to the righteous (see D&C 42:46).
- The atonement. The sting of death is sin, and Christ has already overcome all the effects of sin, so when we repent before we die, we can rest from all of our trials and sins.
6. Anybody familiar with scripture knows that Jesus Christ is often referred to as the "light of the world." In what ways is He a "light"? In Bryan Richards' Gospel Doctrine, he explained:
The prophet Joseph F. Smith told us:
"But the thing for us to do is to live according to the light and intelligence that God has revealed to us in this dispensation, that we may be in harmony with the heavenly powers and with heavenly beings, and especially with our Lord Jesus Christ, who stands at our head, who is our lawgiver, our exemplar, and the way of life and salvation to all the world, through whom we may enter into the celestial kingdom of God, and without whom we can never enter that state of glory worlds without end. He is the way, the light and life of the world; and whosoever will obey the commandments He has given, and do the works which he has done, and commanded us to do, shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have in them the light of life.” (Journal of Discourses, vol 22, Jan. 29, 1882)
I hope these random insights help somebody out there in some way :) They sure helped me.
