The Key

Mosiah 3:19 has hit me in a way that it never has before. The verse reads as follows:

"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 yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and 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."

Could there be a better antidote for unrighteous pride? Could there be a better way to learn forgiveness and understanding? Could there be a better way to guage our own standing before God?

If we are indeed meek and submissive before the Lord, we will see His greatness and our own nothingness before Him. What follows is an entire paradigm shift. We stop looking at ourselves and comparing ourselves to others. We stop judging others unrighteously. We stop taking offense. We stop giving offense. We gain in patience and understanding and love. When full of those things, we become more Christ-like than we could in our "natural" state. We soften our hearts and humble ourselves before the Lord, rather than becoming a people that need to BE humbled. When our hearts are soft and we are willing and ready to learn and listen, we are also ready to heed the word of God. We become more in tune with His spirit. We are more able to understand His will for us.

It then follows that once we have been ready and willing to learn His will for us, we are also more able to submit ourselves to Him and accept His will. We are willing to bow our heads before Him and understand as Joseph Smith learned while in Liberty Jail that "...if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good." (D&C 121:7)

In my mind I picture again young Isaac looking up so trustingly at his father Abraham as he is preparing to sacrifice him on the altar- willing to submit to all things. We may not be tried in all things, but if we are willing to submit nonetheless, we will grow closer to God and our lives- both now and through the eternities- will be blessed. Let us look to God with that same trust and humility that Isaac had.

Abraham's Sacrifice

My mind has been turned towards the story of Abraham and Isaac. In Genesis 12, God commands Abraham to take Isaac-- his only son, born to he and Sarah after years of barrenness-- and to offer him up as a burnt offering to the Lord.

I can't imagine the turmoil, the agony Abraham must have experienced at the thought. The pain of the very idea. The knowledge of his sweet son's absolute innocence, the unjustness of the command. And yet-- he obeyed. He took his son, he took the things required for the offering and saddled his ass and took him to the required place.

When his son asked him so innocently where the lamb was for the offering, can you imagine what must have gone through his mind? "You are the lamb, my son. The innocent lamb to be offered, the lamb without spot or blemish." And he said to him, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering."

Isaac must have been confused-- then scared-- but apparently still trusting and loving, for we don't read of a struggle. We see Abraham standing over his small son, tied and laid on the prepared altar. We see him stretching forth his hand, and taking the knife "to slay his son". It must have felt as if his own heart was being torn from his own chest. As if he were committing a great treachery to appease his God.

And yet-- he made that offering. The Lord knew his heart, and showed Abraham his own heart. At the last second, He sent His angel to stay Abraham's hand.

Can you imagine the blessed relief? The gratitude that while he was willing to sacrifice so much, such a sacrifice would not be required? The relief that it was only a test of his faith and dedication-- and that he had passed the test?

The Lord then says to Abraham, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me." And then the Lord did indeed provide Abraham a ram for the sacrifice. The provision was made and Abraham had shown his "broken heart and contrite spirit" to the Lord.

God reiterates the import of what had been shown, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy see shall possess the gate of his enemies."

Following the sacrifice and the lesson came the blessings.

But what are we to learn from this? Obviously, the Lord was teaching a lesson about the Ultimate Sacrifice, the sacrifice of His Son, the Lamb of God. But how can we further apply this in our own lives?

Perhaps we have our own Isaac's to offer on the altar. In Alma 22:18, King Lamoni's father prays to the Lord saying, "I will give away all my sins to know thee." Both are sacrifices to know our God-- it is one thing to offer up our sins, something we know is evil, a bad, sick part of ourselves. But to offer up something that is precious to you? Something pure and without fault? Have we done that?

Have we turned over our entire hearts to God? Have we humbled ourselves enough so that we can truly say we are His? Have we put our whole lives into His hands, trusting in Him so implicitly that we will not withhold from our God our "only son"? Such submission, such meekness, such humility... can we honestly say that it is found within ourselves? We cannot look at the story of Abraham clinging to the hope that it will end in the same way. I believe that there are times and circumstances when the sacrifice will be required-- and we are to be prepared for that eventuality. We cannot make this offering with the expectation that it will not be required. It will only be accepted when it is made with our whole hearts, nothing held back. No little corner of our minds or hearts remains ours. Only then can our sacrifice, our offering be true.

I pray that each of us can be so strong as Abraham in our offerings. What is your Isaac?

Chapter 1: Introduction

To begin, it is acknowledged that there is essentially no argument about the existence of the "Man known in literature as Jesus of Nazareth". The virtues of Christ and his teachings are briefly and appropriately discussed as "supreme among men", divinity aside, but of course the fact of His divinity far surpasses any other characteristic.

I'm reminded here of something C. S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A mean who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

There's really not much to add to a statement like that. Lewis hit the nail on the head here.

Other points of note in the first chapter:

1- Perhaps this is too obvious, but let's remind ourselves that we chronicle our history based on it's relation to the birth of Christ. That's pretty huge. Either Jesus truly is the Christ, or this is the greatest fraud perpetuated in the history of mankind. Clearly, I go with the former.

2- I've never thought of it in these terms before, but I thought it interesting that Christ was on this earth for 33 years and His earthly ministry was 3 years long. Three is a very significant and symbolic religious number- was there significance even here? I don't see why not, but my mind is not lending itself to further study of this right now, just simply noting the interest.

3- "Even the profane sinner in the foul sacrilege of his oath acclaims the divine supremacy of Him whose name he desecrates." Because it wouldn't be as powerful an oath if it didn't represent something so pure and beautiful- the most vile things are usually perversions of the most sacred and beautiful.

4- In the final paragraph of the chapter, I noted the continued use of words synonymous with the word "truth". "Verity", "fact", "actuality", "reality", "literalness"... the simple use of these words is in themselves a testimony of Jesus as the Christ. This is not a book dealing with the theory of Jesus as divinity- it is a book discussing the facts and details as are available to us in the scriptures. This is so powerful to me; it is the difference between saying "I believe" and "I know". It is so final, so exact and so, shall we say, unforgiving. Once those words are said, there's no hedging, no backpedaling, no squirming around the statement.

Jesus the Christ

I've been struggling to decide how to approach this blog for quite some time now. However, I've finally found a specific subject, at least temporarily.

Since the root, center and foundation of all truth is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the best beginning would be naturally to study the Person of Jesus Christ. I've chosen to do this by reading Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage and cross-referencing with the scriptures. If this goes well (the blogging end, that is), I'll probably continue my online study of our Savior by reading and commenting on the Messiah series by Bruce R. McConkie.

I intend to write one post per chapter. I'm not sure how coherent my writings will be, hopefully they will be at least somewhat intelligible! If I actually have readers, enjoy!