The Gift of Grace

In case you have not noticed, the world changed on Easter Sunday.

Or rather, our generally accepted perception of the world changed, for our interpretation of the scriptures changed, but the canon of the Restoration remained the same.

In a time slot of General Conference often reserved for the prophet and president of the restored church of Christ, President Uchtdorf fired the first salvo at a pervasive and longstanding cultural and institutional wresting of redeeming grace, and in particular, an entrenched misapprehension of the most misinterpreted passage in the canon of the Restoration: 2 Nephi 25:23.

I have only the power to hurl pebbles, but Uchtdorf, by virtue of his position in the church, commands the mighty guns of the dreadnought, and he brought them to bear on a worthy target.

In his extraordinary address—likely the most accurate and precise sermon on grace and atonement in at least the last 44 years—Uchtdorf takes aim at the artificial exegetical chasm engendered by our systemic and persistent collective misunderstanding of grace, one that not only conflicts with the New Testament, but also contradicts the Book of Mormon.

In the words of the wonderfully meaningful Don Henley song Everything Is Different Now, everything is different now.

I wonder how many of us appreciate or comprehend the magnitude of the perceptual shift evidenced in the unexpected and lavish Easter gift.

Do you?

Do you understand?

Do you realize just how big a deal this is?

I devote this post to key portions of the April 5, 2015 General Conference address, The Gift of Grace, given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My objective is to help you understand the nature of the watershed and the substance of the corresponding course correction, and to point out what remains for us as a people to do to completely eliminate the remaining rift between the popular understanding of grace and atonement, and the exposition of grace and atonement in the Book of Mormon, the New Testament, and the entire canon of the Restoration.

The quotations attributed to Grace are from my self-published and obscure book Redeeming Grace in the Canon of the Restoration.

President Uchtdorf:

Because we have all “sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and because “there cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God” (1 Nephi 15:34; see also 1 Nephi 10:21; Moses 6:57), every one of us is unworthy to return to God’s presence.

Even if we were to serve God with our whole souls, it is not enough, for we would still be “unprofitable servants” (Mosiah 2:21). We cannot earn our way into heaven; the demands of justice stand as a barrier, which we are powerless to overcome on our own.

Uchtdorf’s use of the word earn is significant, and reflects the eternal reality that fallen, mortal beings, already under divine judgment, do not and cannot earn eternal life.

Nevertheless, where Uchtdorf observes that on our own we are powerless to overcome the demands of justice, what does he mean?

Are we talking about a self-directed salvation facilitated by the enabling help of God, or are we talking about the divinely directed salvation—the divine gift whose procurement and dissemination is the exclusive province of the Son of God—that not only forgives us, but also ultimately elevates us to the glory and stature of Christ?

Are we talking about our overcoming the Fall, sin, and death, and otherwise acquiring absolute immunity to the temptations of the devil and the vicissitudes of life as we dwell as fallen, mortal beings on planet earth, or are we talking about our overcoming the obstacles that get in our way as we come to Christ?

Are we talking about a process of making ourselves suitable to the righteousness and holiness of heaven, or are we talking about the Redeemer, according to his word, making us suitable to heaven and doing so via the new birth of celestial resurrection?

Are we talking about an arduous and steady line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept long haul that begins on earth and continues in heaven, or are we talking about something a bit more supernatural?

The apostle quickly clarifies.

President Uchtdorf:

Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God (see Acts 20:28). Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth.

The first sentence cries out with soteriological clarity not heard from a major pulpit of the Restoration and captures the essence of the comforting doctrine of salvation by grace—

Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of the obedience of fallen, mortal beings, and must be purchased by the singular obedience and work of the sinless and divine Son of God (Romans 5:15-19; 2 Nephi 2:3-4, 6, 8; Alma 42:15).

In other words, Jesus “holds the true currency by which we are ransomed and made recipients of our divine inheritance” (Grace 114), “we do not possess the currency with which to purchase it [salvation]” (Grace 145), and there “is only one who possesses the true currency, and only one who can buy for us the true riches” (Grace 330).

Those who suppose that they contribute to the purchase of their salvation or purchase it outright are like those who claim ownership of the airline when they buy a plane ticket (the obligatory aircraft reference in any Uchtdorf address) or claim ownership of the planet when they pay rent.

The pointed comparisons jolt us to the reality of our fallen, mortal standing, and do not imply that we possess the same spiritual currency that Christ possesses, albeit in smaller amounts.

President Uchtdorf:

Grace is a gift of God, and our desire to be obedient to each of God’s commandments is the reaching out of our mortal hand to receive this sacred gift from our Heavenly Father.

That grace “is a gift of God” is as certain as the fact that “salvation is purchased by the blood of the Son of God,” and the complementary declarations powerfully affirm the testimony of the scriptures.

We receive the gift of grace from the Son of God, and we honor God the Father when we honor his Son (John 5:22-23).

President Uchtdorf:

The prophet Nephi made an important contribution to our understanding of God’s grace when he declared, “We labor diligently … 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” (2 Nephi 25:23; emphasis added).

Enter the citation of the most misinterpreted passage in the canon of the Restoration. The moment Uchtdorf uttered the introductory clause, I said aloud, “Here it comes.”

Will he get it right?

Will someone of standing and authority in the restored church of Christ at last correctly interpret this pivotal verse in the Book of Mormon?

Will this person be no less than a member of the First Presidency, and not some obscure and unknown lay member of the restored church of Christ who shouts at the screen of his television?

President Uchtdorf:

However, I wonder if sometimes we misinterpret the phrase “after all we can do.” We must understand that “after” does not equal “because.”

We Latter-day Saints virtually always—not sometimes—misinterpret the phrase after all we can do.

We deem it a measure of magnitude.

We define it as our best efforts.

We even consider it the maximum possible cumulative sum of the goodness and righteousness of a particular individual based on his or her fallen, mortal spiritual capacity.

We assume that, working together, all we can do and grace secure the salvation that we want.

Some even presume that all we can do is the driver that triggers and sustains the enabling grace that helps us perfect ourselves over the long haul, as we work and work and work and work and work and work—and by long, I mean millennia, or ridiculously and cosmically long spans of time after our own resurrection, whose function is allegedly to confer only immortality.

I remember sitting on the futon, three of my children, ages 11-18, seated around me, and feeling like some worked-up fan watching his team battle in the Super Bowl. I succumbed to the urge to provide additional encouragement. With a surge of adrenalin and spiritual anticipation, I cried, “Do it! Do it! Get it right!” The kids started from their conference-induced reverie that often attends children and youth, and stared at me, their eyes filled with a mixture of concern and annoyance.

Uchtdorf got it right and did so in tremendous fashion—

After does not equal because.

After implies the completion of something that is within the power of fallen, mortal beings to do for themselves.

What might that be?

President Uchtdorf:

We are not saved “because” of all that we can do. Have any of us done all that we can do? Does God wait until we’ve expended every effort before He will intervene in our lives with His saving grace?

Do you understand what Uchtdorf does here?

In one sentence he demolishes a generally accepted, dominant tenet of grace that runs rampant in the popular consciousness and conventional wisdom of the restored church of Christ.

We are not saved by all we can do.

Not even a little bit.

Not one iota.

We are not saved, in a direct and causal sense, by all we can do or anything we can do, for we are fallen, mortal beings, already under divine judgment.

Before resorting to any scriptural support for his thesis, which is obviously and necessarily true, Uchtdorf pursues a line of reasoning that no one in the governing quorums of the restored church of Christ has dared to ponder for as long as I can remember: “Have any of us done all that we can do?”

What is so amazing about the use of this question is that, in this particular remarkable, blessed instance, the question does not open the floodgates of guilt to inundate us with the remembrance of lackluster or feeble performances, but instead acknowledges an undeniable reality of fallen, mortal existence—

Uchtdorf is not asking us to recognize that we must do all we can do.

Uchtdorf is asking us to recognize that we do not do all we can do.

No fallen, mortal being does.

Uchtdorf is under no obligation to answer his first question, for it is rhetorical, and the answer is self-evident.

In other words:

As human beings we are often found not doing our best. In fact, although the admonition to do our best is useful to focus our efforts in the context of discrete, specific moments or activities, it loses its usefulness in the constant, daily effort of life. The interpretive twist meant to take the sting out of the call to perfection inadvertently but predictably creates its own particular hurt as we realize that, in addition to being hopelessly imperfect, we do not always do our best. (Grace 328-329)

Regardless of who we are, whether an apostle or a rank-and-file disciple, none us really want to stand before an omniscient Christ and, similar to the rich young man, assert that, during the entirety of our fallen, mortal lives, we have in fact and in every respect done all we can do.

Only a hardened, incorrigible, self-deluded narcissist of epic proportion would even imagine saying something like that.

The implication is stark—

If the threshold for our receiving grace is doing all we can do, then no fallen, mortal being measures up to this standard.

No one.

Uchtdorf presses the point in his second question: “Does God wait until we’ve expended every effort before He will intervene in our lives with His saving grace?”

This, too, is a rhetorical question, and its answer is readily apparent to anyone who has ever felt the gentle hand of a merciful Savior as his longsuffering, forgiveness, and encouragement bless a life of accumulated unrealized or otherwise lost spiritual potential or accomplishment.

President Uchtdorf:

Many people feel discouraged because they constantly fall short. They know firsthand that “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41; see also Romans 7:19). They raise their voices with Nephi in proclaiming, “My soul grieveth because of mine iniquities” (2 Nephi 4:17).

To be a fallen, mortal being is to fall short.

The more we become aware of the nature of our fallen, mortal condition and the infinite gap separating us from the righteousness of heaven, the more we realize our desperate need for the grace of Jesus, until we echo Nephi’s born-again and spiritually astute expression My soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

Happily, however, we also join Nephi in his joyful conclusion: “O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation” (2 Nephi 4:30) and “O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever” (2 Nephi 4:34).

President Uchtdorf:

I am certain Nephi knew that the Savior’s grace allows and enables us to overcome sin (see 2 Nephi 4:19-35; Alma 34:31). This is why Nephi labored so diligently to persuade his children and brethren “to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God” (2 Nephi 25:23).

After all, that is what we can do! And that is our task in mortality!

Two grand spiritual truths are at work in this statement, and we must understand both of them, and in particular, distinguish the one from the other, or we will fall prey to the same kind of legalistic thinking that creates the original longstanding erroneous appraisal of 2 Nephi 25:23.

Where Uchtdorf declares that “the Savior’s grace allows and enables us to overcome sin,” the apostle is referring to enabling grace because he specifically employs and emphasizes the verb to enable.

What he means is that the Lord helps us overcome sin that would otherwise pull us away from the gospel path.

What Uchtdorf does not mean—and this is of utmost importance for us to understand—is that we ourselves overcome sin, for that divine task belongs to Jesus and to Jesus alone. We do not bring about the divine atonement that begins in Gethsemane and ends on Calvary, and overcomes sin and death, and satisfies the infinite demands of the holy, consuming justice of heaven that, because of the Fall, cry out for us to be permanently deprived of our physical body, and forever exiled from the light and love of God.

We do not overcome sin.

The Lord Jesus overcomes sin.

The two passages that Uchtdorf cites reinforce the distinction between what we do and what Christ does.

Uchtdorf implicitly recognizes this difference where he does something remarkable, something that no one else among the members of the governing quorums of the restored church of Christ has done in at least 44 years, and something that perhaps no one in a position of authority in the Restoration has ever done—

Uchtdorf discerns that the last four words of 2 Nephi 25:23 are a restatement of the sober invitation at the beginning of the verse, which correlation is the one that Nephi desires us to make from the moment he records his teaching some 2,600 years ago.

What is within our power to do as fallen, mortal beings?

What is within our innate ability to do as fallen, mortal beings, who have fallen precisely so that we can be truly free to choose for ourselves what we want?

What is all we can do?

Uchtdorf answers this burning question, and his answer captures the essence of the words of Nephi: All we can do is believe in Christ and be reconciled to God.

This declaration comes like warm summer rain to a barren and parched desert.

In other words:

Nephi explains that “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” Immediately prior to that, he writes that his intent is that we should “believe in Christ,” and “be reconciled to God.” Where Nephi uses the phrase “all we can do,” he does not mean anything apart from believing in Christ and being reconciled to God—through our acceptance of the gospel.

The phrase “after all we can do” does not refer to us expending all our efforts, and does not mean that our best efforts contribute in a causal way to our salvation. The phrase “after all we can do” is not a measure of magnitude, or an expression of intensity of effort.

Indeed, Nephi’s profound, yet apparently unduly esoteric expression “after all we can do” is a fitting description of the only available option at our disposal if we want eternal life. We receive the gift of salvation, eternal life, “after” we do the only thing we can do as fallen mortal beings, which is to come to Christ according to his conditions of mercy. What we do, “all we can do,” is come to Christ, and what he does is save us by his grace. (Grace 111)

All we can do is believe in Christ—the word believe incorporating the totality of the attainable gospel—and be reconciled to God.

Let it be shouted from the rooftops.

Let it be proclaimed throughout the restored church of Christ.

Let it be pondered and studied in the seminaries and institutes.

Let it be taught to the children, to the youth, and to the adults.

Let it be repeated until it forever removes from the Mormon consciousness the distorted notions of best efforts, salvation by joint venture, and a host of other illogical, contradictory, and astoundingly awful assessments of salvation.

Let it bring us back into alignment with the text of the Book of Mormon and the doctrine of grace found therein.

Let it bring us back into alignment with the text of the New Testament and the doctrine of grace found therein, for the record of the Nephites and the writings of the apostles establish the same doctrine of grace.

We are not born on this troubled planet to self-perfect or self-actualize or make ourselves righteous enough to dwell forever in the presence of a holy, perfect God.

Our “task in morality” is to believe in Christ and be reconciled to God, for that is all we can do.

Our “task in mortality” is to believe in Christ and be reconciled to God because we are saved by grace, the redeeming grace of the Son of God.

This is why Nephi labors diligently to write.

This is what Nephi wants us to understand.

This is what Nephi wants us to do, while the short day of our lives plays out on a fallen, mortal stage.

This is the correct interpretation of 2 Nephi 25:23.

Despite the magnificence of Uchtdorf’s soteriological leap forward, we Latter-day Saints have a ways to go if we are to abandon the barren and parched desert of legalism, and take up residence in the verdant and lush oasis of grace.

One of the sermon’s explanations illustrates some of the challenges that remain.

President Uchtdorf:

If grace is a gift of God, why then is obedience to God’s commandments so important? Why bother with God’s commandments—or repentance, for that matter? Why not just admit we’re sinful and let God save us?

Or, to put the question in Paul’s words, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Paul’s answer is simple and clear: “God forbid” (Romans 6:1-2).

Brothers and sisters, we obey the commandments of God—out of love for Him!

Grace is indeed a gift of God, and its highest expression is the gift of eternal life (D&C 14:7).

The three questions that Uchtdorf presents highlight the enduring pervasiveness and power of legalism in the restored church of Christ.

If grace is a gift of God and salvation is free, then—

Why should we be obedient to commandments?

Why should we bother with commandments or repentance?

Why should we not just recognize that we are fallen, mortal beings and let God save us?

In other words, if grace is a gift and salvation is free, then why should we have to do anything to receive them?

Many in the restored church of Christ pose questions like these to argue a thesis diametrically opposed to the one that Uchtdorf champions, and assert that all we can do must contribute in a direct and causal way to our own salvation, for if not, then Christ must save everyone.

Such an argument demonstrates great ignorance about what we do and what Jesus does in the plan of salvation.

Many non-Mormon Christians proclaim that if we must actually do something to come to Christ, then we are not truly saved by grace, and some even contend that if we believe that we must actually do something to come to Christ, then we are not Christian.

Such arguments also demonstrate great ignorance about what we do and what Jesus does in the plan of salvation.

Uchtdorf’s answer is that “we obey the commandments of God—out of love for Him.”

This answer reflects the highest motive for heeding the commandments of God, but another approach to the question is more compelling, and more consistent with Paul’s answer (Romans 6:16) and the architecture of the plan of salvation.

Consider Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, which is the most precise and accurate scriptural metaphor of what Uchtdorf rightly deems “our task in mortality.”

At the beginning of his dream, Lehi finds himself in “a dark and dreary wilderness” (1 Nephi 8:4), a “dark and dreary waste” (1 Nephi 8:7), and “in darkness,” in which he travels “for the space of many hours” (1 Nephi 8:8).

If grace is a gift of God and salvation is free, then why does Lehi not simply stop in the dark and dreary setting, remain in darkness, recognize that he is where he is, and then simply receive by grace the salvation that he wants?

Is my question difficult to understand or answer?

Is my question not in effect equivalent to the three questions that Uchtdorf presents?

After trudging through the darkness for a while, Lehi prays for mercy and he sees “a large and spacious field” (1 Nephi 8:9).

If grace is a gift of God and salvation is free, then why does Lehi not simply stop in the great and spacious field, recognize that he is where he is, and he is how he is, and then simply receive by grace the salvation that he wants?

Is my question difficult to understand or answer?

In the great and spacious field, Lehi sees “a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make on happy” (1 Nephi 8:10).

If grace is a gift of God and salvation is free, then why does Lehi not simply stop within view of the desirable tree, recognize that he is where he is, and he is how he is, and he can see the tree, and then simply receive by grace the salvation that he wants?

Is my question difficult to understand or answer?

Is grace not a gift because Lehi must come to the tree to receive grace (a fullness of grace)?

Is salvation not free because Lehi must come to the tree to receive salvation (a fullness of salvation)?

Perhaps another question might provide some helpful context.

Why is Lehi in this wilderness?

Why is he in this great and spacious field?

Does he not find himself in these circumstances to be free to choose for himself what he wants?

Does he not find himself in these circumstances to demonstrate by his choices what he desires, whether to feast on the fruit of the tree, hobnob with the well-appointed throng of the great and spacious building, or engage in some other endeavor permitted within the parameters of the visionary milieu?

If, in the design of the visionary landscape, choice and the exercise of agency are of paramount importance, then how does Lehi act for himself to obtain the salvation that is free, even salvation by grace?

Latter-day Saints, how does Lehi obtain the salvation that is free, even salvation by grace?

Is my question difficult to understand or answer?

Lehi goes forth and partakes of the fruit (1 Nephi 8:11).

No wonder he later proclaims—

“And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free” (2 Nephi 2:4).

“Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth” (2 Nephi 2:6).

“[N]o flesh … can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah …” (2 Nephi 2:8).

Although Lehi does not seem to notice at the time how he approaches the tree, the prophet, who exercises faith throughout his dream, enters through the gate of repentance and water baptism (2 Nephi 31:17), proceeds along the strait and narrow path defined by the ordinances of salvation (2 Nephi 31:9, 18) and marked by the word of God (1 Nephi 11:25; 15:24), and promptly arrives at the tree.

And Lehi remains there to seal the authenticity of his choice to come to Christ (2 Nephi 31:20), which truth is part of the prescient appeal of Elder Kevin W. Pearson (Stay be the Tree) in the afternoon session on Easter Sunday.

The tree is Jesus, and the fruit that he offers—a fullness of his salvation, to be realized in the infinite leap of celestial resurrection—is free to anyone and everyone who comes to him in the path that the Lord sets before him.

This is the doctrine of Christ (2 Nephi 31).

This is salvation by grace.

This is salvation by redeeming grace.

In Lehi’s dream, the tree does not evoke enabling grace because the tree is fixed and immovable in its location in the great and spacious field. Lehi receives enabling grace as he continues on through the wilderness and the darkness, but he can only receive a fullness of redeeming grace once he arrives at the tree—

The difference is significant, for enabling grace sustains us as we search for the tree, traverse the path that leads to the tree, and stay at the tree, but only redeeming grace forgives, ransoms, redeems, saves, and exalts.

Enabling grace strengthens our fallen, mortal efforts.

Redeeming grace conveys the blessings of Christ’s divine work, and therefore operates independent of us and what we do.

We are saved by redeeming grace.

Legalism, the notion that our obedience secures salvation, insists that all we can do contributes in a direct and causal way to our own salvation, for if not—if grace is a gift and salvation is free—then we should not have to do anything to receive them.

Legalism reasons that because the Lord requires us to do things, grace is not a gift, salvation is not free, and what we do works in tandem with what Jesus does to create salvation.

Legalism therefore concludes that Lehi is at least partially responsible for the existence of the tree and its fruit, and what Lehi does to arrive at the tree and remain there helps place in the great and spacious field the tree and its fruit.

Is the legalistic understanding correct?

Does Lehi plant the tree?

Does Lehi care for or nurture the tree?

Does Lehi cause the tree to bring forth its precious and desirable fruit?

Does Lehi purchase the fruit from the tree?

Does Lehi trade value for value in order to obtain the fruit from the tree?

Does Lehi enter into an impossible contract in order to acquire the fruit from the tree?

Does Lehi do all he can do to plant, or care for or nurture the tree, or cause the tree to bring forth its fruit?

Does Lehi do all he can do to purchase, trade value for value, or comply with impossible contractual terms in order to acquire the fruit from the tree?

Are these questions difficult to understand or answer?

Lehi freely chooses to come to the tree, and the tree freely offers him its fruit.

All Lehi can do is come to the tree.

“All we can do is find the path, walk in it, come to the tree, and partake of its fruit” (Grace 141).

Is salvation not free because Lehi must come to Christ to receive it?

Does anyone really want to argue that salvation by grace is not free because Lehi must come to Christ to get it?

Does anyone really want to argue that salvation by grace is detrimental to our ongoing spiritual progress because we do not, whether in whole or in part, plant the tree, care for or nurture the tree, cause the tree to bring forth its precious and desirable fruit, purchase the fruit, trade value for value in order to obtain the fruit, or comply with the impossible terms of an impossible contract in order to acquire the fruit?

What say you, legalists in the restored church of Christ, those of you who interpret all we can do as a measure of magnitude of effort, preach the doctrine of best efforts, or insist that all we can do refers to the maximum capacity for fallen, mortal goodness that a particular fallen, mortal being might possess?

What say you, legalists in the restored church of Christ, who declare that what we do directly procures a measure of our salvation for us, and what Jesus does makes up the difference?

What say you, legalists in the restored church of Christ, who argue that we perfect ourselves with the ongoing help or enabling grace of Jesus as we continue learning line upon line, precept upon precept, throughout an endless eternity, until at some point we attain the glory and stature of the Son of God?

What President Uchtdorf has said hopefully marks the beginning of the transition from a soteriology steeped in legalism to a soteriology defined by grace, which is the soteriology of the canon of the Restoration.

The redeeming grace of the Restoration does infinitely more and reaches many more souls than the grace of sectarian Christianity can even begin to fathom, and we would do well to proclaim and expound that truth rather than conceal it under a suffocating bushel of cause-and-effect legalism.

What Uchtdorf has started other members of the governing quorums of the restored church of Christ and rank-and-file Latter-day Saints must help him finish, for I fear that he might be alone or at least relatively lonely in his bold and courageous exposition.

We have a ways to go, but we can get there.

Make no mistake—the imperative is not to create new doctrine, but to rediscover and affirm the truthfulness of old doctrine.

What lies ahead includes coming to a correct understanding of (a) condescension, which is part of the doctrine of grace and atonement, (b) the ideal or perfect-day language of covenants and certain commandments, and (c) the effects and operation of intercession in the plan of salvation.

Nevertheless, we have great reason to rejoice and be glad—

Gone is the notion that all we can do is a measure of magnitude of effort.

Gone is the notion that all we can do is a doctrine of best-efforts justification.

Gone is the notion that all we can do is the totality of the spiritual capacity for goodness that a particular fallen, mortal soul might possess.

Gone is the notion that all we can do cocreates salvation.

Gone are the notions of an unattainable threshold.

In one fell swoop, President Uchtdorf has struck down a formidable tetrad of erroneous, oppressive, and legalistic appraisals of grace and atonement, and buried the wicked distortions deep in the earth as a testimony that we Latter-day Saints will use them no more.

Only a zombie army of reanimated unrepentant Pharisees would ever want to see such things exhumed and restored to a place of soteriological prominence.

With one focused and forceful push, President Uchtdorf has brought the most misinterpreted passage in the canon of the Restoration back into alignment with the other words of Nephi and the complete text of the Book of Mormon, and reestablished, with regard to the matter of grace, the fundamental agreement between the New World and Old World testaments of Christ.

Latter-day Saints, recognize the profound significance of Uchtdorf’s sermon, read it and ponder it and understand it, keep a copy in your church bag or briefcase or purse, and remember that in the morning session of General Conference on Easter Sunday in the year 2015, some 185 years after the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, we as a people began to comprehend the true meaning of the pivotal and vitally important saying of Nephi (2 Nephi 25:23), and Nephi stopped turning over in his grave.

Blessed be the Lord, even Jesus of Nazareth, who suffers and dies for the world, rises in celestial resurrection, and freely offers his salvation to anyone and everyone who will freely come to him in the path of his attainable gospel—

Believe in Christ and be reconciled to God,

For we know that it is by grace that we are saved,

After all we can do,

Which is believe in Christ and be reconciled to God.

Amen, Nephi, whose views of the gospel of Jesus are plain and precious, if we have eyes to see.

Amen, President Uchtdorf, for at last the spot-on intention and substance of the subtle yet impactful wordplay of 2 Nephi 25:23 comes to our collective attention.

Amen and amen.

Happy Easter.

Be Ye Therefore Perfect

I devote this post to a translation of Christ’s confounding commandment “Be ye therefore perfect …” (Matthew 5:48).

In his April 3, 2011 General Conference address, An Ensign to the Nations, Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, explains:

Obviously as the path of discipleship ascends, that trail gets ever more narrow until we come to that knee-buckling pinnacle of the sermon of which Elder Christofferson just spoke: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). What was gentle in the lowlands of initial loyalty becomes deeply strenuous and very demanding at the summit of true discipleship. …

Translation:

So the commandment to be perfect is “the summit of true discipleship”?

Such that—

Disciples of Christ are expected to summit the peak of perfection?

And being perfect is just another step—albeit an advanced one—in the gospel of Jesus, just like the commandments to believe and be baptized?

And “the path of discipleship ascends” and “gets ever more narrow until we come to that knee-buckling pinnacle,” because that same path of discipleship is “gentle in the lowlands of initial loyalty” but “deeply strenuous and very demanding at the summit”?

And, presumably, less-fit, less-suitable, less-talented, less-able disciples necessarily drop out before the peak because the climb is, well, “knee-buckling”?

So we believe, we repent, we receive the ordinances of salvation, we endure in faith, and we get so good at being good that we eventually achieve perfection at the apex of our seasoned and super-charged discipleship?

I see.

No big deal.

No problem.

No impossible Mormon gospel here—just a bunch of rank-and-file disciples becoming perfect, one step at a time, on a tapering trail rising precipitously upward to the infinite.

Despite the fact that the writers of the Book of Mormon (or the New Testament) never speak of fallen-mortal-powered divine ascent as part of discipleship, the children of the Restoration cannot seem to get enough of the idea—

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you no rest, for my yoke is infinitely hard, and my burden is knee-buckling.

What Lehi sees in vision some 2,600 years ago is apparently passé, outdated, and insufficient in the modern era of the Restoration.

What does the Savior of the world mean where he says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), or, “I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48)?

Is Jesus really commanding us to self-actualize spiritually and through our own fallen, mortal strivings attain the divine?

What does the Savior of the world mean where he says, “Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life” (3 Nephi 15:9)?

Given a choice between the two alternatives—be perfect or endure in faithfulness to the end—which would you prefer?

Which alternative affords you a realistic opportunity for success?

Which option gives you hope to measure up to the particular standard?

Why does the Lord on many occasions employ the language of the perfect day, and frequently shift between it and the language of the attainable gospel?

Time for a story—

There was a truly good and magnanimous king who ruled over a far-away kingdom, a place of unequaled happiness and glory.

Desiring to bring others to his realm, the king left his kingdom and journeyed to another place, a mixed bag of good and evil, happiness and misery, and in all ways inferior to the grandeur of the king’s home.

The king diligently taught the people, and plainly and repeatedly told them that he was the only one who could bring them to his kingdom.

One day, the king, desiring to make the people carefully ponder and remember his sayings, decided to do something different, something provocative. Having gathered the people around him on a mountain, he said, “Come to my kingdom.”

Afterward, a few who had heard the king got into an argument.

The first said, “He told us to come to his kingdom, so we should do that.”

The second responded, “But he always says that he is the only one who can bring us to his kingdom.”

The third speculated, “Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe we can go ourselves.”

“Look,” said the first, “he would not tell us to do something that we can’t do.  You heard what he said. He said, ‘Come to my kingdom,’ so we wants us to do it.”

The third speculated, “Because he is the only one who can bring us to his kingdom, maybe he is going to help us go ourselves.”

The first liked this interpretation. “Yes, the king wants us to go to his kingdom, and he is going to help us go there, but we have to do it.”

The second was perplexed by this line of reasoning, but could not formulate a convincing rebuttal, so he said nothing.

Intermission—

If Moroni had not included one of his father’s sermons in the Book of Mormon, then we would not have a definitive solution to the puzzle of the commandments of the perfect day, one of which is Be ye therefore perfect.

Mormon imparts a commandment of the perfect day:

19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ. (Moroni 7:19; emphasis added)

This sounds a lot like the Lord’s command to be perfect so that we “may be the children of [our] Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:45).

As fallen, mortal beings, how are we supposed to “lay hold upon every good thing”—the word every likely indicating a commandment of the perfect day—so that we may “be a child of Christ”?

Mormon wonders the same thing:

20 And now, my brethren, how is it possible that ye can lay hold upon every good thing? (Moroni 7:20, emphasis added)

Can you hear the undiscerning and unthinking responses?

The Lord would never command us to do something that we cannot do.

The Lord will help us do what we cannot do as long as we keep trying.

The Lord will give us the strength to do what we cannot do because nothing is impossible for him.

And so on.

How does Mormon answer his own question?

He reveals the interpretive key that unlocks the meaning behind the impossibly difficult directives found in commandments of the perfect day:

22 For behold, God … sent angels to minister unto the children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing.

23 And God also declared unto prophets, by his own mouth, that Christ should come.

24 And behold … all things which are good cometh of Christ; otherwise men were fallen, and there could no good thing come unto them.

25 Wherefore, by the ministering of angels, and by every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith, they did lay hold upon every good thing; and thus it was until the coming of Christ.

26 And after that he came men also were saved by faith in his name; and by faith, they become the sons of God. … (Moroni 7:22-26; emphasis added)

How do you lay hold upon every good thing?

You cannot.

I cannot.

We cannot lay hold upon every good thing because we are fallen—“[O]therwise men were fallen, and there could no good thing come unto them” (24).

Only in Christ, who is divine (and not fallen), comes “every good thing” (22).

Therefore, our only option, even “all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23), is “exercise faith in Christ” and thereby “lay hold upon ever good thing” (25).

The command to lay hold upon every good thing is a command to come to Christ in the path of the attainable gospel, whose gateway principle is faith.

Unless otherwise hampered by mortal impairments, we can all choose the navigable path of faith in Christ.

By exercising faith in Christ, a blessedly attainable standard, we not only lay hold upon every good thing but also heed the injunction to be perfect, because if we come to Christ, then he raises us up in a celestial resurrection, in which we literally lay hold upon every good thing and become perfect, the crowned heirs and glorified children of God.

In other words, the command Be perfect is an invitation to believe in Christ and come to him in the path of his attainable gospel.

Back to the story—

Nearby, a father and his young son were also discussing the words of the king.

“Dad,” began the child, “the king said, ‘Come to my kingdom,’ so shouldn’t we go”?

The father answered, “Son, the king is the only one who can bring us to his kingdom. He has said as much many times.”

“But,” protested the child, “why would he tell us to do something that we can’t do”?

“You have just answered your own question,” replied the father, “and now you just need to understand the implication of what you just said.”

“What do you mean?”

“Son, if I have a key that unlocks the house, and I am the only one who has the key, and I tell you many times that I am the only one who has the key—are you following me?”

“Yes, dad. You have the key, and you are the only one who has the key.”

“Right. Now, if I tell you to go into the house, then what am I really asking you to do?”

“Can I break in?”

“What?”

“Can I break into the house?”

“No.”

“Can I find some other way to get into the house?”

“You are a clever boy, son, but the answer is still no.”

“Are you sure that there’s no other way to get into the house?”

“Yes, son, there is no other way.”

The young boy thought for a moment, and then the light of discovery lit up his face like a bright lamp illuminates a dark room. “I know, dad. What you are asking me to do is come to you so that you can open the door for me.”

“Yes, son, that is exactly what I am asking you to do.”

“You know, dad, the answer is really obvious when you think about it.”

“Yes, it is.”

The boy at last understood. “The king is the only one who can bring us to his kingdom, so we have to go to him, and he will let us enter, because he has the key.”

The father, having already thought through the problem, was pleased. “Yes, he has the key, and by telling us to come to his kingdom, he is telling us to come to him so that he may grant us entrance.”

Latter-day Saints, those of you who refuse to comprehend or accept the simple yet profound meaning behind the commandments of the perfect day, when you become disheartened and depressed and sad because you finally crash into the inescapable conclusion that perfection forever eludes even our best efforts, however divinely assisted they may be, crack the code—

Come to your senses and comprehend the true nature of the task that falls to you in the plan of salvation.

And do not ever again conflate, confuse, or mistake what you do with what Jesus does in that divine plan, or tell anyone else to do what only Jesus can do.

Come to Christ in the attainable path of his gospel, and let him realize in you the hope and promise of the commandments of the perfect day.

The Justice and Mercy of God

I devote this post to a translation of a portion of the September 2013 Ensign article, The Justice and Mercy of God, “from a fireside address, ‘Borne Upon Eagles’ Wings,’” by Jeffrey R. Holland and “delivered on June 2, 1974, at Brigham Young University.”

Elder Holland, regarding the “Justice of God”:

A basic principle of Latter-day Saint doctrine is that we have to know that God is just in order to go forward. One of God’s attributes is justice, and we would not have the faith—because of fear—to live righteously or to love better or to repent more readily if somehow we didn’t think that justice would count for us, if somehow we thought God would change His mind and decide there was another set of rules (See Lectures on Faith [1985], 50-54). Because we know that God is just and would cease to be God if He weren’t so, we have the faith to go forward, knowing that we will not be the victims of whimsy or caprice or a bad day or a bad joke. That assurance is very encouraging. (Alma 34:16).

Translation:

Does “justice,” “[o]ne of God’s attributes,” divine and holy perfect justice, “count for us”?

Do we correctly expect such justice to protect or shelter us, or otherwise come to our aid or defense?

Is the consuming absolute justice of God, a defining characteristic of the divine nature, our friend?

Does knowledge of that singular justice bestow on us “the faith to go forward” because we realize that we are not “the victims of whimsy or caprice or a bad day or a bad joke”?

Is the justice of God, an innate quality of the Almighty, “very encouraging” to fallen, mortal beings, all of us similarly situated among the fallen, mortal family of Adam and Eve?

No.

I marvel at such an appraisal of the awful and fearful justice of God in its raw, unmitigated form, completely removed from the context of Christ and the plan of salvation, for this divine trait per se is terrible and dreadful; it demands nothing less than the eternal banishment of the fallen, mortal Adam and Eve in the company of all their children, and the permanent repossession of our temporal bodies.

Elder Holland, regarding the “Mercy of God”:

Then I had another thought. How grateful I was that because God is who He is, He has to be a merciful God also. In Alma 42, after Alma had established with Corianton that God had to be just, he declared that that same God would have to be merciful as well and that mercy would claim the penitent. …

…

A favorite British scholar said: “I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A [mathematical] sum [incorrectly worked] can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and [then] working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1946), viii).

So God is just, “mercy claimeth the penitent” (Alma 42:23), and evil can be undone.

…

… I know that we must repent of our sins and that God has to be just, but I take great delight in the scriptures and in the words of the living prophets that where sin abounds, grace may much more abound and that “mercy claimeth the penitent.”

Translation:

As fallen, mortal beings, do we directly confront the justice of God, one part of him that defines “who He is”?

As fallen, mortal beings, do we have any reason whatsoever to suppose that we can successfully manage the consequences of this justice because the same God who is just “has to be a merciful God also”?

As fallen, mortal beings, do we face the unmitigated extremes of the holy justice and mercy of God?

How does the expression of the justice and mercy of God manifest themselves to fallen, mortal beings?

Holland, interpreting the words of Alma, argues that “God had to be just” and “that same God would have to be merciful as well.”

How?

The apostle does not specify, and leaves us to ponder a scenario in which the competing claims of divine justice and mercy attempt to assert their particular jurisdiction over us.

Indeed—

God help us if his justice, the justice that makes him who he is, somehow gains the upper hand.

God help us if we are not “penitent” and therefore fall prey to the demands of justice.

God help us if “mercy claimeth the penitent” (Alma 42:23), and we are not found among that blessed group.

How do we become numbered among the penitent?

Turning to C. S. Lewis, Holland finds his metaphors of choice—

Make an error in the calculation of math problem?

Go back, fix the error, and redo the problem.

Want to undo an evil?

Go back, eliminate it, and proceed from there.

What is the reasonable implication of such an analysis?

Want to repent?

Go back, find the error, fix it, and then move forward.

Not just one error, but all of them.

All the imperfections.

All the mistakes.

All the missteps.

All that makes us fallen, mortal beings.

Go back and fix it—fix it all—perhaps even to the boundaries of Eden.

Is this the “assurance” that is “very encouraging”?

Is this the prescribed methodology for fallen, mortal beings to successfully navigate the justice of God?

Is this how “evil” is “undone”?

I marvel at such an appraisal of the alleged mercy of God. It becomes like a royal treasury surrounded by castle walls and impenetrable fortifications that make the gift inaccessible to everyone.

I marvel at the explanation that we must “repent of our sins” because “God has to be just,” and his justice is sure to find us if any of the calculations of our lives are wrong, or any part of them is evil.

How do we comply with “justice,” “[o]ne of God’s attributes,” divine and holy perfect justice, such that it “count[s] for us”?

We do not (Alma 42:15).

We cannot (Alma 42:6, 11-12, 14).

Jesus can (Alma 42:15).

Jesus does (Alma 42:15).

In Christ Jesus and his atonement—not in us and what we do—the divine attributes of justice and mercy find their full expression.

The Savior, having independently and completely satisfied the demands of divine justice, acquires the power to administer a “plan of mercy” (Alma 42:15, 31)—not a plan of justice and mercy, but a plan of mercy—for the benefit of fallen, mortal beings—we who fall to be free (Alma 42:7).

The Lord reserves the fullness of his mercy for those who comply with his “conditions of repentance” (Alma 42:13), even “the penitent” (Alma 42:23), those who come to Christ in the attainable path of his attainable gospel.

But are those who are not penitent excluded from any measure of the mercy of Jesus?

No.

Those who are not penitent still receive at least some measure of the mercy of Jesus. (Even sons of perdition rise in a resurrection that gives them power over the devil and his angels.)

In his benchmark treatise on the justice and mercy of God, Alma never declares that the impenitent are utterly cut off from the mercy of God; rather, the prophet firmly decrees that, among those who have sufficient knowledge, “none but the truly penitent are saved” (Alma 42:24)—that is, covered by a fullness of the grace of Jesus, raised in glory, and elevated to heaven in the full presence of God.

Those in the restored church of Christ who insist that mercy comes only to the penitent should remember that Alma’s answer to his son Corianton (Alma 42) concerns the special case of sons of perdition (Alma 42:1)—those who, with eyes open, raise the sword against God—not the general case of humanity at large. Consequently, Alma uses justice—the justice of the Son of God—to illustrate the extreme of damnation, and mercy—the mercy of the Son of God—to illustrate the extreme of salvation. In between these two extremes lies a spectrum of mercy.

The legalism that runs rampant among the Latter-day Saints  insists, contrary to scripture, that we fallen, mortal beings can measure up to the justice of God, the divine attribute manifest in his holy, perfect existence, and find protection in the divine construct that in reality seeks our eternal destruction.

The justice of God is so exacting, so demanding, so infinitely unforgiving that only Jesus can confront it. For this reason, in the plan of salvation, Jesus contends with and forever silences the justice of God.

We face the justice of the attainable gospel arising from the merciful atonement of Christ, which gospel is first and foremost a gospel of mercy, and which atonement, by nature, establishes a generous spectrum of salvation for fallen, mortal beings.

The “‘right road’” is the attainable road to Christ, which road we indeed traverse “‘by simply going on,’” for we cannot undo all our wrong steps—all we can do is abandon the false paths, find the right road, and walk its attainable course.

If we Latter-day Saints struggle to come to grips with the competing claims of the justice and mercy of God in the plan of salvation, then how are we to know Christ?

Clearly, Christ settles that conflict (Alma 42:15).

How does that fact escape our collective understanding?

How does that fact find little or no mention in our framing of the issue?

How do we misplace or gloss over something like that?

The Origin of Man

I devote this post to a translation of a portion of the February 2002 Ensign article, The Origin of Man, a reprint of the November 1909 First Presidency statement on the creation of the earth and the matter of evolution.

First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Anthon H. Lund):

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.

Translation:

The concluding paragraph of an otherwise careful, circumspect, and compelling argument for the origin (if there is such a thing) and highest destiny of the human family regrettably and unnecessarily adopts the vernacular and methodology of the alleged science that the First Presidency desires to challenge, and conspicuously omits the irreplaceable utility of the divine catalyst Jesus.

Fallen, mortal children “in due time” indeed become like their fallen, mortal parents.

But fallen, mortal beings do not, through a process of “experience through ages and aeons,” attain a divine stature and standing.

Moreover, fallen, mortal beings do not, through a process of natural selection and survival of the fittest in the midst of a compound-in-one existence governed by chaotic, random chance, come to state of being enjoyed by celestial, perfected, and glorified parents.

We fallen, mortal beings do not evolve into heavenly beings.

Consequently, to adopt the language of the biological evolutionists—even for the sum total of eight words—is to necessarily step in it and get it all over you.

The evolutionists believe that, given enough time and the liberal application of random processes, nature, in and of itself—even the universe or whatever is before the alleged big bang spontaneously erupts—is capable of producing just about anything.

This is a primary notion of macroevolution, accepted and embraced by the same kind of confused mind that advances the spurious assertion that God is not required to explain the universe.

The argument that “by experience through ages and aeons” we attain the realms of glory diminishes and dismisses the efficacy and operation of the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ, the lifeblood of the plan of salvation.

Lehi understands that the atonement wrought by the Son of God reflects eternal realities of good and evil, the often-misunderstood “opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11).

Lehi understands that the contradictory cosmos of the evolutionists is a “compound in one” (2 Nephi 2:11), a strange, pointless reality that is itself impossible—as impossible as human beings evolving into divine beings—which is why Lehi employs the didactic construct to demonstrate the divine authorship of creation, whose ultimate objective is give us freedom, and allow us to choose “liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men” (2 Nephi 2:27).

Lehi understands that, regardless of the accumulation of experience and the passage of ages and aeons, “no flesh … can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8), and no flesh attains that glory, save it be through the mechanism of resurrection (D&C 88:27-29).

If President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors were given the opportunity to revise the concluding paragraph of their original statement, then I believe it would read something like this:

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons by the acceptance of Christ and the subsequent receipt through his grace of the celestial resurrection, of evolving into becoming a God.

(Note that I use become the same way that the writers of Book of Mormon use the important verb.)

This revision is consistent with the canon of the Restoration.

The original, a conciliatory attempt to express divine truth in the language of godless evolution, is not.

 

Becoming a True Disciple

I devote this post to a translation of a portion of the October 7, 2012 General Conference address, Becoming a True Disciple, given by Daniel L. Johnson of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Johnson:

Making the covenant to be a disciple of Christ is the beginning of a lifelong process, and the path is not always easy. As we repent of our sins and strive to do what He would have us do and serve our fellowmen as He would serve them, we will inevitably become more like Him. Becoming like Him and being one with Him is the ultimate goal and objective—and essentially the very definition of true discipleship.

As the Savior asked His disciples when He visited the American continent, “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be?” And then, answering His own question, He said, “Verily I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27).

…

Again, becoming like Him and being one with Him is the ultimate goal and objective—and essentially the very definition of true discipleship.

Translation:

Is becoming like Christ the “ultimate goal and objective,” even “the very definition of true discipleship”?

Moreover, is the process of discipleship how we become like Christ?

This seems to be the predominant, unchallenged view of those in the governing quorums of the restored church of Christ.

We are in a “lifelong process” to become like him as we “repent of our sins and strive to do what He would have us do and serve our fellowmen as He would serve them.”

At the end of this “lifelong process,” we apparently become like him.

We become just like Jesus.

We become suitable to the environment and demands of a holy, perfect heaven.

Is anyone among the governing quorums of the restored church of Christ ever going to push back against this interpretation of the scriptures, or is Jesus now merely the provider of empowered principles that allow us to raise ourselves to heaven and a state of divine self-actualization?

What is “true discipleship”?

Do we fallen, mortal beings have to be carbon copies of Christ to be his true disciples?

Jesus tells the believing Jews:

31 … If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:31-32)

Continue or become?

That is, are we fallen, mortal beings to continue in his word to be his disciples, or must we fallen, mortal beings become like him to be his disciples?

Is there a difference?

I suppose not, if you happen to measure up to Christ.

Although Nephi does not use the word disciple, he does unmistakably describe our lives as disciples of Christ. In his final commentary to his people, Nephi explains that what he has written “speaketh of Jesus, and persuadeth [us] to believe in him, and to endure to the end, which is life eternal” (2 Nephi 33:4). Nephi also declares that we must “be reconciled unto Christ, and enter into the narrow gate, and walk in the strait path which leads to life, and continue in the path until the end of the day of probation” (2 Nephi 33:9).

Nephi does not indicate that we must be like Jesus to be his disciples.

Maybe Nephi understands the fundamental difference between the divine Christ and his fallen, mortal disciples.

Jesus tells his apostles:

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:34-35)

Love one another or love like he loves?

That is, to be his disciples, are we fallen, mortal beings residing on the relevant range of fallen mortality to turn away from the pride of the world and love one another, or must we fallen mortal beings actually love like he loves?

Jesus challenges great multitudes:

26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

27 And whosoever doth not bear his across, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26-33)

Because the Lord combines attainable standards of salvation with commandments of the perfect day, this passage is an interpretational minefield.

Johnson does not understand the command of the risen Christ to be like he is (3 Nephi 27:27) because Johnson does not distinguish attainable standards of salvation from commandments of the perfect day.

Where Jesus writes that we must hate family members, he means that family members must not keep us from following him.

Where Jesus writes that we must hate our own lives, he means that we must not place our own lives above following him.

Where Jesus speaks of constructing a tower, he is referring to a tower of endurance in his attainable gospel (JST Luke 14:31), not a tower of self-constructed Christ-like perfection.

Where Jesus speaks of forsaking all that we have, he is telling us to not let any worldly concern stop us from coming to him in the path of his attainable gospel.

And finally, where Jesus commands us to be perfect like he is, he is commanding us to come to him in the path of his attainable gospel so that he may raise us up in a celestial resurrection to heavenly glory, not to embark on an eternal do-it-yourself eternal makeover.

In the true gospel of Christ, the ideal points to him, not us. The ideal is his gift to us, not our task to do for ourselves, either with or without his help.

Today in the restored church of Christ, where is the recognition of the infinite gap separating us from the holiness and righteousness of heaven?

How has this eternal discontinuity come to be bridged by a lifetime of our diligence and devotion?

Why are we so comfortable with a methodology that ignores the elevating and exalting power of celestial resurrection and therefore condemns us to an endless eternity of alleged becoming?

We do not embrace the gospel of Christ to transform ourselves to the image and stature of the divine.

The “ultimate goal and objective,” even “the very definition of true discipleship,” is to genuinely, devotedly, and enduringly come to Christ, for that is all we fallen, mortal beings have the power to do.

And that task alone leaves plenty to do for all Latter-day Saints, even the flesh-and-blood would-be practitioners of the divine among us.

2 Nephi 10 Chapter Heading Follow-Up

I devote this post to the fact that the chapter headings of the online scriptures at lds.org do not necessarily match the headings in the printed version of the standard works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Maybe this comes as no surprise to you, but I am still thoroughly shocked. In the last several years and for literally thousands of hours, I have looked up and studied passages in the online canon of the Restoration, and never—not once—have I noticed this discrepancy (maybe that is because I do not pay much attention to the chapter headings).

You see, I was attempting to show my teenage son the erroneous “Reconcile yourselves to God” part of the chapter heading of 2 Nephi 10, and he said, “Dad, that’s not in the chapter heading,” but not before his nine-year-old brother furrowed his brow and exclaimed, “We don’t reconcile ourselves to God; Jesus does!”

Pleased by the younger son’s response but Perplexed by his older brother’s, I stared incredulously at the printed copy of the scriptures, and I realized that the 2 Nephi 10 chapter heading is “Be reconciled to God” and reasonably summarizes the substance of 2 Nephi 10:24: “[R]econcile yourselves to the will of God …”

I then scrutinized my computer screen, and saw that the online version of the chapter heading is different and reads: “Reconcile yourselves to God,” which is what all this fuss is about.

Someone of importance has apparently concluded that Reconcile yourselves to God carries the same meaning as Be reconciled to God.

Intrigued by his father’s apparent inability to correctly recall chapter headings in the Book of Mormon, the older son then asked me to read the online chapter headings of the next several chapters, 2 Nephi 11, 12, and 13, while he followed along in the printed edition of the scriptures. All I can say now is that whoever is in charge of the online version of the scriptures believes that we members of the church do not have any idea what to do with the word shall, and therefore has replaced the offensive, archaic, and otherwise confusing shall with will.

Thank goodness.

After all, what does shall mean? Maybe the upcoming generation has never seen the word.

Given the continuing decline of the English language visible in the arena of mobile phone texting, I wonder if the relevant part of the online chapter heading to 2 Nephi 10 might someday simply read: DIY YOLO.

Last week I used the feedback option available in the online scriptures to suggest that Reconcile yourselves to God is the complete opposite of Be reconciled to God.

Perhaps I shall will get an answer.

In the meantime, however, I have learned an important lesson—

There is certainly no danger in the well-intentioned attempt to simplify the gospel of Christ.

Indeed, in our efforts to better communicate the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus, we Latter-day Saints shall will never inadvertently distort or otherwise do violence to the old, lofty, precise language of scripture when we paraphrase it, modify it, or simplify it.

I have an idea.

Given that the manner of expression in the latest edition of the standard works is more than 30 years old and is therefore likely now too complicated, burdensome, and complex for the rising technology generation of thumb-gifted, Call of Duty Latter-day Saints, perhaps the same folks who take liberties with the chapter headings should expand the elucidating work to the content of the canon of the Restoration.

For example, no member of the restored church of Christ should have to wrestle with passages like this one in the Book of Mormon:

And because of the intercession for all, all men come unto God; wherefore, they stand in the presence of him, to be judged of him according to the truth and holiness which is in him. Wherefore, the ends of the law which the Holy One hath given, unto the inflicting of the punishment which is affixed, which punishment that is affixed is in opposition to that of the happiness which is affixed, to answer the ends of the atonement— (2 Nephi 2:10)

I mean really, what does this mean? It is not even a complete sentence.

Perhaps we would be better served by something like this:

Like, apply the atonement in your own life, do some church, scriptures, pray and stuff, Jesus, whatever, it’s all good, DWBH.

And passages in the Doctrine & Covenants like this one are just plain incomprehensible:

I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding clink of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. (D&C 128:18)

Why do we even need that? It makes my head hurt.

Instead, why not have something like this:

Dude, do your genealogy already.

I apologize if you think that in this post I am imitating the subtle, delicate, and nuanced style of the right-wing goddess Ann Coulter, but like, you know, whatever, IMS, SBI, SBTA, SCNR, soz …

LHM

2 Nephi 10 Chapter Heading

I devote this post to an examination of one sentence in the chapter heading of 2 Nephi 10 in the Book of Mormon:

… Reconcile yourselves to God and gain salvation through his grace.

I am currently working on a book about Zion, and as I was nearing the conclusion of a chapter about the prophecy of 2 Nephi 6-10, the Chapter 10 heading leaped off the page at me: “Reconcile yourselves to God and gain salvation through his grace.”

There is nothing amiss in the notion of gaining “salvation through his [the Lord’s] grace,” but there is something terribly wrong in paraphrasing 2 Nephi 10:24 such that we “[r]econcile [ourselves] to God.”

We reconcile ourselves to God?

Really?

Before reading the following paragraphs, look up 2 Nephi 10:24 and compare its content to the applicable component of the chapter heading of 2 Nephi 10. Ask yourself if the substance of 2 Nephi 10:24 and the summary of the chapter heading are in agreement.

If not, then—

Is Jacob mistaken?

Or is part of the chapter heading mistaken?

If you cannot tell the difference between the verse and the paraphrasing, then I cannot help you. Little of what I write will make any sense to you unless we both defer to the plain meaning of words in the scriptures.

Jacob writes one of the most important soteriological passages in the Book of Mormon:

24 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. (2 Nephi 10:24; emphasis added)

This verse confirms the true meaning of 2 Nephi 25:23, the most misinterpreted passage in the canon of the Restoration.

Does Jacob tell us to reconcile ourselves to God?

Can you comprehend the enormous difference between reconciling ourselves to God and reconciling ourselves “to the will of God”?

The former is legalism, salvation by contract.

The latter is grace, salvation by condescension.

Legalism presumes that we can indeed reconcile ourselves to God as we go from bad to good to better to best to Christlike and perfect (or however the sequence goes in the conventional wisdom of many in the restored church of Christ).

Grace knows otherwise. Grace invites us to come to Christ—to find and enter the strait and narrow path, endure until we arrive at the tree of life, and remain there under the cover of a fullness of grace until the time of our probation is done.

We fallen, mortal beings cannot reconcile ourselves to God.

How is it possible to have “Reconcile yourselves to God” in the chapter heading of 2 Nephi 10? How many eyes in the hierarchical review see that phrase and miss it, or rather, think it is just fine? How many years have I seen that phrase and not noticed how utterly appalling it is? I wrote a book on grace, and only this week did I finally discern the gross error in the chapter heading.

If we understood condescension, then “Reconcile yourselves to God” would explode off the page and cry out for correction. If we understood condescension, then everyone who saw “Reconcile yourselves to God” would immediately recognize the error.

If we understood … condescension.

But we do not understand condescension.

And that is why “Reconcile yourselves to God” appears in the chapter heading of 2 Nephi 10, and no one notices.

We are in a church full of legalists, and we are immersed in legalism. “Reconcile yourselves to God” seems perfectly reasonable. After all, that is what we consistently, institutionally, and circumspectly teach in one way or another. We speak of Christ, and then we leave him behind and talk about the real work of personal salvation that falls to us.

What a fitting moniker for this generation!

What a fitting moniker for the theologians and intelligentsia in the restored church of Christ since at least the 1970s.

“Reconcile yourselves to God.”

Indeed.

Jacob writes elsewhere:

11 Wherefore, beloved brethren, be reconciled unto him [the Lord, the Lord God of Israel, Jehovah, who from the beginning wields the authority of God the Father and with regard to us stands in his place] through the atonement of Christ, his Only Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a resurrection, according to the power of the resurrection which is in Christ, and be presented as the first-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith, and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh. (Jacob 4:11; emphasis added)

Who reconciles whom to God?

This is a wonderfully important question, especially for us Latter-day Saints in our inability to distinguish who does what in the plan of salvation, tendency to blur the line between what Jesus does and what we do, and knack for progressively diminishing the atonement and grossly exaggerating the utility of our own agency.

How does Jacob answer the question?

Who reconciles whom to God?

I suspect that we probably know how the apostle Paul answers the question, but he is, after all, just the troublesome Paul in the New Testament:

18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20; emphasis added)

Jacob and Paul know the same Lord.

Jacob and Paul know who reconciles them to God.

Do we?

Nephi writes:

9 I also have charity for the Gentiles. But behold, for none of these can I hope except they shall be reconciled unto Christ, and enter into the narrow gate, and walk in the strait path which leads to life, and continue in the path until the end of the day of probation. (2 Nephi 33:9; emphasis added)

This statement is the third member of a grace triumvirate in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 10:24, 2 Nephi 25:23, 2 Nephi 33:9).

Nephi tells the American Gentiles (and everyone else): “[B]e reconciled unto Christ.” This is the same as saying: Be reconciled unto God. Nephi knows the lofty proxy station that Christ, the Lord God of Israel, holds with regard to us fallen, mortal beings. Like his father, Nephi knows that “there is a God, and he is Christ …” (2 Nephi 11:7). Nephi knows that the Son reconciles us to the Father. If the Son reconciles us to the Father, if Jesus reconciles us to God, then for us the question becomes: How do we come to Christ? Nephi answers, by reference to the vision of the tree of life, his own question: “[E]nter into the narrow gate, and walk in the strait path which leads to life, and continue in the path until the end of the day of probation.”

We do not reconcile ourselves to God.

Christ reconciles us to God.

We come to Christ.

For a more comprehensive discussion of who reconciles whom to God in the plan of salvation, see Chapter 4: Distinguishing the Cause from the Conditions in the book Redeeming Grace in the Canon of the Restoration (Amazon CreateSpace and Kindle).

Beware Concerning Yourselves

I devote this post to a translation of a portion of the October 6, 2012 Priesthood Session address, Beware Concerning Yourselves, given by Anthony D. Perkins of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Perkins:

When I was a young man, our family would drive over America’s Rocky Mountains to visit grandparents. The road began in sagebrush flatlands, ascended through steep, pine-covered slopes, and ultimately emerged into aspen groves and mountaintop meadows, where we could see almost forever.

But this beautiful road was not perfectly safe. Much of the highway was carved into the steep mountainside. To protect travelers, road builders constructed guardrails and placed signs that read, “Beware: Falling Rocks.” We observed ample reason for these warnings. Rocks and boulders were strewn along the riverbed far below the road. Occasionally we could see crumpled cars on the canyon bottom, a tragic record of drivers who failed to beware.

Brethren, each of you has entered, or will soon enter, into the oath and covenant of the Melchizedek Priesthood (see Doctrine and Covenants 84:33-44). In that covenant is embedded a glorious journey that begins with receiving both the lesser and higher priesthoods, progresses through magnifying our callings, and climbs ever upward to God’s grandest vistas, until we receive “all that [the] Father hath” (Doctrine & Covenants 84:38).

The wise designer of that celestial road has erected caution signs for our journey. The oath and covenant of the priesthood contains this soul-searching warning: “I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves” (Doctrine & Covenants 84:43).

Translation:

Like Nash’s gospel trail up treacherous Huayna Picchu, Perkins’ Rocky Mountain priesthood road upends Lehi’s short strait and narrow path (1 Nephi 8) and sends it on an ambitious trajectory into the heavens.  Unlike Nash, Perkins makes of Lehi’s route an “ever upward” highway to “God’s grandest vistas.”

I marvel at this take on what exactly it is that we think we are doing during the brief time of our mortal probation.

I do not understand the fascination that we Latter-day Saints have with the legalistic notion of a never-ending, incremental, heaven-bound spiral that goes onward and upward forever.

I do not comprehend the appeal or feasibility of an allegedly gradual ascent by fallen, mortal beings to the infinite.

Does God really offer us nothing but an interminable test and an everlasting trial?

Is this the essence of the priesthood of God?

Is this the essence of the gospel of Jesus?

Perkins carefully describes the road that he chooses as his metaphor for our spiritual journey in the priesthood. He explains that “this beautiful road was not perfectly safe.” He notes that “[m]uch of the highway was carved into the steep mountainside” (sounds a lot like Huayna Picchu). He observes that the benevolent “road builders constructed guardrails and placed signs” warning of the danger of falling rocks. He sees fallen debris “strewn along the riverbed far below the road” and “crumpled cars on the canyon bottom.”

For Perkins, this is the “glorious journey that begins with receiving both the lesser and higher priesthoods, progresses through magnifying our callings, and climbs ever upward to God’s grandest vistas, until we receive ‘all that [the] Father hath.’”

For Perkins, this is the “celestial road”: a dangerous, treacherous road precariously cut into a steep, unforgiving mountain.

I wonder how Lehi and Nephi would react to this characterization.

I have a series of questions for Perkins and those who agree with him.

Is the strait and narrow path that Lehi sees a dangerous road or a thoroughfare of safety?

Does that strait and narrow path lead up a steep mountain or proceed through a low valley?

Does the strait and narrow path go on and on and on, or arrive proficiently and promptly at its destination?

Does the strait and narrow path lead to the celestial heaven or some other destination that fallen, mortal beings can actually reach?

The strait and narrow path that Lehi sees is a thoroughfare of safety.

The strait and narrow path proceeds through a low valley.

The strait and narrow path arrives proficiently and promptly at its destination.

The strait and narrow path leads to the tree of life (the second tree of life in a fallen, mortal world, not the first tree of life in Eden), which is Christ, the incarnate, condescended embodiment of the love of God.

Why do so many of us welcome the impulse to recast the grace of Jesus as the enabled effort of fallen, mortal humanity?

Why do so many of us transform the gospel that brings us to Christ into a self-help library that makes us suitable to heaven?

Why do so many of us prefer the impossible demands of perpetual process to the attainable spiritual quickening of the Lord?

Where is Jesus relative to the mountain road?

He is missing. Absent. Elsewhere.

In his place are guardrails and caution signs, for these things are all that we apparently require to successfully negotiate the mountain road. Perhaps Jesus is the one who secures the permits for us to use his Father’s road and fires the starter’s pistol to signal the beginning of our journey.

Does the strait and narrow path no longer apply to the children of the Restoration?

Does the mountain road do a better job explaining our role in the plan of salvation?

Is the way the priesthood works altogether different from the way the gospel works?

Does anyone in the restored church of Christ ever notice the striking structural flaws in metaphors like the mountain road?

Do you?

The Lord offers us grace (D&C 20:29-34) but we will have none of it, for the children of the Restoration want legalism.

If we persist in our misguided desire, perhaps the Lord will eventually give us what we want.

For a more comprehensive discussion of Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, see Chapter 10: By Contract or by Condescension? in the book Redeeming Grace in the Canon of the Restoration (Amazon CreateSpace and Kindle).

The Year in Review

Seasons Greetings.

I devote the final post of my first year to a brief recap of Mormon Redeeming Grace.

This year I have applied the doctrines of atonement and grace—plain and precious doctrines of the Mormon canon exhaustively explained in the book Redeeming Grace in the Canon of the Restoration—to prominent addresses and articles, old and new, in the restored church of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I have done so, not as another disaffected malcontent, but in the role of an exasperated believer to demonstrate the considerable disconnect between the pulpit and the canon with regard to matters of soteriology, the study of salvation.

We Latter-day Saints should not be forced to choose between the pulpit and the canon. The fact that we are routinely put in this position is a testament to (1) a pervasive ignorance of the saving doctrines of the scriptures in the conventional wisdom and popular consciousness of the church, and (2) the crushing hold legalism exerts on the otherwise inspired intelligentsia and duly authorized servants of God, which crippling paradigm restricts the expansive parameters of the atonement and ignores the role of redeeming grace in the plan of salvation.

Legalism, the notion that we ascend by virtue of our individual mastery of the divine to heavenly realms, permeates the restored church of Christ.

Legalism obstinately holds to the outward facade of the letter and doggedly refuses to comprehend the spirit.

Legalism figuratively appraises the literal and literally appraises the figurative.

Legalism redefines, reinterprets, and reinvents the plain language of scripture and by so doing almost entirely prevents us from asking the right questions or proceeding from the right premises.

Legalism is much more comfortable with the cause-and-effect mechanisms of ephemeral earthly processes and institutions than the eternal sources and methods of the divine.

Legalism is a fragile house of cards that can endure only as long as misperceiving, misguided, and misunderstanding members of the governing quorums and rank-and-file bodies of the church insist on upholding the flawed model.

I have not yet discovered legalism’s genesis in the history of the Restoration, but the willfully embraced malady has been with us for at least 40 years. Someday the distracting house of cards will collapse, and the Restoration will fare much better in the aftermath of the welcome and long-overdue fall.

A layman contemplating the grandeur of the universe, I believe in God.

A disciple in view of the empty tomb, I believe in Christ.

A student of the word of God, I believe in the Prophet Joseph and the Restoration.

Years ago as I read, studied, and pondered the scriptures, I began to see the divergence of the pulpit from the canon. The more I tried to reconcile the discrepancy, the more I saw it, hidden in plain sight, unseen by eyes that should see, unfathomed by hearts that should know, and unacknowledged by minds that should comprehend.

And therein lies the cure to what collectively ails us and unduly separates us from more effectively understanding our own soteriology and speaking the language of Christianity. Unlike the House Republicans, let us Latter-day Saints get our message straight.

If you are one of the few members of the church who read this blog, then I want to make you uncomfortable. I want to drive you back to the canon of the Restoration and cause you to reconcile it with the pulpit, one person—one Matrix moment, one Allegory of the Cave epiphany, one born-again interpretational awakening—at a time until there is no more soteriological disagreement.

To this end, I write this obscure blog. I write the same thing in a hundred different ways, because at least one of my approaches will finally get through to you, just as the light ultimately dawned on me as I pondered the doctrines of salvation in our scriptures.

If you think that I am just another offended detractor, then judge. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Judge what you hear, read, and believe by the infallible standard of the canon of the Restoration.

The church will probably always have its dissidents, but what the church always needs is members who know the scriptures.

Be one.

Take the red pill.

This is not about the validity of the Restoration, the legitimacy of the members of the governing quorums of the restored church of Christ, the proper direction and leadership of the kingdom of God on earth, or a host of other important but irrelevant subjects.

This is about the plain meaning of the words in the canon of the Restoration.

The church of Christ has often struggled with one doctrine or another. In this generation, we struggle with the core doctrines of atonement and grace.

Many find the notion unthinkable that a disparity might ever exist between the pulpit and the canon. These individuals defer their own understanding to the leadership of the church. (God selects the leaders he wants, and invariably condones and upholds everything they say.)

Some are too busy and distracted to notice. (Who cares about doctrine? I have money to make, bills to pay, vacations to plan, children to discipline, calming meds to take.)

A few embrace willful doctrinal schizophrenia. (Let someone else reconcile the myriad of incompatible interpretations. That is not my responsibility.)

Fine.

Do what you want.

As for my part, I am determined to start a fire—not the destructive fire of an arsonist, anarchist, or pyromaniac—but a bonfire, a signal fire because I am right (or rather, the writers of the canon of the Restoration are right).

If someone writes a blog that nobody reads, does it matter?

That remains to be seen.

Oh, heaven let your light shine down.

Merry Christmas.

Now, where did I put the matches?

What to Give Christ for Christmas

In response to the hypothetical question What can we give the Savior? I offer one suggestion that is consistent with the beautiful message of redeeming grace in the canon of the Restoration—

Before we concern ourselves with attempts to give something back to Jesus, perhaps we should first recognize that, given our particular standing as fallen, mortal beings, all we can do is choose to receive his gift.

Then, perhaps, we can proceed from there (wherever there is).

The Lord explains:

For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift. (D&C 88:33)

The positive restatement of this sentiment might be expressed like this:

What doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive the gift! Behold, he rejoices in that which is given unto him, and rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift.

Of the 36 verses in the Book of Mormon that contain the word gift or one of its forms, how many do you suppose approve of the notion of our attempt to reciprocate and give gifts to the Lord?

Even well-intentioned legalism will not dampen my Christmas.