2 Nephi 10:1-14
10:1-2 - When Jacob says that "many of our children shall perish un the flesh because of unbelief" I wonder if that was a known fact throughout society at that time. Like how we all know that one day Christ will come again, I wonder if they all had a general knowledge of their own eventual destruction as a people and the spiritual devastation that would follow their future generations. I mean, that seems kind of bleak. I think that hearing, as part of an isolated, related population, "eventually, all your posterity will not believe in Christ and will spiritually perish" I don't know, I don't think that I would handle that too well. Or maybe it was one of those things that is said and is so abstract that no one understands so they just kind of breeze over that point.
10:3 - Very interesting that an angel came to Jacob in between chapters 9 and 10 and told him the name of "Christ" as the member of the Godhead that would come to earth as a man. I didn't look extensively but from what I can gather they use the name "God" "the Lord" "the Holy One of Israel" etc. And maybe it was taught a little bit, but as far as I can tell, there hasn't been extensive teaching about an actual "God" coming down in the flesh to perform an atonement. Well, I guess that's not true, there has been quite a bit of teaching about the atonement, but some people just have to differentiate things by naming them. My dad is that way, if we are talking about something, an idea or concept, he has to "name" it, that's how he keeps in straight in his mind. For instance, if we are talking about getting a dog, we have to give that idea a name, like "Tigger" so that the whole "dog concept" will be covered under that phrase. Likewise it would make sense that by telling the name of the God who would be coming might make it a more personal experience. Like if someone said "oh the president is coming" it gives the feeling that this big important person would be making an entrance, but if they were to say "the president John is coming" it makes it more personal, it might take some of the intimidation away so that the anticipation and cause of his coming could be felt on a more personal level, because yes he is God, but he also came to earth for each on of us. The atonement was made for all mankind, but it is also deeply personal. The IM says that "Jesus Christ is the Firstborn of the Father in the spirit" which is an interesting idea to me. To me, that says that like being physically born here on earth, we were spiritually born in the pre existence, which I knew, but I wonder what other similarities there are to our spiritual births. Here on earth we are physically half our father and half our mother, so does that mean that spiritually we are half our Heavenly Father and half our Heavenly Mother? Like we were physically created with parts of our parents bodies, were we created with parts of our Heavenly Parents' spirits? That would be an interesting idea, the concept that my spirit is made up of half my Heavenly Father's spirit and half my Heavenly Mother's spirit. I have heard somewhere, and I'm going to have to do some research on this, that we are spiritually begotten of the Father. Hmmmm.... I'm going to have to think about this and do some research.
10:3-5 - The Jews, the Children of Israel, were God's chosen people on the earth, but here it says that the Jews "are the more wicked part of the world... and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God." I guess if you think about it that way, it is quite the brutal reality. I love verse 4 "For should the mighty miracles be wrought among other nations they would repent, and know that he be their God." I always wondered about that, kind of how L&L saw an angel, heard the voice of the Lord on several occasions and saw the crazy miracles of the ship, the crossing, the promised land, and still rebelled against God. The miracles that Jesus performed, the teachings that fulfilled and expounded the scriptures, his gentle but unwavering righteous nature, how could they look at all that evidence and still kill him. How could he have escaped them miraculously so many times and yet they didn't see that as a sign? But is says that their "priestcrafts and iniquities" will cause them to stiffen their necks against him. What's interesting to me is that the Jews have the priesthood at this point, but no one else on earth, that we know of, does, but it is because they have the priesthood and they use it wickedly, that is what makes them so evil that they will kill God. To me that is an example of how hard satan will work to destroy those who are blessed with any extra knowledge of God, and how much harder and further we who have the gospel can fall then those who don't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying those who don't have the gospel can't commit serious sin, because they can, we all can, but how much more serious is it when the chosen ones of God fall away from the gospel teachings. To me it just shows the dramatic pendulum swing of great knowledge to a great fall, we all start hanging neutral in the middle, then as knowledge is added on we swing further up the knowledge side, then when we make bad decisions, we have further to fall back and the momentum of our downward swing drag us that much deeper into the side of darkness. If that makes sense.
10:6-8 - I believe that this little section is very pertinent to today's world drama. The IM talks about, first why Israel was scattered, Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught that "Israel was scattered for apostasy." He lists many things that they did, but in the end, like Jacob said, no other group of people on earth were wicked enough to kill their God so we will just stick with that for now. I wonder if that means that they were the only ones at the time who were evil enough to kill their God, or were they the only ones of all time who would do it. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm asking is, if Jesus were to come today would we as a society try to kill him now too? Anyway, Israel is scattered, and God has promised that they will be gathered again, but what will it take for them to be "gathered" and just how scattered are they? Are they scattered in the sense that they know that they are of the house of Israel but they just live in different places? Or are they so scattered that they have no idea they are of the house of Israel? Personally I think it's probably both. I know that there are Jewish arabs, Jewish africans, Jewish Chinese, etc. There are self proclaimed Jews all over the world of all nationalities. But also here in verse 8 it says that they shall be gathered in "from the isles of the sea, and from the four parts of the earth." Again, in the IM Elder McConkie says that "revealed words speak of... congregations of... covenant people of the Lord in every nation, speaking every tongue, and among every people when the Lord comes again." So it would seem that while the tribe of Judah is among every nation, so are the rest of the tribes of Israel, they just don't know it yet.
10:9-14 - Verse 8 leaves off with "the nations of the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God" because of their efforts to gather scattered Israel, and this, I believe, because of the missionary effort. I wonder what it means to be "gentiles" in this sense, if they are in fact talking about Latter Day Saints performing the missionary efforts of taking the word of God to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples. Aren't we considered the house of Israel as well? Are they talking direct lineage? Or conversion lineage? Anyway, Jacob continues teaching that the land that they are in now, the promised land, the American continent, will be "a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles." To me this means that while the Nephites clearly continued to have kings, the Gentiles, when they are settled into this land, they will not have kings, and so far that has been true. Many times the great leaders/prophets throughout the scriptures have taught that having a king is not the governmental leadership that the Lord desires for his people, and that a democratic government is the way that he would prefer, "the reign of the judges," etc. The Lord has decreed that the gentiles will have no kings in this land, and that he "will fortify this land against all other nations. And he that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God." And so far, again, this has been the case. We are valiant and victorious in war, and we for the most part have not been invaded as part of a battle scheme, at least not recently. We are very protected in the sense that we live in a free country and that God has personally fought many of our wars for us. However, I would like to add in here, that just as he is with us in war and protection, we also must stay with him to remain in his protective state. He teaches later in the scriptures the instances when war is allowed and if we are to remain in his protection we must abide by his law for war. If we start to go astray and start deciding for ourselves which of God's laws we will follow, we are not entitled to his protection.
10:3 - Very interesting that an angel came to Jacob in between chapters 9 and 10 and told him the name of "Christ" as the member of the Godhead that would come to earth as a man. I didn't look extensively but from what I can gather they use the name "God" "the Lord" "the Holy One of Israel" etc. And maybe it was taught a little bit, but as far as I can tell, there hasn't been extensive teaching about an actual "God" coming down in the flesh to perform an atonement. Well, I guess that's not true, there has been quite a bit of teaching about the atonement, but some people just have to differentiate things by naming them. My dad is that way, if we are talking about something, an idea or concept, he has to "name" it, that's how he keeps in straight in his mind. For instance, if we are talking about getting a dog, we have to give that idea a name, like "Tigger" so that the whole "dog concept" will be covered under that phrase. Likewise it would make sense that by telling the name of the God who would be coming might make it a more personal experience. Like if someone said "oh the president is coming" it gives the feeling that this big important person would be making an entrance, but if they were to say "the president John is coming" it makes it more personal, it might take some of the intimidation away so that the anticipation and cause of his coming could be felt on a more personal level, because yes he is God, but he also came to earth for each on of us. The atonement was made for all mankind, but it is also deeply personal. The IM says that "Jesus Christ is the Firstborn of the Father in the spirit" which is an interesting idea to me. To me, that says that like being physically born here on earth, we were spiritually born in the pre existence, which I knew, but I wonder what other similarities there are to our spiritual births. Here on earth we are physically half our father and half our mother, so does that mean that spiritually we are half our Heavenly Father and half our Heavenly Mother? Like we were physically created with parts of our parents bodies, were we created with parts of our Heavenly Parents' spirits? That would be an interesting idea, the concept that my spirit is made up of half my Heavenly Father's spirit and half my Heavenly Mother's spirit. I have heard somewhere, and I'm going to have to do some research on this, that we are spiritually begotten of the Father. Hmmmm.... I'm going to have to think about this and do some research.
10:3-5 - The Jews, the Children of Israel, were God's chosen people on the earth, but here it says that the Jews "are the more wicked part of the world... and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God." I guess if you think about it that way, it is quite the brutal reality. I love verse 4 "For should the mighty miracles be wrought among other nations they would repent, and know that he be their God." I always wondered about that, kind of how L&L saw an angel, heard the voice of the Lord on several occasions and saw the crazy miracles of the ship, the crossing, the promised land, and still rebelled against God. The miracles that Jesus performed, the teachings that fulfilled and expounded the scriptures, his gentle but unwavering righteous nature, how could they look at all that evidence and still kill him. How could he have escaped them miraculously so many times and yet they didn't see that as a sign? But is says that their "priestcrafts and iniquities" will cause them to stiffen their necks against him. What's interesting to me is that the Jews have the priesthood at this point, but no one else on earth, that we know of, does, but it is because they have the priesthood and they use it wickedly, that is what makes them so evil that they will kill God. To me that is an example of how hard satan will work to destroy those who are blessed with any extra knowledge of God, and how much harder and further we who have the gospel can fall then those who don't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying those who don't have the gospel can't commit serious sin, because they can, we all can, but how much more serious is it when the chosen ones of God fall away from the gospel teachings. To me it just shows the dramatic pendulum swing of great knowledge to a great fall, we all start hanging neutral in the middle, then as knowledge is added on we swing further up the knowledge side, then when we make bad decisions, we have further to fall back and the momentum of our downward swing drag us that much deeper into the side of darkness. If that makes sense.
10:6-8 - I believe that this little section is very pertinent to today's world drama. The IM talks about, first why Israel was scattered, Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught that "Israel was scattered for apostasy." He lists many things that they did, but in the end, like Jacob said, no other group of people on earth were wicked enough to kill their God so we will just stick with that for now. I wonder if that means that they were the only ones at the time who were evil enough to kill their God, or were they the only ones of all time who would do it. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm asking is, if Jesus were to come today would we as a society try to kill him now too? Anyway, Israel is scattered, and God has promised that they will be gathered again, but what will it take for them to be "gathered" and just how scattered are they? Are they scattered in the sense that they know that they are of the house of Israel but they just live in different places? Or are they so scattered that they have no idea they are of the house of Israel? Personally I think it's probably both. I know that there are Jewish arabs, Jewish africans, Jewish Chinese, etc. There are self proclaimed Jews all over the world of all nationalities. But also here in verse 8 it says that they shall be gathered in "from the isles of the sea, and from the four parts of the earth." Again, in the IM Elder McConkie says that "revealed words speak of... congregations of... covenant people of the Lord in every nation, speaking every tongue, and among every people when the Lord comes again." So it would seem that while the tribe of Judah is among every nation, so are the rest of the tribes of Israel, they just don't know it yet.
10:9-14 - Verse 8 leaves off with "the nations of the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God" because of their efforts to gather scattered Israel, and this, I believe, because of the missionary effort. I wonder what it means to be "gentiles" in this sense, if they are in fact talking about Latter Day Saints performing the missionary efforts of taking the word of God to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples. Aren't we considered the house of Israel as well? Are they talking direct lineage? Or conversion lineage? Anyway, Jacob continues teaching that the land that they are in now, the promised land, the American continent, will be "a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles." To me this means that while the Nephites clearly continued to have kings, the Gentiles, when they are settled into this land, they will not have kings, and so far that has been true. Many times the great leaders/prophets throughout the scriptures have taught that having a king is not the governmental leadership that the Lord desires for his people, and that a democratic government is the way that he would prefer, "the reign of the judges," etc. The Lord has decreed that the gentiles will have no kings in this land, and that he "will fortify this land against all other nations. And he that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God." And so far, again, this has been the case. We are valiant and victorious in war, and we for the most part have not been invaded as part of a battle scheme, at least not recently. We are very protected in the sense that we live in a free country and that God has personally fought many of our wars for us. However, I would like to add in here, that just as he is with us in war and protection, we also must stay with him to remain in his protective state. He teaches later in the scriptures the instances when war is allowed and if we are to remain in his protection we must abide by his law for war. If we start to go astray and start deciding for ourselves which of God's laws we will follow, we are not entitled to his protection.
Comments
Post a Comment