3 Nephi 28
28:1 - Chapter 28 is pretty long, but there’s not a ton on it in the IM, so we’ll see how it goes. The Savior has just finished teaching His disciples how to better magnify their callings, and now, as he’s getting ready to depart “he spake unto his disciples, one by one, saying unto them: What is it that ye desire of me, after that I am gone to the Father?” This is an interesting question and I’ve thought to myself a few times, “what would I ask for if this was the question presented to me by the Savior?” I honestly don’t know. I think that I would maybe ask for an added measure of the Spirit so that I could learn and grow and become a more Christ-like person. Interestingly, in an October 1988 general conference talk entitled “Answer Me,” Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Disciples, instead, walk and ‘overcome by faith,’ accepting gratefully the evidence of things not seen which are true and using quietly God’s spiritual gifts. What desirest thou of me? The resurrected Jesus inquired one by one of the Nephite Twelve. He knows our individual bearing capacities. He will lead us along, not herd us. Foremost, the gospel can even educate our desires; then these desires can work affirmatively in us and for us. Are we really ready, however, for the responsibility and the high adventure of being tutored by Him who genuinely wishes to honor our individual desires, if we do not desire amiss?” I really liked when he said, “He will lead us along, not herd us.” The indication that this life is an individual matter, not meaning that we don’t need anyone else, but our lives, our hopes, our desires are all important to the Lord just as if we were the only person in existence. There’s a C.S. Lewis quote that I really like but that I can’t find and it saying something to the effect of, “Jesus didn’t die for all of us, he died for each of us. He would have done the same thing, even if there was only one man in existence.” It was pretty profound. There was another story that I saw on FB and the doctrine is wrong, but the point of the story is still valid, it says something to the effect that a man died and the afterlife was not what he expected. There, he met God, simply dressed, no beams of light, no angels singing, who told him to get ready for his next life. The dead man said, “I knew Buddha was right, there is reincarnation.” God replied, “Not Buddah, you. You were the Buddah.” The dead man didn’t understand and God explained “You are every single person ever born. You are the one we are perfecting. In one life you are the mother and in another you are the child, one time the beggar and another, the giver, the tyrant and the martyr. Every time you hurt another person, you are only hurting yourself.” Like I said, the doctrine there is wrong, but the principle is very interesting. This reminded me that our life here, not even just in this world, but throughout eternity, is given great attention by the Creators of the universe, which is really kind of a big deal if you think about it. This goes with the “Individual Worth” portion of the Young Women’s program.
28:2-17 - The Lord asked the question and 9 of the disciples answered "We desire that after we have lived unto the age of man, that our ministry, wherein thou hast called us, may have an end, that we may speedily come unto thee in thy kingdom." I always wondered how all 9 of them had come up with the same answer, I think that that's a reasonable request, and the Lord was pleased saying, "Blessed are ye because ye desired this thing of me; therefore, after that ye are seventy and two years old ye shall come unto me in my kingdom; and with me ye shall find rest." But the other 3 Nephite disciples "sorrowed in their hearts, for they durst now speak unto him the thing which they desired. And he said unto them: Behold, I know your thoughts, and ye have desired the thing which John, my beloved, who was with me in my ministry, before that I was lifted up by the Jews, desired of me." Going back to Elder Maxwell's talk quoted in the previous paragraph, this must be what he means when he talks about "he will educate our desires," because for the life of me, I would never even think to ask either of those things of the Lord. If he told me I could have anything that I wanted, I would probably wish for something stupid, like a million dollars, that's probably why he hasn't asked me that huh? I could see how the three Nephites that are left could feel embarrassed of their desire to preach the gospel, especially after the Lord praised the righteous desires of the others for wanting to return to Him at the end of their lives. But again, Jesus told them, "more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death; but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father unto the children of men." Me personally, that would be a very painful destiny, watching the people of the earth slaughter each other, for thousands of years, the pain, the way people hurt each other. But then again, if they had an eternal perspective, which I'm sure they did, it wouldn't be this awful existence after all, especially in the light that they were able to preach the gospel to the people. Referring to John the Beloved, whom Jesus spoke of here, the IM writes, "The Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received specific revelation through the Urim and Thummim regarding the circumstances and subsequent blessings of John's request to tarry in the flesh. This information was from a 'parchment' written and hidden by John himself, but apparently lost. In April 1829, Joseph's and Oliver's specific questions on this passage of the Book of Mormon resulted in the revelation recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants section 7." It didn't occur to me that when Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon, that he didn't know that John was granted immortality, meaning, that it's not widely known without general Christendom that John was to tarry in the flesh until the Savior came again. If that wasn't known at the time to them, the statement that John the Beloved also desired to preach the gospel until the second coming, would have surely thrown them through a loop. Interesting. The physical conditions for the 3 Nephites and John too, apparently were that they "shall not have pain while ye shall swell in the flesh, neither sorrow save it be for the sins of the world." The IM gives a pretty straight forward description of "Translation" "Transfiguration" and "Resurrection," and I'm really glad because I didn't understand this at all, in fact I struggled with the doctrine that Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection because I had thought that the ancient prophets who were translated, became resurrected, so of course Christ wouldn't have been the first, but this in depth explanation shows that there are more than just two states of being "mortal" and "resurrected," there are varying degrees of immortality. It's really long so I'm just going to copy and paste it here, but it's excellent and really learned a lot from it.
28:18-40 - It's interesting because we have a perspective switch here because we go from having a narrative of events to Mormon speaking backwards about the 300 years that had transpired between when this event took place to when he lived. He spoke of the "being cast into prison by them who did not belong to the church. And the prisons could not hold them... And they were cast down unto the earth... And thrice they were cast into a furnace and received no hard. And twice were they cast into a den of wild beasts; and behold the did play with the beasts as a child with a suckling lamb, and received no hard." It can feel like a weird transition here from their initial request of Jesus to having all these things happen to them, and it can sound like it happened right after that as perhaps a test or something, but it clears things up to remember that Mormon is projecting backwards 300 years. It seems like the 3 Nephites were busy as they went "forth among all the people of Nephi, and did preach the gospel of Christ unto all people upon the face of the land; and they were converted unto the Lord, and were united unto the church of Christ, and thus the people of that generation were blessed, according to the word of Jesus." I wonder sometimes, where they went and what they did over the thousands of years since they were born. What events did they witness, what landscape have they seen, did they stay together all the time, did they make other friends, have the leaders of the church today seen them, what are they doing right now? What would I be doing right now if I was them? What resources to they have? What resources do they need? Mormon says "I have seen them, and they have ministered unto me." Interestingly, in verse 17, Mormon says "whether they were mortal or immortal, from the day of their transfiguration, I know not," and here in verse 37, he says, "since I wrote, I have inquired of the Lord, and he hath made it manifest unto me that there must needs be a change wrought upon their bodies, or else it needs be that they must taste of death." An interesting perspective of time here, we read it in one sitting, within a few minutes probably, but Mormon has had at least enough time writing these 20 verses in between, "I know not" and "he hath made it manifest unto me," to inquire of the Lord concerning the matter and receive a response. At a minimum we're talking hours, could have been significantly longer than that, so when we consider that Mormon wrote thousands of verses in the Book of Mormon, it's just a little perspective on the time commitment there. Even though I did not understand the state of the bodies of the 3 Nephites, I could have learned here in the next verse that there are varying degrees of immortality, as Mormon says "Now this change was not equal to that which shall take place at the last day; but there was a change wrought upon them insomuch that Satan could have no power over them, that he could not tempt them; and they were sanctified in the flesh, that they were holy, and that the powers of the earth could not hold them. And in this state they were to remain until the judgment day of Christ; and at that day they were to receive a greater change, and to be received into the kingdom of the Father to go no more out, but to dwell with God eternally in the heavens." This clearly indicates that there is more than one way to be immortal, and I guess that that would make sense.
28:2-17 - The Lord asked the question and 9 of the disciples answered "We desire that after we have lived unto the age of man, that our ministry, wherein thou hast called us, may have an end, that we may speedily come unto thee in thy kingdom." I always wondered how all 9 of them had come up with the same answer, I think that that's a reasonable request, and the Lord was pleased saying, "Blessed are ye because ye desired this thing of me; therefore, after that ye are seventy and two years old ye shall come unto me in my kingdom; and with me ye shall find rest." But the other 3 Nephite disciples "sorrowed in their hearts, for they durst now speak unto him the thing which they desired. And he said unto them: Behold, I know your thoughts, and ye have desired the thing which John, my beloved, who was with me in my ministry, before that I was lifted up by the Jews, desired of me." Going back to Elder Maxwell's talk quoted in the previous paragraph, this must be what he means when he talks about "he will educate our desires," because for the life of me, I would never even think to ask either of those things of the Lord. If he told me I could have anything that I wanted, I would probably wish for something stupid, like a million dollars, that's probably why he hasn't asked me that huh? I could see how the three Nephites that are left could feel embarrassed of their desire to preach the gospel, especially after the Lord praised the righteous desires of the others for wanting to return to Him at the end of their lives. But again, Jesus told them, "more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death; but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father unto the children of men." Me personally, that would be a very painful destiny, watching the people of the earth slaughter each other, for thousands of years, the pain, the way people hurt each other. But then again, if they had an eternal perspective, which I'm sure they did, it wouldn't be this awful existence after all, especially in the light that they were able to preach the gospel to the people. Referring to John the Beloved, whom Jesus spoke of here, the IM writes, "The Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received specific revelation through the Urim and Thummim regarding the circumstances and subsequent blessings of John's request to tarry in the flesh. This information was from a 'parchment' written and hidden by John himself, but apparently lost. In April 1829, Joseph's and Oliver's specific questions on this passage of the Book of Mormon resulted in the revelation recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants section 7." It didn't occur to me that when Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon, that he didn't know that John was granted immortality, meaning, that it's not widely known without general Christendom that John was to tarry in the flesh until the Savior came again. If that wasn't known at the time to them, the statement that John the Beloved also desired to preach the gospel until the second coming, would have surely thrown them through a loop. Interesting. The physical conditions for the 3 Nephites and John too, apparently were that they "shall not have pain while ye shall swell in the flesh, neither sorrow save it be for the sins of the world." The IM gives a pretty straight forward description of "Translation" "Transfiguration" and "Resurrection," and I'm really glad because I didn't understand this at all, in fact I struggled with the doctrine that Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection because I had thought that the ancient prophets who were translated, became resurrected, so of course Christ wouldn't have been the first, but this in depth explanation shows that there are more than just two states of being "mortal" and "resurrected," there are varying degrees of immortality. It's really long so I'm just going to copy and paste it here, but it's excellent and really learned a lot from it.
28:18-40 - It's interesting because we have a perspective switch here because we go from having a narrative of events to Mormon speaking backwards about the 300 years that had transpired between when this event took place to when he lived. He spoke of the "being cast into prison by them who did not belong to the church. And the prisons could not hold them... And they were cast down unto the earth... And thrice they were cast into a furnace and received no hard. And twice were they cast into a den of wild beasts; and behold the did play with the beasts as a child with a suckling lamb, and received no hard." It can feel like a weird transition here from their initial request of Jesus to having all these things happen to them, and it can sound like it happened right after that as perhaps a test or something, but it clears things up to remember that Mormon is projecting backwards 300 years. It seems like the 3 Nephites were busy as they went "forth among all the people of Nephi, and did preach the gospel of Christ unto all people upon the face of the land; and they were converted unto the Lord, and were united unto the church of Christ, and thus the people of that generation were blessed, according to the word of Jesus." I wonder sometimes, where they went and what they did over the thousands of years since they were born. What events did they witness, what landscape have they seen, did they stay together all the time, did they make other friends, have the leaders of the church today seen them, what are they doing right now? What would I be doing right now if I was them? What resources to they have? What resources do they need? Mormon says "I have seen them, and they have ministered unto me." Interestingly, in verse 17, Mormon says "whether they were mortal or immortal, from the day of their transfiguration, I know not," and here in verse 37, he says, "since I wrote, I have inquired of the Lord, and he hath made it manifest unto me that there must needs be a change wrought upon their bodies, or else it needs be that they must taste of death." An interesting perspective of time here, we read it in one sitting, within a few minutes probably, but Mormon has had at least enough time writing these 20 verses in between, "I know not" and "he hath made it manifest unto me," to inquire of the Lord concerning the matter and receive a response. At a minimum we're talking hours, could have been significantly longer than that, so when we consider that Mormon wrote thousands of verses in the Book of Mormon, it's just a little perspective on the time commitment there. Even though I did not understand the state of the bodies of the 3 Nephites, I could have learned here in the next verse that there are varying degrees of immortality, as Mormon says "Now this change was not equal to that which shall take place at the last day; but there was a change wrought upon them insomuch that Satan could have no power over them, that he could not tempt them; and they were sanctified in the flesh, that they were holy, and that the powers of the earth could not hold them. And in this state they were to remain until the judgment day of Christ; and at that day they were to receive a greater change, and to be received into the kingdom of the Father to go no more out, but to dwell with God eternally in the heavens." This clearly indicates that there is more than one way to be immortal, and I guess that that would make sense.
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