D&C 38:1-4

Section 38 is really long and content heavy, so let’s see how this goes. The IM gives the background as follows: “As the year 1831 dawned, Joseph Smith envisioned ‘a prospect great and glorious for the welfare of the kingdom.’ The Lord had previously charged the Church to ‘seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion.’ From the time this commandment was first given until his martyrdom, the Prophet labored diligently to this end. He once said, ‘We ought to have the building up of Zion as our greatest object.’ During the months of December 1830, Joseph Smith received by revelation the remained of the book of Moses. Chapters 6 and 7 dealt specifically with the establishment of Zion in Enoch’s day. Two things were needed before Zion could be built in this dispensation, however: revelation from the Lord giving His law and the order of Zion, and the preparation and sanctification of the Saints. The fulfillment of the first requirement was begun on 2 January 1831. During the third conference of the Church, the Prophet received Doctrine and Covenants 38. In it the Lord said that He was ‘the same which had taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom.’ He further revealed why He had commanded the Saints to move to Ohio: ‘There I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be endowed with power from on high.’ This revelation was the Lord’s answer to those who wondered why they should move three hundred miles to the west in the dead of winter.” I realized while listening to information about this section, that the gathering together of people of a certain religion to one specific place was pretty unprecedented at the time that the Church was restored, so of course people would have been wary about the move, plus after they had accepted a religion so out of the mainstream, it might have seemed pretty overwhelming at the time. Concerning the fact that this move was commanded to happen in the dead of winter DJR has an interesting insight, saying, “It seems that every time they have to relocated, it is in the cold and misery of winter- New York to Kirtland, Kirtland to Missouri, Missouri to Nauvoo, Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley. Perhaps it was a kindness to them, since it was less convenient for their enemies and persecutors to follow them under such miserable conditions.” I thought that that was interesting, but definitely, I think that one of the major reason for these drastic and traumatic moves was to weed out those who’s testimonies were not strong enough to make the move, even eventually, it’s a purification process, brings those who want to be close to Him closer, and those who don’t want to be closer, to make their own choices. 38:1-4 - The Lord begins with a lofty introduction, and I was thinking about this today, why the Lord always introduces himself, first, but then also why he does it this way by saying “I am…” and giving many examples of his characteristics and roles throughout time. Seeing it from my point of view, I’ve heard all these names for God before, I’ve made the connections and all that but that is because they are all laid out for me and the Church has made these teachings very clear to me, even since I was a child. But at the time that these revelations were given, they were not as clear cut, this doctrine of who God is and His nature and roles were not fully known, so many of these titles might not have been known to the people and these connections made. The Lord begins saying, “Thus saith the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ, the Great I AM, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the same which looked upon the wide expanse of eternity, and all the seraphic hosts of heaven, before the world was made; The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes; I am the same which spake , and the world was made, and all things came by me. I am the same which have taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom; and verily, I say, even as many as have believed in my name, for I am Christ, and in mine own name, by the virtue of the blood which I have spilt, have I pleaded before the Father for them.” If I was among those early Saints who had been commanded to go to Ohio, it would never occur to me that I might have to move again after that, I would assume that Ohio was Zion and that we’d be there forever and establish the kingdom of God there, never to be moved again. But knowing that they do end up leaving Ohio, and Missouri, and Illinois, it makes sense that the Lord prefaced this revelation with the fact that he knows everything. The current saints with the current commandment to go to Ohio could take the statement that God knows all from the beginning to the end, as him saying that he knows what will happen, what they will have to give up, what struggles and hardships that they will have, and he’s asking them to do this anyway. The IM quotes President Joseph Fielding Smith as commenting on the title “Jesus Christ is the Great I AM, Alpha and Omega,” saying, “When Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, at Horeb, the mountain of God, the Lord appeared to him in a flaming bush and gave him commandment to go to Egypt and lead Israel from bondage. Moses said to the Lord: ‘Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of our Fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.’… The name given to Moses is the same as given by Jesus Christ to the Jews, and the meaning of it is expressed in the saying that God is ‘omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; without beginning of days or end of life; and that in him every good gift and every good principle dwell.’ Jesus declared to the Jews that which they were incapable of understanding, which is that the great I Am who appeared to Moses, was himself, and that he was God and gave commandments to Abraham.’ Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, which was used widely at the time of Christ’s mortal ministry. The expression ‘Alpha and Omega’ is thus the equivalent of the English expression ‘from A to Z.’ Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, ‘These words, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, are used frequently to teach the timelessness and eternal nature of our Lord’s existence, that is, that ‘from eternity to eternity he is the same, and his years never fail.’” Interestingly, I listened to a March 2008 Ensign article entitled “I Am the Way,” in which David A. Edwards says, “’Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.’ In a way, simply by saying, ‘I am,’ Jesus said it all. With this, He declared that He is the Creator of the world and Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, whose name literally means ‘I am.’ Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah and Savior, who saves us from sin and death. Because of who He is and what He did for us, we can have everlasting life and become who we are meant to be.” The Phrase “Seraphic Hoses of Heaven,” the IM says, “Seraphs are angels who reside in the presence of God… it is clear that seraphs include the unembodied spirits of pre-existence, for our Lord ‘looked upon the wide expanse of eternity, and all the seraphic hosts of heaven, before the world was made.’ Whether the name seraphs also applies to perfected and resurrected angels is not clear… In Hebrew the plural of seraph is seraphim.” Jesus comments on his omniscience, the IM says, “Some have questioned whether God is omniscient, that is, whether He knows all things. They say that He knows all things relative to man but that He Himself is still learning. This scripture shows that God has all knowledge. Knowledge brings power, and to say that God is limited in knowledge is to limit His power. This principle is taught in Lecture on Faith, compiled under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith: ‘Without the knowledge of all things, God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures; for it si by reason of the knowledge which he has of all things, from the beginning to the end, that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures by which they are made partakers of eternal life; and it if were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God had all knowledge it would be impossible for them to exercise faith in him.” I love the Lectures on Faith, and the all-knowing nature of God is critical for me to be able to believe in him in enough to have faith in him. If he only knew everything relative to me, which I take to mean that he knows more than I do but not everything, then why would I pray as ask him what I should do? His advice would be valuable but ultimately he wouldn’t be able to tell me what to do definitively for my personalized life plan, he’d be my mentor, not my rock and salvation. A God who was not all knowing could not have created us, couldn’t have atoned for us, and couldn’t save us. The Lord introduced himself to us as the Creator, which the IM teaches, “Under the direction of his Father, Jesus Christ created this earth. No doubt others helped him, but it was Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who, under the direction of his Father, came down and organized matter and made this planet, so that it might be inhabited by the children of God.” The idea of the creation fascinates me, especially when I consider that “others (probably) helped him,” and I wonder if I was one of those others, if I got to help in part of the creation, if maybe I got to place a rock of a beach, if I got to set an animal free into the woods, I just always wondered about that. Finally, in verse 4, the Lord mentions that he has “taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom,” in which the IM teaches, “To be ‘in the bosom’ of someone is a Hebrew idiom. Anciently people wore loose robes bound around the waist with a sash. The cloth above the sash formed a pocket in which people might carry objects of all kinds, even small children. Something carried in this was close to the chest or bosom, so the phrase ‘to be in the bosom’ implied a close and favored relationship. Enoch, the seventh from Adam built a city called Zion, after the people of God, so named by the Lord, because they were united, righteous, and prosperous. This city of Enoch flourished for three hundred and sixty0five years and then the Lord, by some process not known to us, took it with all its inhabitants, ‘to His bosom,’ thus saving them from destruction in the flood that was to come. ‘And from thence went forth the saying, Zion is fled.’ The Lord promises that all who have believed in His name will also be taken into His bosom.” DJR comments on the Lord’s reference to the city of Enoch, saying, “regarding the City of Enoch, is particularly in this context because in December of 1830, shortly before this conference of the Church, the Savior had revealed the seventh chapter of the Book of Moses (which is in the Pearl of Great Price). In Moses 7:69, the City of Enoch (Zion) is taken up. Can you imagine the excitement of these new members as they received the Book of Moses, which restores so much which had been left out of the Bible! And then to ear the Lord refer specifically to this, as He introduces Himself to them during this conference, in this revelation! By the way, the Lord began revealing the chapters of Moses to the Prophet Joseph Smith, which we have in the Pearl of Great Price, in June of 1830 (as you can see if you look at the headings for each chapter of Moses), and finished by revealing Moses, chapter 9, in February 1831.” I wonder if the Lord placed this revelation and the mention of the City of Enoch at these specific times to plant in the mind the idea of a central gathering place and the possibilities of what can happen when Church members work together, like setting this up as an example of the potential is in that type of environment.