The first verse of this section has a powerful presence: “The works, and designs of the God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught.” Think about it. How many times has Christianity been altered, polluted and persecuted? From the time of Christ, those with hardened hearts have tried to bring down the gospel of Jesus Christ. They killed the Apostles, martyred many followers and those within the church began corrupting the ordinances and principles. After a time, these ordinances were lost to us until the Restoration.
Elder Dallin H Oaks said “The collision between the speculative world of Greek philosophy and the simple, literal faith and practice of the earliest Christians produced sharp contentions that threatened to widen political divisions in the fragmenting Roman empire. This led Emperor Constantine to convene the first church wide council in A.D. 325. The action of this council of Nicaea remains the most important single event after the death of the Apostles in formulating the modern Christian concept of deity. The Nicene Creed erased the idea of the separate being of Father and Son by defining God the Son as being of “one substance with the Father.”
Other councils followed, and from their decisions and the writings of churchmen and philosophers there came a synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine in which the orthodox Christians of that day lost the fulness of truth about the nature of God and the Godhead. The consequences persist in the various creeds of Christianity, which declare a Godhead of only one being and which describe that single being or God as “incomprehensible” and “without body, parts, or passions.”
Then during the translation of the Book of Mormon, Satan inspired the hearts of others to steal the 116 pages of the manuscript Martin Harris lost and change the translation in attempt to thwart the restoration of His principles.
The verses continue with the Lord reminding Joseph that He does not “walk in crooked paths and His paths are straight and his course an eternal round” (Verse 2). He also says “that the work of God is never frustrated but only the works of men” (Verse 3).
I personally think this is very cool. No matter what men do, they will NEVER undermine the plans of our Heavenly Father. He always has control when the rest of us do not and I find that very, very comforting.
Verse 4 packs a terrible punch. It basically says that man has many abilities and powers that he is blessed with. But if he takes to much pride and doesn't listen to the counsels of the One that gave him those powers, he will incur upon himself the wrath of God.
This section was directed to Joseph after the manuscript, which we found out later was the record of Lehi. After he gave Harris the manuscript and after it was lost the Lord gave him a sound rebuke. “Behold, you have been entrusted with these things, but how strict was your commandments; and remember also the promises which were made to you, if you did not transgress them.
“And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God, and have gone on in the persuasions of men.
“For, behold, you should not have feared men more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God and despise his words.
“Yet you should have been faithful; and he would have extended his arm and supported you against all the fiery darts of the adversary; and he would have been with you in every time of trouble” (Verses 5-8)
Even though Joseph made a grave error in judgment, even though a part of the record was lost, God showed great mercy and love for His servant and gave him words of comfort.
“Behold, thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall.
“But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work.
“And when thou deliveredst up that which God has given thee sight and power to translate, thou deliveredst up that which was sacred into the hands of a wicked man.” (Verses 9-10,12)
The power and tender mercy of God is almost overwhelming. Even though this sin was severe and came from the man that would be a prophet, he forgave him upon serious repentance on Joseph's part. What does it mean to repent? What does it mean to be forgiven? And how can we know if we are?
We know due to Joseph's mistake, God took away the plates and other resources until he could learn some humility.
“And this is the reason that thou hast lost thy privileges for a season-
“For thou has suffered the counsel of thy director to be trampled upon from the beginning.
“Nevertheless, my work shall go forth....” (Verses 14-16)
Then the Lord shows Joseph just what the plates are. The records of those who lived here in the Americas. The light skinned Nephites whom were once a righteous people but were exterminated because of their iniquities. Also recorded were the dark skinned and cursed Lamanites whom populated the lands, especially after the extermination of their Nephite brethren.
I will close this post with a promise made concerning the Lamanites: “And that the other Lamanites might come to the knowledge of their fathers, and that they might know the promises of the Lord and they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name, and that through their repentance they might be saved. Amen.” (Verse 20)
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My first question is, what exactly does D&C 3:2 mean by talking about an "eternal round"?
ReplyDeleteAnother question that occurred to me is, who were the Lamanites in Joseph's own time?
I have a brief thought on the loss of the manuscript. It seems to me very unlikely that whoever took the manuscript - particularly if it were Lucy Harris - had any intention of changing it, given what we know about Lucy and Martin Harris. Both of them desperately wanted to believe in Joseph but also were very worried about getting suckered into a scheme, and so they both wished to test Joseph. Martin's test was fairly mild (he just asked various members of the Smith family to tell him the story separately, and was satisfied when the stories matched up). It seems to me to be much more historically likely that Lucy had no intention of changing the manuscript, only of watching and waiting for Joseph to reproduce basically the same text as a confirmation of his prophetic abilities.
Now, as for Elder Oaks' comments about the apostasy, I should add that these are not totally accurate. There are some things that he's (presumably unintentionally) distorting or omitting. At the very least, he's giving a very slanted view of the history and the theology. First, it's just incorrect to refer to Nicene theology as complicated but non-Nicene theology as simple. Nor is there anything more "literal" in any meaningful sense of the word about his view of what the early Christians believed. That dichotomy he presents is, well, bogus. (In many ways, certain key LDS beliefs and biblical interpretations are far, far, far less "simple" and "literal" than those of mainstream Christianity. And for good measure, it's worth noting that there are a number of key points in which mainstream LDS thought is much closer to pre-Christian Greek philosophy than mainstream Christian thought is; the 'oh no it's philosophy!' sword cuts both ways.) [Continued in next comment]
Elder Oaks isn't too far off when he tells about how the First Council of Nicaea came to take place. There were a few issues arising during Constantine's day that threatened the unity of the church. One of them was the rise of Arianism as an alternative theology. (One reason for this is that when the church came to confront the Greek philosophical world, they had to translate their beliefs into that conceptual language. Arius translated incorrectly by drawing too heavily on Neo-Platonism and by seizing upon the lack of a firm distinction between the words 'agenetos' and 'agennetos' in order to justify it. The Council of Nicaea actually represented a victory in that it made crucial steps towards a successful translation of New Testament theology into a new conceptual language. Scholarly study of the New Testament bears out the fact that the earliest Christians believed views that were vastly closer to Nicene theology than to any of the major alternatives, both then and now.) Another was the proper date of Easter, which was also dealt with in 325 (and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has seen fit to side with the Council of Nicaea on that issue). The Council of Nicaea wasn't the first church council nor did it produce the first creed (creeds go back to Second Temple Judaism and are definitely present in the New Testament and in the earliest post-apostolic church; see, e.g., the 'Old Roman Symbol'). It wasn't even the first church council that presented a creed; a few months earlier, a synod in Antioch took that prize. On the issue of the Godhead, the verdict of the Council of Nicaea was that the Son was not less divine or less eternal than the Father; it rejected the ideas of Arius, who said that the Father had created the Son out of nothing and that the Son was less fully divine than the Father. LDS views of Nicene theology, I think, are clouded by the use of the very ambiguous English term 'being'. In order to assess whether Elder Oaks is correct in describing Trinitarian theology, one would have to know what he thinks the word 'being' (as well as the word 'separate') means. The Council of Nicaea did same that the Father and the Son have the same ousia - but in certain senses of the word ousia, technically Latter-day Saints have always agreed that the Father and the Son have the same ousia! (The Nicene use, however, was predicated on the view - which had always been shared by basically all Jews and Christians up to that time - that there was a big difference between being divine and being human, a difference in ousia, and also the conviction that the one true God was absolutely unique in kind and that we as created beings were not eternal.) Nicene theology did uphold the very real personal distinctions between the Father and the Son, which is not something that one would learn from reading Elder Oaks' comments. (I note also that in Elder Oaks' article, he makes a number of other errors such as denying that Nicene theology presented the Father as personal, which is so false that I can't even fathom where he concocted that mistake.) [Continued in next comment]
ReplyDeleteAlso, about divine "incomprehensibility", I confess that I don't see why Latter-day Saints have a hang-up on this issue. latter-day Saints agree that God is "infinite and eternal" (D&C 20:17; 20:28). Comprehension is attaining a full understanding. We are finite creatures. What is finite cannot fully understand what is infinite (but can have a sufficient partial understanding of what is infinite). Ergo, we cannot comprehend God, nor can any created thing comprehend God, which is why he is incomprehensible. Using the word "incomprehensible" also accords well with the borrowing from Greek philosophy of 'Hellenistic God-talk' such as the frequent reliance on alpha-privatives, which can also be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. And the reason why it was stressed so much after a while is that the few people who denied it, such as Eunomius of Cyzicus or one of the other fourth-century Arian theologians, boasted that they understood God as well as Jesus did by understanding him as completely as God could understand himself. This is what those creedal statements want to guard against. And as for God the Father being "without body, parts, or passions", well, guilty. The "passions" bit is questionable and probably does come from some Stoic influence. The reasoning was that if God is complete in himself and doesn't need anything outside of himself, then his existence should be perfect unperturbed joy because, well, he's God. Very many mainstream Christian philosophers and theologians today - except, of course, for the Thomists - reject divine impassibility as having been a theological mistake, and I agree with them. When it comes to "without body [or] parts", well, that really was the unanimous opinion of educated Jews and Christians since the time of Jesus, so I think there's gonna be an impasse on that one.
ReplyDeleteEventually I'll be making some posts over at my blog on all of these issues, so stay tuned, everyone! One of the first is going to be a historical study showing that, yes, mainstream Christianity since the time of the Council of Nicaea has always upheld the distinctness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Okay, I think that's my rant for the day. :)