Section 2
1: Elijah will pass down the priesthood keys to earth
How many times in the Bible to we hear the promise that the Lord will send Elijah, his prophet?? I count three times with the same promise in Malachi 4:5, 3 Nephi 25:5-6 and you guessed it, D&C 2:1-2 .
Malachi 4:5-6:
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
6And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children , and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse .
3rd Nephi 25: 5-6:
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord;
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Doctrine and Covenants 2:1-2:
1 Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
2And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
I have taken this to mean that Elijah will appear in the latter days to restore the priesthood keys to the Earth. If you look at the footnotes for the first verse in each reference you'll see “Priesthood, Keys” “Last Days”.
When I first read the second verse, my initial reaction was “What does that mean?” Turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and vice verso refers to the generations. The main reference focuses on Genealogy work and Temple Ordinances.
Now verse 3 had me do a double take: If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.
Anyone care to guess the purpose of this one???
We all know that we were put on Earth for a good reason. We are here to gain perspective and have the experiences that only life can give us. The goal of this life is to eventually return to the loving arms of our Heavenly Father. Without the proper authority and the required keys, this would not be possible.
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There are other references to this promise about Elijah--Moroni says the same thing to Joseph Smith multiple times (found in Joseph Smith-History 1:38-39), the recorded vision of Elijah fulfilling the promise (D&C 110: 13-15), and again as a reference in D&C 128:17 when Joseph Smith expounded upon temple work/baptisms for the dead. Also D&C 27: 9 and 98: 16-17 in slightly different words.
ReplyDeleteMy patriarch told me that turning the hearts of the children to the fathers was also a reference to the promises that Abraham sought, as found in Abraham 1, especially v. 2-3. The blessings of the patriarchal order--eternal life.
Verse 3: If we don't leave this earth exalted, then it was a waste of our time to come here and it was a waste of the coming of the Savior. We have to do all we can, especially temple ordinances for our ancestors and raising our children righteously.
This is an interesting passage. I see a lot of discussion in LDS sources about attention to genealogical study for the purposes of temple ordinances being what is meant by turning the hearts of the children to the fathers; what about turning the hearts of the fathers to their children?
ReplyDeleteAnother question I have is, what relationship do you see between Malachi 4:6c (= 3 Nephi 25:6c) and D&C 2:3? I think, if I'm reading you and Elyse rightly, the earth being 'waste' is referring to there being no point in our being here without the keys of the priesthood that make exaltation possible. But it sounds to me - especially in light of those parallel passages - that D&C 2:3 is talking about the earth becoming waste - i.e., being devastated - upon the Lord's advent here, and that the only thing that will avert this dreadful fate is the power of the priesthood here on earth in the present time. So then the question becomes, why would the Lord devastate the earth at his coming if the hearts of the children were not turned to their fathers?