Wednesday, April 3, 2013

An Opposition in All Things (Part 1)

For the last few weeks, I have been studying 2 Nephi 2 and related scriptures. This is not the first time that I have taken to an in-depth study of this chapter, and it has been every bit as rewarding this time as it has in the past. Something new that I have been trying is to make a list of vocabulary words from the chapter, and then find a suitable definition for each one. The list turned out to be quite long. For verses 4 through 11 alone, I came up with a list of twenty-eight words.

Since there is a lot of substance in these verses, I plan on breaking this article into smaller parts. Below I have highlighted some of the phrases from verses 4 and 5 that stood out to me as deserving a closer look:
4 And thou hast beheld in thy youth his glory; wherefore, thou art blessed even as they unto whom he shall minister in the flesh; for the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free.

5 And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. And the law is given unto men. And by the law no flesh is justified; or, by the law men are cut off. Yea, by the temporal law they were cut off; and also, by the spiritual law they perish from that which is good, and become miserable forever.
Salvation is not without cost. In fact, it comes at an infinite price which was paid by the Savior. Salvation is also not "a gimme"; we will not awake one day surprised to find ourselves saved. However, salvation is freely available to anyone who desires it; none are excluded.

How are men instructed? Surely not everyone in this life has been fortunate enough to receive gospel instructions from the scriptures, but verse 5 states that "they know good from evil." The Spirit of Christ is given to all men, and all men are born with an innate understanding of good and evil. That is not to say that they have a perfect understanding of all eternal laws governing the universe. On the contrary, this verse seems to imply that man knows just enough about good and evil to be condemned for his actions. No man is justified in choosing evil, because he knows better; by the law no flesh is justified.

The carnal nature of man precludes his obedience to the eternal laws which would ensure his happiness. As a consequence of his choices, he drifts ever further from the light. Without some intervening force, he becomes permanently separated from light and truth, and from all that is good.

12 comments:

  1. I would love to hear other opinions on the meaning of the phrase "salvation is free." Free in what sense?

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    1. I always like metaphors. One that I like is that we are all dying of thirst in the desert. Salvation is a glass of lemonade. Christ has paid for the lemonade, he made it, and he has placed it before us, provided sufficient to keep each of us from being thirsty. We are free to pick up the glass and drink it and be thirsty no more. But we must act and the that action (repentance, etc.) is well defined in the scriptures.

      It is part of why grace is so cool - if we act and try to pick up the glass, but Christ didn't do his part, we would profit nothing. It is his grace that makes the act worthwhile.

      So I guess I like to think of salvation as being freely available and before us to partake of. But we must choose to do so.

      David

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    2. I like that metaphor because it suggests that we have to do our part (in drinking from the cup) but it is Christ that gives all of the power to our action. I think that it is an important distinction that it is by grace that we are saved, not that we do as much as we can to save ourselves and then grace only takes care of what we didn't get to.

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  2. Why is no flesh justified by the law? Were none of God's spirit children righteous enough to live a perfect life except Jesus? Or could it be that of all of God's spirit children who were righteous enough to live a perfect life, Jesus was the only one sent to this earth?

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  3. Flesh in the Garden of Eden was not subject to the law, since there could be no sin, since there was no knowing good and evil.

    Once they fell, they were cut off from God, both physically and spiritually. For Adam and Eve, they could never satisfy the law, so they could not keep it and be justified by it. For all of us, our flesh will die. Even had we kept the entirety of the law our entire lives (which I think is impossible except for Christ, although I couldn't say why that's true, other than we are taught it), we still would have been subject to death (which Christ wasn't, he chose to die), so the law would not have justified our flesh and brought us back into the presence of God. I suppose we could have remained spirits in the spirit world, but there would have been no resurrection for us without Christ.

    So in a "literal" kind of sense, the law does not provide for resurrection of our flesh, and thus our flesh is not justified by the law.

    I think there is probably a more spiritual aspect relating to how our flesh becomes subject to our spirit and we place ourselves in subjection to Christ and the law, and then he "justifies" us both physically and spiritually, but I'm not sure if that is just because we all sin or because it is part of what we are meant to learn in life. If it is the former, perhaps the statement only refers to our actual flesh. If the latter, then perhaps it implies some of what Heavenly Father expects us to learn here.

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    1. That is an interesting thought about the flesh becoming subject to the spirit, and the spirit becoming subject to Christ.

      In 2 Nephi 9:25, Jacob teaches that where there is no law given there is no punishment because of the atonement. So the law may still have applied to Adam and Eve, but they were not subject to its punishment because of mercy extended by the atonement.

      On the other hand, maybe the law itself governs those who willfully obey or knowingly disobey the principles of righteousness, and since Adam and Eve could do neither, they were not subject to the law. If that is the case, then perhaps Jacob was referring to the state of things after the fall. Man could now choose between good and evil, but where he had not received the law, Christ would save him from the consequences of his actions.

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  4. I would love to hear other opinions on the meaning of the phrase "salvation is free." Free in what sense?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Why is no flesh justified by the law? Were none of God's spirit children righteous enough to live a perfect life except Jesus? Or could it be that of all of God's spirit children who were righteous enough to live a perfect life, Jesus was the only one sent to this earth?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I always like metaphors. One that I like is that we are all dying of thirst in the desert. Salvation is a glass of lemonade. Christ has paid for the lemonade, he made it, and he has placed it before us, provided sufficient to keep each of us from being thirsty. We are free to pick up the glass and drink it and be thirsty no more. But we must act and the that action (repentance, etc.) is well defined in the scriptures. It is part of why grace is so cool - if we act and try to pick up the glass, but Christ didn't do his part, we would profit nothing. It is his grace that makes the act worthwhile. So I guess I like to think of salvation as being freely available and before us to partake of. But we must choose to do so.

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  7. [Salvation is free] “Unconditional or general salvation, that which comes by grace alone without obedience to gospel law, consists in the mere fact of being resurrected. In this sense salvation is synonymous with immortality; it is the inseparable connection of body and spirit so that the resurrected personage lives forever.

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  8. [ By the law no flesh is justified] Obedience to the law, be it the law of Moses or the fulness of gospel law, will not resurrect or exalt a man. Had there been no atoning sacrifice there would be no resurrection, no eternal life, no celestial kingdom, no saved beings. Only in that which Christ did for us, that which we could not do for ourselves, is the hope of salvation granted to men.

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  9. In that sense, it seems like the other effects of the Fall that were overcome by the Atonement would be included, as they are also free. Christ overcame physical death, and the first spiritual death, unconditionally for all.

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