D&C 18-19

Sections 18 and 19 are a good example of a “scripture foil.”

Doctrine & Covenants 18“The Worth of Souls”

Two major themes of section 18

1. Future calling of the 122. The importance of each soul!

It has been quite a few years now since that call [to the Council of the Twelve] came. Yet I still feel unready and unable. You may wonder why this calling has made me, and I expect others of the Twelve, feel perpetually inadequate. Consider this statement about the holy apostleship from the Prophet Joseph, as reported by Brigham Young: “All the Priesthood, all the keys, all the gifts, all the endowments, and everything preparatory to entering into the presence of the Father and of the Son, are in, composed of, circumscribed by, or I might say incorporated within the circumference of, the Apostleship….Said Joseph,…Do you not know that the man who receives the Apostleship, receives the keys that ever were, or that can be, conferred upon mortal man?” (Neal A. Maxwell, That Ye May Believe, 88).

“I am certain our Heavenly Father is displeased when we refer to ourselves as a ‘nobody.’ How fair are we when we classify ourselves a ‘nobody’? How fair are we to our families? How fair are we to our God?...

“As children of God we are somebody. He will build us, mold us, and magnify us if we will but hold our heads up, our arms out, and walk with him” (Marvin J. Ashton, Conference Report, April 1973, 21).

Doctrine & Covenants 18:9

First apostles of this dispensation.

Doctrine & Covenants 18:10-16

“The Worth of Souls is great in the sight of God”

Why? Atonement!

News! Good News! He lives!

Who can measure the worth of a human soul?

Brigham Young stated:

“The least, the most inferior spirit now upon the earth, in our capacity is worth worlds.” Who can doubt it? The greatest evidence of the value of each child of God is the fact that the Redeemer “suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and comeunto him… And how great is His joy in the soul that repenteth” (Journal of Discourses, 9:124).

Story of Elder Walling from the Boise, Idaho Mission

Story of Ray Born.

Abraham Lincoln wisely said, “It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him” (The International Thesaurus of Quotations, comp. Rhoda Thomas Tripp [New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1970], 575).

Doctrine & Covenants 18:20

It is therefore, the obligation of the Saints to stand forth against evil wherever it may be found. The method of doing so is clear, according to President Joseph Fielding Smith:

“All who go forth to teach should do so in wisdom and not contend with the churches or engage in profitless debates, but teach in the spirit of kindness and try to persuade people to receive the truth” (Church History and Modern Revelation, 1:83).

Doctrine & Covenants 18:31, 37

Search out the twelve!

(The 12 were not chosen until 1835)

Doctrine & Covenants 18:34-36

Explaining how one hears the voice of the Lord, Elder S. Dilworth Young declared:

“In 1835 the Twelve were chosen, as you know, and on one occasion they were called together and given their instructions. Oliver Cowdery was the spokesman; and after having given them some very powerful and heartwarming instruction, so moved was he, himself, that he had to stop two or three times to weep. He finally read the revelation (now designated as section 18).

“Brigham Young was so impressed by it that he copied it in his laborious handwriting into his diary. I am impressed by it likewise.

“The thing that impresses me about this is, and I have never thought of it before, when I read a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants I am hearing the voice of the Lord as well as reading his words, if I hear by the Spirit.

“Now I have heard it said many times by men that they have often asked the Lord for a special testimony and oftentimes haven’t had it. They seem to want to hear the voice of the Lord. I confess I have often wanted to hear the voice of the Lord, without knowing that all these years I have been hearing it with deaf ears. This woke me up” (Conference Report, Apr. 1963, 74).

Doctrine & Covenants 19

“The Gift of Repentance”

Martin Harris had been begging Joseph for a commandment (I for one am glad he did).

The doctrine of the Atonement as applying to the individual and his exposition of eternal punishment gave members light which was previously not known.

The word “Atonement” is found just one time in the New Testament (Romans 5:11).

Doctrine & Covenants 19:1

Interesting introduction!

Doctrine & Covenants 19:2

“Submission” this is a key word in helping us to understand the Atonement!

“The Atonement is fundamentally a doctrine of human development, not a doctrine that simply erases black marks” (Hafen and Hafen, Belonging Heart, 79).

“One who chooses Christ chooses to be changed….The Atonement [is] the means whereby our hearts might be cleansed and our souls transformed and prepared to dwell with Christ and our Eternal Father….The Atonement does more than fix the mistakes. It does more than balance the scales. It even does more than forgive our sins. It rehabilitates, regenerates, renews, and transforms human nature. Christ makes us better, worlds better, than we would have been had there been no fall” (Millet, Grace Works, 53, 61, 95).

To Be Covered: “kaphar”

The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of our covenants, protect us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement --- a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered.

In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.”

Doctrine & Covenants 19:4

An exit from Hell? YES!

In hell there is an exit as well as an entrance. No man will be kept in hell longer than is necessary to bring him to a fitness for something better (James E. Talmage, Conference Report 1930, 97).

Doctrine & Covenants 19:16

In Greek repent means to adopt a new view, a 180% change. Walking a new direction.

Doctrine & Covenants 19:16-20

Alma 7:11-12

Four areas the Atonement covers:

1. Pains and afflictions

2. The pains and sicknesses of his people

3. Loosens the bands of death

4. Our infirmities (weaknesses)

Doctrine & Covenants 19:28, 38

Pray vocally and always!

“At the very moment, at the hour when the crisis came for him to offer up his life, the Father withdrew Himself, withdrew His Spirit, and cast a veil over (Jesus). That is what made him sweat blood. If he had the power of God upon him, he would not have sweat blood; but all was withdrawn from him, and a veil was cast over him, and he then plead with the Father not to forsake him” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 3:206).

There are only three scriptural references on a “blood Atonement.”

1. Doctrine & Covenants 19:18

2. Luke 22:44 (as it were great drops)

3. Mosiah 3:7

Why Must Blood Be Shed?

We really don’t know. Joseph Fielding Smith does not attempt to answer how the blood of Christ cleanses us, he does discuss why such blood had to be shed: “Since it was by the creation of blood that mortality came, it is by the sacrifice of blood that the redemption from death was accomplished, and all creatures freed from Satan’s grasp. In no other way could the sacrifice for redemption of the world from death be accomplished” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 3:103).

Don’t leave Father in Heaven out of it!

“In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even he could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child and has to be taken out of the room so as not to look upon the last struggles, so He bowed His head and hid in some part of His universe, His great heart almost breaking for the love that He had for His Son. Oh, in that moment when He might…

have saved His Son, I thank Him and praise Him that He did not fail us, for He had not only the love of His son in mind, but He also had love for us. I rejoice that He did not interfere, and that His love for us made it possible for Him to endure to look upon the sufferings of His Son and give Him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer, without Him, without His sacrifice, we would have remained, and we would never have come glorified into His presence. And so this is what it cost, in part, for our Father in heaven to give the gift of His Son unto men” (Melvin J. Ballad, Crusader for Righteousness, 1966, 137).

(My experience in Gethsemane)

Doctrine & Covenants 76:24

Elder McConkie has written:

“Now our Lord’s jurisdiction and power extend far beyond the limits of this one small earth on which we dwell. He is, through the power of his atonement the inhabitants of these worlds, the revelation says, ‘are begotten sons and daughters unto God,’ which means that the atonement of Christ, being literally and truly infinite, applies to an infinite number of earths.” (Mormon Doctrine, Bookcraft, 1966, pp. 65, 642.)

Doctrine & Covenants 19:18

Which Suffering caused myself… to tremble because of pain.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained:

“We do not know, we cannot tell, no mortal mind can conceive the full import of what Christ did in Gethsemane. We know he sweat great gouts of blood from every pore as he drained the dregs of that bitter cup his Father had given him.”

“We know he suffered, both body and spirit, more than it is possible for man to suffer, except it be unto death.

“We know that in some way, incomprehensible to us, his suffering satisfied the demands of justice, ransomed penitent souls from the pains and penalties of sin, and made mercy available to those who believe in his holy name.

“We know that he lay prostrate upon the ground as the pains and agonies of an infinite burden caused him to tremble and would that he might not drink the bitter cup.

“We know that an angel came from the courts of glory to strengthen him in his ordeal, and we suppose it was mighty Michael, who foremost fell that mortal men might be.

“As near as we can judge, these infinite agonies – this suffering beyond compare – continued for some three or four hours” (Bruce R. McConkie Conference Report, April 1985, 9-10).

Elder Neal A. Maxwell offered insight into the symbolic significance of the Savior’s anguish:

“His infinite atonement affected every age, every dispensation, and every person. Hence the appropriate symbolism of His bleeding at each and every pore – not just some” (Conference Report, October, 1988, 41).

Elder Maxwell taught in general conference that the cumulative weight of all mortal sins – past, present, and future – pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement (Conference Report, April, 1985, 92).

It seems, that in addition to the fearful suffering incident to crucifixion, the agony of Gethsemane had recurred, intensified beyond human power to endure. In that bitterest hour the dying Christ was alone, alone in most terrible reality. That the supreme sacrifice of the Son might be consummated in all its fullness, the Father seems to have withdrawn the support of His immediate Presence, leaving to the Savior of men the glory of complete victory over the forces of sin and death” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 661).

Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote:

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith,

fortitude, and humility. …It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.

Suffering:

Do you know, the suffering of the innocent is less of a problem to me very often than that of the wicked. It sounds absurd: but I’ve met so many innocent sufferers who seem to be gladly offering their pain to God, in Christ as part of the Atonement, so patient, so meek, even so at peace, and so unselfish that we can hardly doubt they are being, as St. Paul says, ‘made perfect by suffering.’ On the other hand I meet selfish egoists in whom suffering seems to produce only resentment, hate, blasphemy, and more egoism. They are the real problem (The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, vol. 3, 520).

Doctrine & Covenants 19:31

Of “tenets” thou shalt not talk

Doctrinal beliefs that distinguish those of various denominations. We are to focus on the restoration.

Elder John A. Widtsoe expressed that he was grateful for the doctrine that we shall go on, throughout the endless ages, far beyond the comprehension of man. I am indeed grateful that all has not been revealed today, because if we are to go on, today and tomorrow and throughout all time to come, then we shall be continually learning an increasing in knowledge. I find men occasionally who are very fond of discussing the unrevealed truths of the gospel. To them everything must be explained; there must be no mystery.

This is completely out of harmony with the great principle of eternal progression, one of the cornerstones of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am thankful that I do not understand all things; that I have been given certain field knowledge into which I must fit this mortal life to the best of my ability; and that I know for a certainty that on the tomorrow, when this life is passed, or perhaps before it is over, new light and knowledge may be given me (Conference Report, April 1925, 28).