My ward is considerably behind the schedule of most of the Church: in recent weeks we have had ward conference, stake conference, and a temple dedication. But here, for what it’s worth, after most of you have already had this lesson, is what I’m teaching today:

Lesson 11: Press Forward with a Steadfastness in Christ

2 Nephi 31-33

Purpose: To help class members understand the doctrine of Christ and have an increased desire to press forward, feasting on His words.

Lesson Development:

1. Nephi teaches of the doctrine of Christ.
2. Nephi teaches that we must press forward and endure to the end.
3. Nephi speaks of the importance of feasting on the words of Christ.
4. Nephi declares that people will believe his words if they believe in Christ.

SCRIPTURE DISCUSSION AND APPLICATION

At the very end of the Book of Mormon, when Moroni has finished telling us the fate of his people, and abridging the record of the Jaredites, he tells us, “I had supposed not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished.” (Moroni 1:1). He seems almost surprised to find himself still living, and almost seems unsure what to do with himself. so he opens the plates again and adds some miscellaneous records to the end. What does he add to the record that he thought he had finished? [Material about Christ giving the apostles authority to confer the Holy Ghost; a pattern for ordaining priests and teachers; the Sacrament prayers; a couple of letters written by his father about practical matters of conducting worship; an explanation of why infant baptism is not practiced; Moroni’s testimony.] These pieces are all very short and very practical – so useful that it is a little surprising that they haven’t already been incorporated into the body of the Book of Mormon.

In much the same way as Moroni did, Nephi completed his great work as the prophet and record keeper of his people at the end of 2 Nephi 30: He has brought the record of some 40 years of his people’s wanderings up to date. He has completed his reading of Isaiah and his commentary on Isaiah’s prophecies. He has completed his prophecy of the future of his people, their destruction and scattering, the restoration, and Christ’s coming in majesty. He concludes:

2 Nephi 30:18

18 Wherefore, all things which have been revealed unto the children of men shall at that day be revealed; and Satan shall have power over the hearts of the children of men no more, for a long time. And now, my beloved brethren, I make an end of my sayings.

That makes a fitting, satisfactory end to Nephi’s writing, doesn’t it? He has taken us to the brink of the millennial reign of the Messiah, and said goodbye.

And then what does he do? He does just what Moroni would do almost a thousand years later. He discovers he has more time than he expected, evidently, and he opens the plates again, and tacks on a few short, miscellaneous writings with enormous practical value to us who read his words all these centuries later.

The “tacked-on” quality of these last parts of Nephi’s writings is somewhat obscured in our modern Book of Mormon. In our current edition, the scriptures have been divided into more or less equal length chapters and verses, making it very easy to point toward specific lines that we want to discuss. But in the original format of the Book of Mormon, the chapter breaks – which appeared on the Nephite plates themselves – were quite different. For one thing, up to this point in 2 Nephi where we have 30 modern chapters, the gold plates and the 1830 printing were divided into only 12 chapters. Those chapters corresponded to “thought” divisions in the text: Nephi’s narrative of the history of his people appeared in one chapter, his quotations of Isaiah and his commentary on those quotations appeared in other chapters, his prophecies of the future were placed in their own chapter. The chapters originally were much longer and fewer, so it was easier for readers to understand that this material in this chapter formed a complete, related text, while that material in another chapter had a different theme and purpose.

So the bulk of 2 Nephi originally appeared in only 12 longer, unified chapters. Nephi had thought through that material carefully through his many decades of prophetic leadership, and planned what he wanted to say and how he would say it. But when he had finished that plan, he opened the plates again and added three more short chapters of extra, miscellaneous material that doesn’t fit into the structure of what he has written before. These are three short, separate chapters in the original form of the Book of Mormon, as well as three short, separate chapters in our modern books.

These three chapters appear to be short speeches that Nephi had given in the past, not something he composed especially for the Book of Mormon. Like the valuable, miscellaneous material that Moroni tacked on to his supposedly completed book, the chapters Nephi tacks onto his own writing are valuable, practical explanations on three key doctrines that he apparently thinks he has not adequately covered before: Baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and keeping a testimony of Christ.

The Sunday School schedule doesn’t give us enough time to give these chapters as much attention as they deserve, but let’s start reading them and discussing them as far as we can go.

Nephi begins with a few words of transition – unlike Moroni, he doesn’t just tack his written speech onto his carefully organized preceding text, but tries to soften the transition:

Chapter 31

1 And now I, Nephi, make an end of my prophesying unto you, my beloved brethren. And I cannot write but a few things, which I know must surely come to pass; neither can I write but a few of the words of my brother Jacob.

2 Wherefore, the things which I have written sufficeth me, save it be a few words which I must speak concerning the doctrine of Christ; wherefore, I shall speak unto you plainly, according to the plainness of my prophesying.

3 For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding.

We’ve see Nephi say something like this a time or two earlier. If Nephi is “plain,” what are the earlier prophets? How did they speak?

How would you classify Lehi as a prophet – plain or otherwise? [He speaks in dreams and symbols, so …]

Does Nephi have any trouble understanding prophets like Isaiah and Lehi who are not “plain”?

Why does he choose a different style?

What does it mean that God “speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding”?

4 Wherefore, I would that ye should remember that I have spoken unto you concerning that prophet which the Lord showed unto me, that should baptize the Lamb of God, which should take away the sins of the world.

Here is where Nephi transitions into what seems to have been an earlier speech on baptism. As far as I can tell, the only place we have a record of Nephi telling about the Messiah being baptized by John the Baptist was clear back at the beginning of 1 Nephi, before the people have come to the New World, when Nephi tells us about Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, and then asks to see the vision himself.

1 Nephi 11:7

And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my father had spoken; and I also beheld the prophet who should prepare the way before him. And the Lamb of God went forth and was baptized of him; and after he was baptized, I beheld the heavens open, and the Holy Ghost come down out of heaven and abide upon him in the form of a dove.

How many of the people who were associated with Nephi at the end of his life do you suppose could have heard his first telling of that vision?

Here at the end of his life, it seems that he expects the people he is speaking to – people who have been born in recent decades, people of the New World who perhaps have joined the people of Nephi from outside of Lehi’s family – to be completely familiar with that incident. What does that suggest about how the people have been taught over the years?

You listened to Conference last week. How much of what you heard was a retelling of what you have been taught before? How do you feel about hearing the same doctrine again? How does a prophet or an apostle decide what doctrine is important enough to repeat? What about teachings that you may have read here or there but which are never discussed at Conference?

There may have been some question in the Nephite mind, some recent discussion, about why the Savior was baptized:

5 And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water!

6 And now, I would ask of you, my beloved brethren, wherein the Lamb of God did fulfil all righteousness in being baptized by water?

7 Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy, he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.

8 Wherefore, after he was baptized with water the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove.

Let’s talk for a minute about what baptism meant to the Nephites, to the early Christians, and to us, because the meaning of baptism seems to have grown through the years.

The Nephites were Israelites, familiar with the practices required by the Law of Moses. For the Jews (and the other tribes of Israel), baptism, or bathing in water, was a rite of purification, a requirement for becoming ritually pure and qualified to participate in worship.

Exodus 30:17-21

17 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

18 Thou shalt also make a laver of brass, and his foot also of brass, to wash withal: and thou shalt put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and thou shalt put water therein.

19 For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat:

20 When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord:

21 So they shall wash their hands and their feet, that they die not: and it shall be a statute for ever to them, 3even to him and to his seed throughout their generations.

So, by becoming physically clean, the priests became also symbolically clean, pure enough to serve in the house of the Lord. The Nephites would have understand this symbolic relationship between physical and moral cleanliness, although obviously this is not the same thing as our ordinance of baptism: it had to be repeated every time a priest went into the tabernacle to serve, and it’s missing too many elements that were added to the ordinance through the ages.

Besides the ritual purity that would have been understood by Nephi’s people, what else does baptism signify to us, as modern Saints? [Discuss whatever the class suggests – hopefully, the aspects of initiation into a new community which was understood at least by the time of Alma:

Mosiah 18:-9

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life –

and the symbolism of being buried in the water and rising to new life:

Romans 6:3-5

3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

4 Therefore we are buried with hi by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.

which may have developed with Paul in part because the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection were so much more present for the new Christians than they could have been for the Nephites long before Christ’s mortal ministry.)

After that wandering, let’s reread 2 Nephi 31:5-8 to pick up Nephi’s thought again:

5 And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water!

6 And now, I would ask of you, my beloved brethren, wherein the Lamb of God did fulfil all righteousness in being baptized by water?

7 Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy, he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.

8 Wherefore, after he was baptized with water the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove.

So Nephi is discussing a question that was apparently being asked by the Nephites: The Lamb of God was holy. He had no need of cleansing his soul because he was already pure. Nephi gives some possible reasons for the baptism of Jesus – what did he say in these verses?

We, of course, are not sinless like the Savior, so baptism has another purpose, which Nephi explains:

9 And again, it showeth unto the children of men the straitness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, he having set the example before them.

10 And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?

11 And the Father said: Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son.

12 And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do.

So if you were to answer the question in a few words – why was Jesus baptized? – what would you say?

Since Nephi has spoken so often about preferring plainness, let’s take a closer look at verse 9:

9 And again, it showeth unto the children of men the straitness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, he having set the example before them.

We won’t worry about the meaning of the word “straitness” – regardless of spelling, there is evidence to support its meaning in the Book of Mormon translation as either “not crooked” or as “narrow.” But where does this image of a straight path and a narrow gate come from? [From the physical construction of Jerusalem, where narrow gates – narrow so the could be more easily defended – allowed the passage of a single person at a time through the walls of Jerusalem.] There is no evidence in the archaeology of ancient America that cities were built with walls pierced by narrow gates, so presumably this image would not have been familiar to most of Nephi’s audience. It isn’t so easy to escape cultural tradition after all!

More important than the image used, of course, is the intent of Nephi’s teaching about baptism: the purpose, the method, and the reward:

13 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.

14 But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me.

15 And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the words of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.

16 And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.

17 Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.

18 And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.

Nephi must have had some definite purpose in choosing to add this discussion of baptism to his well-planned and well-organized masterpiece. How would you summarize what we learn from this chapter that is either not included earlier in Nephi’s writings, or that is simply not as clear as it is here?

19 And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.

20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

Conclusion

There will not be time for the full discussion outlined above, nor for any discussion of chapters 32 and 33. At whatever point it becomes necessary to close, summarize Nephi’s outline of “the doctrine of Christ”: repentance, baptism, reception of the Holy Ghost, and “press[ing] forward with a steadfastness in Christ,” reading verses 20-21.

The Doctrine and Covenants tells us repeatedly that the Book of Mormon contains “the fullness of the gospel.” For example, Doctrine and Covenants 20:9 describes the Book of Mormon:

9 Which contains a record of a fallen people, and the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also;

The Book of Mormon does not teach us all that we know about the things of God, every practice and principle and ordinance and policy. The Book of Mormon does not teach us principles that were revealed in this dispensation – the sealing ordinances of the temple discussed in Doctrine and Covenants 132, the degree of glory discussed in Doctrine and Covenants 76, the law of tithing discussed in Doctrine and Covenants 119.

The Book of Mormon does contain the fullness of the law of the gospel: repentance, baptism, and the reception of the Holy Ghost, as that law is explained in temple covenants and in scripture (as, for example, Doctrine and Covenants 42). And perhaps nowhere is it explained as clearly and in such detail as it is here, in a chapter that Nephi tacked onto his writings almost as an afterthought.