48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen. (Moroni 7)This is a continuation of a previous post about the relationship between the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Part 1 can be found here.
We left off with the concept of unity. In this post, we'll look more specifically at how covenants play a role in uniting us to God and allowing our will to be swallowed up in His will, just as Jesus did. Those covenants are brought about by divinely authorized messengers, and it seems pretty clear to me now that no discussion of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is complete without recognizing how much they want us to be included in their unity. We'll circle around to that at the end of this post.
What does it mean to be united?
Shared Joy
One important aspect of unity that I took away from this study is that those who are united rejoice together. For example, notice how the passages below demonstrate a unity of joy between Jesus those who saw Him as they saw Him pray unto the Father for them:
16 And after this manner do they bear record: The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father;
17 And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.
18 And it came to pass that when Jesus had made an end of praying unto the Father, he arose; but so great was the joy of the multitude that they were overcome.
19 And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade them arise.
20 And they arose from the earth, and he said unto them: Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full. (3 Nephi 17)
30 And now, behold, my joy is great, even unto fulness, because of you, and also this generation; yea, and even the Father rejoiceth, and also all the holy angels, because of you and this generation; for none of them are lost. (3 Nephi 27)
Covenants
This, of course, is a perfect lead-in to another critical aspect of unity -- covenants. There are so many references by Christ to the work of fulfilling the covenant of the Father to the House of Israel that I can't list them all, but I'll give one example to show how connected this is to the overall theme, which is most heavily focused in 3 Nephi 21-27:
26 And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of this people. Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been lost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem.
27 Yea, the work shall commence among all the dispersed of my people, with the Father to prepare the way whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name.
28 Yea, and then shall the work commence, with the Father among all nations in preparing the way whereby his people may be gathered home to the land of their inheritance. (3 Nephi 21)
The work of gathering Israel is intimately intertwined with covenants and unity. This thought took me back to the very first passage I studied -- 1 Nephi 1. In this chapter, we read of a vision Lehi had. Notice the description of what he saw:
8 And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.
9 And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
10 And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament.
11 And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read. (1 Nephi 1)
There is an important pattern outlined right here in these four verses:
- God the Father is exalted.
- Jesus Christ the Son came to earth to show us how to return to God the Father.
- The path back to God involves following those who follow Him. These "others" go forth upon the face of the earth and invite others to receive the word.
The divinely authorized messengers "descend" and "go forth upon the face of the earth" so that they can spread the word -- the glad tidings -- causing those who receive the word to "gather" and "ascend." That's pretty powerful.
One last note. Consider the introductory words of Mormon found in Moroni 7. I believe Mormon was preparing them to receive covenants:
2 And now I, Mormon, speak unto you, my beloved brethren; and it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and his holy will, because of the gift of his calling unto me, that I am permitted to speak unto you at this time.
3 Wherefore, I would speak unto you that are of the church, that are the peaceable followers of Christ, and that have obtained a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord, from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven. (Moroni 7)
I've written about similar themes here.
That's probably as succinct a summary as I can give of this divine concept of unity. I don't know that I necessarily learned any new information, but I am definitely able to see the role covenants play in uniting us with God increasingly clearly.