Punishment

2007-12-6 04:55:00

Here is a question I received from an LDS reader:

"The following D&C [Doctrine & Covenants, Section 19] quote is a message given through prophet Joseph Smith to Martin Harris. (Quote given later in the post.) While the Lord addresses Martin Harris in particular, He also makes it clear He is speaking to all people when he uses the pronoun 'they' rather than 'you' meaning Harris.

"What's wrong here? Jesus is still speaking to humanity as if they will suffer greatly if they do not repent.

"By repent, I think it reasonable to assume the Lord means repent and be baptized and accept Jesus as your savior, as He speaks elsewhere."

JJ:

I don't know why you think I have something against faith, repentance and baptism. I support the truth behind all these things.

That said, let us look at what the scripture says, not at what it does not say. Jesus doesn't say anything about baptism in this section. Here is what he tells Martin to do or repent of:

"And I command you that you preach naught but repentance, and show not these things unto the world until it is wisdom in me." (D&C 19:21)

Comment:

Martin in his life preached many things other than repentance. If we take this literally the preaching of baptism would even violate this commandment.

"Walk in meekness of my Spirit." (D&C 19:23)

Comment:

Martin rejected Joseph after the Kirkland bank failure and formed a new church that excommunicated the prophet. That does not seem very meek.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife; nor seek thy neighbor's life." (D&C 19:24)

Comment:

Martin's wife said he committed adultery with a neighbor.

"Thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon, which contains the truth and the word of God." (D&C 19:26)

Comment:

He seemed to have obeyed this.

²⁸ "And again, I command thee that thou shalt pray vocally as well as in thy heart; yea, before the world as well as in secret, in public as well as in private.

²⁹ "And thou shalt declare glad tidings, yea, publish it upon the mountains, and upon every high place, and among every people that thou shalt be permitted to see.

³¹ "And of tenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt declare repentance and faith on the Savior, and remission of sins by baptism, and by fire, yea, even the Holy Ghost."

(D&C 19:28, 29 & 31)

Comment:

We know not how faithful he was in these items.

"Impart a portion of thy property, yea, even part of thy lands, and all save the support of thy family." (D&C 19:34)

Comment:

He imparted some of his property, but did he go this far? I'm not sure.

"Leave thy house and home, except when thou shalt desire to see thy family;" (D&C 19:36)

Comment:

This is an odd commandment. We have no idea of how faithful he was with this one.

And what would happen to Martin if he does not repent and obey these commandments?

¹³ "Wherefore, I command you to repent, and keep the commandments which you have received by the hand of my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., in my name;

¹⁴ "And it is by my almighty power that you have received them;

¹⁵ "Therefore I command you to repent-repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore-how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.

¹⁶ "For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

¹⁷ "But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

¹⁸ "Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit-and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink-

¹⁹ "Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men."
(D&C 19:13-19)

If we are to take this literally it looks like Martin would be doomed to suffer even as Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane, yet there is no record of him suffering anything out of the ordinary. When he made his greatest error of losing the 116 page manuscript from the Book of Mormon it appears that Joseph suffered more anguish than Martin did in his entire life.

Since we do not have a record of any person even of the blackest dye suffering as did the Savior then when will this happen? Apparently there are boatloads of people who are qualified for it.

What makes this punishment even more mystifying is that it appears to need a physical body to be carried out. The suffering caused Jesus to "suffer both body and spirit." Obviously, this cannot be carried out in the spirit world for we have no physical bodies there and the punishment must "suffer both body and spirit."

Obviously, if one rebels against the Spirit and has not endured such suffering he must come back in a future life and endure it. The truth is that all will endure such punishment UNLESS he repents. As soon as he repents or changes direction and follows the inner voice this ultimate punishment is avoided.

Eventually, all of us in some life reaches a point where we see with enough clarity to choose between the two paths. Most eventually do repent and choose the path of light, but a few choose the path of pure selfishness and become sons of perdition. These few will suffer body and spirit in the manner described in the revelation.

Jesus tasted the pain of this suffering so he could lead us away from it and become a master over the dark forces of destruction. If we follow his words as well as the words of the inner voice of the Spirit we will be led to peaceful pastures and will avoid the destruction of all but our immortal essence.

Reader:

"As their lawyer come the day of reckoning, JJ, in light of this admonition from Jesus Christ, if you council others to ignore the gift of the atoning blood shed by Jesus Christ, what other than some semantics are you going to offer up to Jesus Christ on their behalf, if in fact, Jesus Christ's word here can be taken as real and true? Are you going to say, 'Now just a minute, here, he who calls himself Lord, he who assumes he can judge the world, get out your Greek lexicon, and you will see you are just living in the Pisces Age, so knock off the guilt trip, Jesus, and get with the times.' Is this going to be what JJ their lawyer offers up come the day of reckoning when they will have to stand before Jesus Christ and deal with the ramifications of what he has just said here?"

JJ:

The scriptures say that we will be judged by the words of the scriptures. If this is true then one can indeed offer the words of the scriptures in defense. If many of these have been corrupted through bad translation then it is our duty to discover what the original meaning was as Jesus and the prophets spoke them.

If you have not been exposed to the original Greek and Hebrew meanings then you have an excuse for your ignorance. But if you have as I have revealed numerous times then perhaps the tables will be switched on you. Perhaps at the judgment seat it may go something like this:

Reader: "But I should be saved because I have forgiven, repented of sin and believed of Jesus Christ."

Jesus: "But I did not use the words sin, saved, forgiveness, repent and Jesus Christ as they are translated into English. The English corrupted their meaning. The original intent was presented by JJ and you were challenged to check out the meaning in concordances, yet you did not. Why did you accept the tradition of your fathers without question?

"Do you not realize that the law of love is behind all that you have been taught by me and that all that JJ taught you manifests the love of God to the world?

"The son of man came not to destroy but to save all who are willing."

"There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin'. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."
-- Will Rogers