Come Follow Me Mosiah 18-24
In the reading this week, after Abinadai was killed, Alma who was in the court of King Noah and listened to Abinadi, continues to preach the Gospel of Christ in secret to the people. What I find interesting is that there seems to have been some debate or conflict about the necessity of baptism. These people were just being converted to the Gospel of Christ, and apparently had questions regarding what the purpose of baptism was, or why they should do this.
We see probably the best example of baptismal covenants (that I know of) here in these scriptures. Alma says, if “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; 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 . . . if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord . . . ?”
Let’s review that. So, the people apparently did want to bear each other’s burdens, and mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that need comfort. They wanted these things, and Alma seems to be implying that living that way is what it means to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people. Living in compassion is what it means to stand as a witness of God. He’s like, if you want to do these things, then why wouldn’t you want to get baptized? Because being baptized “[is] a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him.”
Alma is making a case for what baptism is, and why we should do it. I think too often we associate baptism only with the remission of sin at the time of the ordinance. We think baptism = remission of sin. But this gives us a more complete answer. When we get baptized, what are we promising, and what do we get? Alma tells us we are promising to serve God by helping each other so hard things aren’t as hard. We are supposed to mourn with people who are sad and comfort people when they need comforted. We are supposed to emotionally be strong for one another. He tells us that if we want to serve others, that’s serving God, and we should want to be baptized as a formal indication that we intend to do these things. Why? Well, Alma answers that question too. We do it “that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon [us].”
How does this benefit us? Why do we want more of the Lord’s Spirit in our lives? Christ teaches in John 14:27 that His Spirit is what gives us peace and keeps our hearts from being troubled. That’s kind of a big deal in a world full of turmoil and uncertainty. Galatians 5:22-23 teaches us that the fruits of the spirit are “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” All of these things are desirable characteristics and personality traits we should be striving for. Anything else? John 14:26 says, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance . . .”
Okay, so now we’ll also be comforted, we’ll be able to learn more, and remember the things we have learned. Doctrine and Covenants tells us that when we testify of truth, not only will we be given what we should say, but that the Holy Ghost will testify to others the truth of what we say. I’m sure there are many more scriptures that can expound upon the benefits of having God’s guidance in our lives, but these were the first ones that came to mind. It seems like a pretty good deal. We try to help people who are struggling or sad (something I think the majority of people want to do anyway), and we get a lot of guidance, peace, and help from God in return. If these are the desires of our hearts, what have we against being baptized as a witness to God that these are our priorities? The benefits we’ve discussed are independent of any talk of sin or remission of sin, but I’m not going to address that because I think that’s what people think and talk about most when they discuss baptism. It doesn’t seem like that bad of a deal, right? That’s what the people in Alma’s time thought too, and they were baptized in “large numbers.”
Then, the people were organized to continue preaching to more people, and Alma “commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people. . .” I think this is really important. Why would Alma tell the others who would be teaching everyone else to only teach faith in the Lord and repentance? Presumably because these things were the most important, right? These were the things that are most expedient for us to understand. If, out of all the information and doctrines we have in the church, any church, are Faith in the Lord and Repentance, those topics ought to be pretty important to us today too, right?
First, faith in the Lord is a huge, comprehensive topic that has entire books written about it. When we read the scriptures we can begin to see that Faith in the Lord is the power, the actual power, that causes the remission of sin, healing, and miracles. We are taught that in Matthew 17:20 “. . . .If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Like having the Lord’s Spirit/Guidance and help, this faith thing seems like a pretty big deal. To me, understanding the concept of faith is only half of the equation. What does faith “in the Lord” mean? To me, to have faith in the Lord means you need to have a pretty good understanding of who the Lord was/is, what he did, etc. So, we need to study as much as we can about Christ, because how can we have faith in someone or something, without understanding what it is?
Second, there’s repentance. I think we’ve all heard some variation of repentance being described as a four step process that leads to remission of sin. Something like, 1-Recognize we’ve done wrong, 2-Regret, true remorse for what we’ve done, 3-Restitution and make it right if we can, and 4-Resolve to do better and turn from sin. I think we tend to be overly prescriptive in what repentance is, and that is a disservice to ourselves.
The Bible was originally believed to be translated from Greek, and the word in Greek for repentance is Metanoia. It is more indicative of a conversion, or a reformation than a mere change in behavior. It is more about improvement and becoming by changing our nature and ourselves than it is about seeing bad things we did, confessing them, and then not being in trouble for them anymore. Once source said that the repentance called for throughout the Bible is “a summons to a personal, absolute and ultimate unconditional surrender to God as Sovereign.” That’s powerful. Perhaps we only surrender portions of ourselves as we recognize how we can do better, with the ultimate goal of repentance being to eventually give God back all the pieces of us. These images of repentance seem to make it more clear that it’s less about sorrow and regret for us being bad, than it is about utilizing the “enabling power” of the atonement to assist us in our pursuit to change, to improve, and ultimately to become something better.
I hope that these ideas can give you new directions to focus some of your studies. If Faith in the Lord and Repentance are two of the most important doctrines that we have (see Article of Faith 4), then it is extremely important that we understand what these concepts are, and why they’re so important. Here are some additional questions you could pursue. What does it mean to renew baptismal covenants? What does it mean to be baptized by fire? What is faith? What evidences do the scriptures have that faith is the power by which miracles are wrought? What does it mean to have faith in something/someone? Who was Christ? Why should we seek to emulate Christ? What does Faith in the Lord look like? Other less academic questions we could ponder are do I recognize and surrender to God? Do I have conditions to submitting to his will? Do I believe that I can change?
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