Christ said, “Learn of me.” How do we do that? Learning of Christ requires much more than just book learning, it requires keeping his commandments.
An apology
I need to apologize to you. In my previous lesson commentaries I was not very generous with Martin Harris and his loss of the 116 manuscript pages. When I listened to this talk by Elder Oaks I realized I am guilty of what he accused the bulk of the church about. He said we seem to have forgiven Joseph Smith for his part in losing the 116 pages of manuscript, but we still hold Martin Harris accountable for it. His whole talk is about the good Martin did for the work of the Restoration. I felt just awful by the time the talk was over. My opinion of Martin Harris has been greatly improved. Please take a few minutes to listen to this talk. I believe you will be glad you did. If the Lord forgave Martin Harris then so should we.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
What does it mean to subdue?
This next section of commentary is a personal reflection of mine as I pondered and studied the first five verses of section 19. Let’s start with verse 2.
2 I, having accomplished and the will of him whose I am, even the Father, concerning me—having done this that I might all things unto myself—
When I read this verse multiple times, the thought came to me that Jesus has already created everything, so what did his suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross accomplish for him that all things would now be subdued? Here is part of the definition of the word from the Websters 1828 dictionary.
1. To conquer by force or the exertion of superior power, and bring into permanent subjection; to reduce under dominion. Thus Cesar subdued the Gauls; Augustus subdued Egypt; the English subdued Canada. Subduing implies conquest or vanquishing, but it implies also more permanence of subjection to the conquering power, than either of these words.
2. To oppress; to crush; to sink; to overpower so as to disable from further resistance.
3. To render submissive; as, to subdue a stubborn child.
4. To conquer; to reduce to mildness; as, to subdue the temper or passions.
5. To overcome by persuasion or other mild means; as, to subdue opposition by argument or intreaties.
6. To overcome; to conquer; to captivate; as by charms.
7. To soften; to melt; to reduce to tenderness; as, to subdue ferocity by tears.
8. To overcome; to overpower and destroy the force of; as, medicines subdue a fever.
9. To make mellow; to break; as land; also, to destroy, as weeds. [emphasis added]
Notice that by human standards subduing something is often by some form of brute force. But when you apply this word to Jesus just look at all the other possible ways for him to subdue something. These “other ways” are those parts of the definition above that I underlined. Check it out.
I don’t know this for a fact, so this next thought is just my opinion. I wonder what Jesus needed to subdue. I am thinking he needed to subdue all things so that no power or will in the universe could stand independent of his sovereignty. Notice what he continues to tell Martin Harris in these verses.
2 I, having accomplished and the will of him whose I am, even the Father, concerning me—having done this that I might all things unto myself—
3 Retaining all , even to the of Satan and his works at the of the world, and the last great day of judgment, which I shall pass upon the inhabitants thereof, every man according to his and the deeds which he hath done.
4 And surely every man must or , for I, God, am .
5 Wherefore, I not the judgments which I shall pass, but woes shall go forth, weeping, and gnashing of teeth, yea, to those who are found on my hand.
Verse 3 tells us that the will of the Father concerning Christ was to having him pay this price we can’t comprehend (the atonement) specifically so he has the ability to subdue all things unto himself. There appears to be a lot going on here that I don’t comprehend. But by subduing all things unto himself he is then able to destroy Satan when the time is right, and pass judgment upon all mankind. I think he has the ability to destroy Satan at any time of his choosing, but he knows that Satan serves the Father’s purposes by standing in opposition to the Father’s will. So Satan will be allowed to run amok among the children of men until all of God’s children have had their opportunity to be tested and fulfill the purposes of this mortal experience.
All of the above information is in this section of the Doctrine and Covenants, but not covered in this week’s lessons. Those were just things that I thought of and looked into while I was studying the lessons.
Learn of me
The goal of this week’s lessons is to look at how the Savior’s work and Martin Harris’s commandments help Martin learn about the Savior and how he can become more like the Savior. The more I look at the Savior’s sacrifice then look at what Christ was requiring of Martin, the more I see how difficult this revelation must have been for him to accept and follow. Perhaps I am just overlaying my own reservations on Martin Harris, but some of the demands we will discuss below strike me as very difficult to do.
A little bit about Martin and Joseph
Let’s consider the physical and social relationship between these two men. Martin Harris was old enough to be Joseph Smith’s father. Martin was more than 20 years Joseph’s senior. Martin was a prosperous farmer, having hundreds of acres of prime land. He was well known in the community, an elected and trusted official among his peers, and was a hard working and ethical individual.
Along comes this young man, newly wed, and half Martin’s age. Martin learns of Joseph’s visions and chooses to believe in what Joseph told him. Martin’s wife was agreeable for a while, but then turned against Joseph and his claims. Everything Martin did she fought him on, because she believed Joseph Smith was a liar. If you have ever had this kind of difference of opinion with your spouse, you know what such things can do to your marital relationship. Everything Joseph asked of Martin Harris rankled Martin’s wife. Imagine what he had to live with at home when the Lord told Martin to sell most of his prime (and lucrative) farmland to pay for Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon. As you read section 19 consider what Martin might have been feeling as the Lord told him to sell everything but what he needed to survive. He had to live with a spouse who would be livid at such an action.
We know of the documented trials Joseph Smith endured, but we don’t usually think of the trials Martin Harris had to face as his faith was tested by the Lord. Section 19 is a good measuring rod that shows he was willing to face some pretty severe trials in his witness of the Lord’s work. This all happened in 1829 and Martin Harris’s wife didn’t die until about 1835. Martin sacrificed a lot in those years, and that wasn’t the end of his trials.
Making the segue (transition)
The manual jumps from the introduction about Martin Harris to issues surrounding the suffering of Christ. This change from one topic to the other was not explained in such a way that I could understand how the one topic related to the other. As I spent time pondering the relationship of Christ’s words to Martin Harris, I finally realized that the Savior was trying to get Martin to see that the sacrifices the Lord was requiring of him was for his own benefit. Jesus used his own suffering to help Martin to see that what he was being asked to suffer for the cause of the Restoration of Christ’s church was going to result in Martin Harris’s own glorification and exaltation.
I thought about the comparison of Jesus’ sufferings to our sufferings and finally realized that Jesus is the only one of God’s children to come to earth who didn’t have to suffer for sin. He had no sin for which he needed to suffer. His sufferings were all voluntary to please his Father. Why? Because our Father in Heaven gave Jesus the assignment to do for us what we don’t have the capacity to do for ourselves, to become reconciled with the laws of justice we all inevitably violate during our mortal experience. Jesus had the capacity to shoulder all of our eternal debts to God’s laws, and by doing so he would be able to offer us the mercy God, Himself could not directly offer us.
Our Father in Heaven is the lawgiver and must judge based on the laws of justice. Jesus is able to satisfy the demands of all those laws, and in return offer us mercy and forgiveness, but only on the conditions that we repent and try to be better. If we refuse to do so then he must do as our Father must do and judge us based on the laws of justice. Mercy cannot rob the demands of justice, nor can justice encroach on the power of mercy. Both must exist within their own sphere of influence, and God’s plan for our salvation uses Christ’s atoning sacrifice to provide us with both in full measure.
Elder Ulisses Soares gave a talk entitled, “Jesus Christ: The Caregiver of Our Soul” in the April 2021 General Conference. In it he explains how God provides us with a path back home. The door Elder Soares refers to is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah. (I have included several consecutive paragraphs from his talk, but interrupt them with my own commentary.)
“God … prepared a sacrifice in the gift of His own Son, who should be sent in due time to … open a door through which man might enter into the Lord’s presence.”
The Savior’s suffering was voluntary, because the demands of justice had no hold upon him. There was no need for Jesus to ever suffer, because he never broke a law. But our disobedience requires that we suffer punishment because of the demands of justice if we don’t accept Christ’s offer to be forgiven of our sins through the act of repentance. To repent means to work with Christ and his Spirit to come into compliance with God’s laws and to learn of Him and His ways through obedience to God and service to others. This is the process by which we are changed to become more like Christ.
While through His sacrifice the Savior unconditionally removed the effects of physical death, He did not eliminate our personal responsibility to repent for the sins we commit. Rather, He extended to us a loving invitation to be reconciled to our Eternal Father. Through Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, we can experience a mighty change of mind and heart, bringing a fresh attitude, both toward God and toward life in general. When we sincerely repent of our sins and turn our hearts and will to God and His commandments, we can receive His forgiveness and feel the influence of His Holy Spirit in greater abundance. Mercifully, we avoid having to experience the depth of suffering the Savior endured.
Only through the power of repentance and the covenants of the priesthood can we experience the sanctifying changes that make us truly like Christ, even in a small degree. This process has been given to us by God, our Father because of His love for us. And it is made possible through the suffering of Jesus, he who had no sin and never needed to suffer for a sin because of his own personal mistakes or choices. He suffered for us because it pleased our Father and it saves his brothers and sisters (each of us) who choose to come to him and repent of our sins.
The gift of repentance is an expression of God’s kindness toward His children, and it is a demonstration of His incomparable power to help us overcome the sins we commit. It is also an evidence of the patience and long-suffering our loving Father has for our mortal weakness and frailties. President Russell M. Nelson, our beloved prophet, referred to this gift as “the key to happiness and peace of mind.”
My dear friends, I testify to you that as we genuinely repent of our sins, we allow the atoning sacrifice of Christ to become wholly effective in our life. We will become free from the bondage of sin, find joy in our earthly journey, and become eligible to receive eternal salvation, which was prepared from the foundation of the world for all who believe in Jesus Christ and come unto Him.
In addition to providing the majestic gift of salvation, the Savior offers us relief and comfort as we face our afflictions, temptations, and weaknesses of mortal life, including the circumstances we have experienced recently in the current pandemic. I can assure you that Christ is ever aware of the adversities we experience in mortality. He understands all of the bitterness, agony, and physical pain as well as the emotional and spiritual challenges we face. The Savior’s bowels are filled with mercy, and He is always ready to succor us. This is possible because He personally experienced and took upon Himself in the flesh the pain of our weakness and infirmities.
Martin Harris and repentance
Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20 allows us to listen in on a bit of instruction of the Savior’s sacrifice for us and the purpose for that sacrifice. He is addressing Martin Harris and by proxy he is addressing each of us. This is the reason we need to repent. It doesn’t matter if our need is over a huge indiscretion or a tiny matter, for the need is always present. All sin for which we do not repent must be answerable to the laws of justice at the last day, so we need to clear ourselves of guilt in every way possible now so we don’t have to suffer as Christ did for those acts of rebellion or willfulness.
When the Savior says in the verses below that he will smite us with the rod of his mouth, he is only saying that his mercy is able to be extended for only so long. When the day of judgment arrives he can no longer be merciful, for it is the day of judgment. If we have not earned his mercy by then he cannot extend it. And if his mercy has not been earned through our repentance then he has no choice but to exercise the laws of justice in our judgment. It is this exercise of the law that will cause us to suffer. His command for us to repent is for our benefit, not his. He is trying to save us from having to suffer as he did.
15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your 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 these things for all, that they not suffer if they would ;
17 But if they would not repent they must even as I;
18 Which 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 drink the bitter cup, and shrink—
19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and my preparations unto the children of men.
20 Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I you with my almighty power; and that you your sins, lest you suffer these of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have at the time I withdrew my Spirit.
Verse 20 reminds us of how both Joseph Smith and Martin Harris felt when they realized the 116 manuscript pages were gone. They both suffered greatly and thought they had lost their eternal souls. This is the suffering Jesus says here is “in the least degree” of the suffering we will have to experience if we choose not to repent and accept his grace before the day of judgment.
Priorities
The Lord had some very specific things Martin Harris was to do. Among these things was to put his love of the world and its toys into subjection to Martin’s commitment to the Lord. First the Lord starts with a promise to Martin.
23 of me, and listen to my words; in the of my Spirit, and you shall have in me.
Christ’s first demand is that Martin not covet his own property.
26 And again, I command thee that thou shalt not thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon, …
How can you covet what you already own? Have you ever considered that? I consider coveting as desiring to possess what is not your own. Since all things belong to God, even if I currently have possession of something He wants then I am desiring to keep possession of something that doesn’t belong to me in the first place. The idea of ownership of anything in this world is a falsehood. We own nothing, for we came to earth with nothing and we leave earth with nothing. The only thing we have upon entering and exiting mortality is the state and condition of our soul. Everything else is but a toy in the sandbox of life. Those toys must remain in the sandbox when we are called to return home.
The Lord leaves Martin with one final lesson to be learned.
38 always, and I will my Spirit upon you, and great shall be your blessing—yea, even more than if you should obtain of earth and corruptibleness to the extent thereof.
Did you notice that when the Lord mentioned the treasures of the earth He also included that with those treasures comes a “corruptibleness” or in other words the possibility for being corrupted by those treasures? He promises Martin Harris that if he will pray always that he, God will “pour out my Spirit upon you, and great shall be your blessing.”
What does verse 38 mean for each of us? Doesn’t the promise of the Lord apply equally to me and to you as well as it did to Martin Harris? We should each take these requirements and blessings to heart, for what God says to one is good for all when it comes to how we should live our lives and keep His commandments.
Section 19 teaches each of us how we can learn of Christ and come unto him. These verses teach us of our earthly priorities, how we should stop coveting even the things we already possess and to find ways to use these things in the service of God. The Savior didn’t tell Martin to sell all that he had to further His work. He told Martin Harris to keep enough to support his family. I guess the question we each have to answer is how much is enough in this life? Even if we don’t have much in mortality, do we covet what we don’t have, meaning do we want possession of things at the expense of keeping God’s commandments? Or are we willing to live in happiness with spiritual riches instead of physical riches?
There are always those who have no problem making money and obtaining great possessions. But for each of us the question always is about how easily we are willing to part with those things when they are needed by the Lord for other things. God is more concerned with our spiritual prosperity than our earthly prosperity. Martin Harris did sell off the larger portion of his farm to pay the debt for the printing of the Book of Mormon, and many more sacrifices did he make as well.
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