You
can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/5?lang=eng
In
these opening chapters of Mosiah, we glimpse something extremely hopeful. That
it is possible for sinful men and women to transform themselves. The choice,
ultimately, to submit to temptation is ours. And we can fortify ourselves to
the point where we are much less inclined to it.
As
King Benjamin asks his people whether they believe his words to them, and they
respond with a convincing yes, they go beyond an audience that merely accepts a
teaching in principle. They are fully committed to the spiritual power of the
moment, shown by their proclamation that the Spirit of the Lord “has wrought a
mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil,
but to do good continually” (verse 2). The power is such that the people tell Benjamin
that because of their faith in what he taught them, God has shown them visions
of the future (verses 3-4).
Something
marvelous takes place next. The people tell Benjamin that they are willing to
enter into a covenant with God. Is the covenant associated with a particular
ordinance? Baptism? Something else? The record doesn’t say explicitly. My own
feeling is that if the covenant is associated with any ordinance, it is
probably beyond baptism, because these people seem like they would have already
been baptized given their established patterns of worship. Perhaps it is an
ordinance associated with the temple, given that Benjamin in speaking right
next to the temple.
Even
if we don’t know if an ordinance is part of this covenant, the covenant itself
is straightforward. The people agree to do God’s will, and “to be obedient to
his commandments in all things…all the remainder of our days” (verse 5). It is
pure and total obedience to the Father, of the kind that Jesus showed in
carrying out his atoning sacrifice for them and all of us. No equivocation.
In
praising his people, Benjamin tells them that through their obedience they will
be made free (verse 8). It seems like such a paradox, this idea that following
someone else is freedom rather than captivity. Unless we accept the teaching
that there is a battle between good and evil going on for our souls, Under this
teaching, which has the added benefit of being true(!), the good path is where
obedience comes through persuasion from someone who wants us to be happy and to
receive everything he has. The evil path is one where we think we are acting
perfectly free by “escaping” the obedient, good path, but little do we know we
are actually being compelled to act by a miserable being who wants us to
dispossess us of all we have so we can be miserable with him. And once we
follow that path, we realize that we have weakened ourselves and are prisoners
to pain and prone to further weakening unless we make a redoubled effort to get
on the good path.
And
the rub is this. Every man and woman who comes to earth is a child of a
Heavenly Father. We have divinity within us. However, the defining question for
each of us once we have come to earth is whether we choose to be a son or daughter
of Jesus Christ as well as of Heavenly Father. Becoming the children of Christ,
which is what is happening here with the Nephites gathered to hear King
Benjamin, means that “your hearts are changed through faith on his name” and
“ye are born of him” (verse 7). By covenanting to become like him and being
willing to give for others, we actually remove from ourselves the burden of
full suffering for our own sins because of what he voluntarily bore. That is
part of what being free means, beyond simply being able to choose between two
different things. We can be free of sin, free of sorrow, and yes, free of fear.
And as we become Christ’s children, we also inherit His name (verse 9). If we
don’t take His name, we “must be called by some other name” (verse 10). There
is no neutral ground.
As
Benjamin finishes speaking to his people, he implores them to retain Christ’s
name “written always in your hearts,” to hear and know his voice (verse 12) and
be “steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works,” that they may
come to know Jesus intimately and that he may “seal you his…that ye may have
everlasting salvation and eternal life” (verse 15). Sounds like a pretty good
path to take compared with that other one. To be a Christian, and to embody the
characteristics of the best person who ever lived.
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