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“Encircled ... in the Arms of His Love”:
Oneness with God and the Atonement
[Various Theories of Atonement Reviewed]
[Rabbinical Schools Deny the Temple and the Atonement]
243 2 Nephi 1:5-7 So we start out with 2 Nephi, and we really get into some pretty deep stuff. It begins with Lehi [he quotes from The Odyssey in Greek]. Remember, how The Odyssey begins with all of them going home. Well, we won’t go into that, but this is the way The Odyssey opens. Jerusalem was destroyed, and Troy was destroyed. We’re beginning a new story—a new epic, so to speak. We’re starting in the New World now. We’ve shifted the whole scene, and it’s a new act. Notice the fourth verse. Jerusalem is destroyed, so we can wipe that out and take that as finished now. And, on the other hand, “we have obtained a land of promise [now there is a fresh beginning] ... which is choice above all other lands [now, no map is given here]; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of the other countries by the hand of the Lord .” They’re not the only people that are going to come here, obviously. There’s only one condition to people being here, it tells us in verse 7: “Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring.” And this is the only restriction of people coming here is that God is aware of their coming. You didn’t have to be a Nephite or a Lamanite to come here now [in Lehi’s time] or in ancient times. Every time we’d find something—anything you’d find out lying around that was pre-Columbian—always had to be Nephite or Lamanite. Well, that isn’t so at all. All sorts of people were coming before and after—the only condition being that the Lord knew that they were coming, and he brought them here.
243,244 2 Nephi 1:7 “This land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him . . . they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity [see, but there is always a condition there—unless it’s because of iniquity]; for if iniquity shall abound, cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever. The blessing and the curse, the BERAKAH and the QELALAH, always go together. You never get the blessing without the curse. You might just as well say this promised land is a cursed land. The promise is a curse on the land. It says so here, and many times. It can be both at once, a blessed and a cursed—to the righteous, blessed; to the wicked, cursed. It’s the same land, same place, and he says it was the same thing with the former inhabitants of the land. Remember, if they had been righteous, would our fathers have pushed them out? No, not at all, he says [paraphrased]. And so it’s both at once. You don’t have it made just because this is the promised land.
244 2 Nephi 1:8 And then he talks about kings here, and this is an interesting thing, this next one. “And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations [because otherwise kings would take it over]; for behold, many nations would overrun the land [if they wanted it], that there would be no place for an inheritance.” He is going to tell us after this that it is going to be free of kings, and this is a very important thing. But remember, it was kings that claimed it, right from the first, as soon as they knew it was there. There’s the Donation of Constantine in 324, the year before the Nicene Council. It was a forgery. It came out of Rheims which [had been] a forgery factory in the eighth and ninth centuries, and all of these forgeries came out. Well the Donation of Constantine was given after Columbus, of course. A line was drawn down the middle of the Atlantic, and everything west of that line belonged to the Holy Roman Emperor or the king of Franks. See, this fictitious document was granted by the pope. But the Donation of Constantine was used a lot later on—that everything in the New World belonged to the Frankish king or to the Holy Roman Emperor. Charlemagne was the ruler of the Franks— not at that time though.
244 2 Nephi 1:9 Kings claimed it first right from the beginning. There were claims for the king of Spain, claims for the king of England, claims for the king of France. It was always the king that claimed it here. It was claimed for the Russians on the West Coast, and later claimed for the Japanese emperor. Everybody claimed it, always in the name of kings. This is an important thing, that they want to displace it that way. Of course, with the Dutch and the Portuguese it’s the same thing. It was all in the name of the king. But the Lord said, no, that would not happen. It’s the land of promise, that inasmuch as they behaved themselves, “they shall prosper ... that they may possess this land unto themselves.” Now again, is this selfish? Now they have it all to themselves (oh, goodie, goodie, it’s just for us). No, not at all. He says, inasmuch as they keep the commandments, and you’ll soon find out what the commandments mean—sharing and sharing equally. This is very important in the Book of Mormon. It brings that out all the time. That’s the basic commandment, the one that Alma emphasizes so much.
245 2 Nephi 1:10 Now notice in the tenth verse: “But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief [it doesn’t say if, it says when; the Lord knew it was going to happen, and it did happen, of course], after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord.” This is the whole thing, you see; then they have to pay a heavier price than they ever would otherwise. Already in the second century, they were saying (the seven apostolic fathers all deal with this question), “God has invested so heavily in the church so far that he won’t allow it to be taken away. The gospel can never be taken away because God has already started us out and given us his blessing. It’s going to be eternal.” But Clement, second Clement, Polycarp, and especially Ignatius of Antioch in his seven letters, say, “That’s all the more dangerous. The more blessing we’ve received, the greater danger we’re in.” As Ignatius said, quoting the scripture, “For if the angels that kept not the first estate were cast down, how do you expect to be supported no matter what you do, after the blessings you have received?” You’re under stricter obligation to behave than anybody else. And if you don’t, you’re in greater danger. And so all the apostolic fathers looked upon the future of the church as very bleak indeed. In fact, the curtain had rung down.
245 2 Nephi 1:10 “Having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, . . . and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten.” How true that was. He’s talking about the Nephites now, you see, and the Lamanites. The Lamanites are still losing. They’re still losing ground, and astonishing things are happening now. Well, I won’t go into that. Where have people ever been scattered and smitten as much and as long as the Indians? There have been other scatterings and smitings, of course, the Jewish being the classical one. But as a whole people being constantly pressed down, never given a chance, just ground down to nothing. As it tells us later in the Book of Mormon, scattered and smitten—this is what happened. Believe me, they have been scattered, and they still are.
245,246 2 Nephi 1:13 “O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep.” Those he is addressing are already in a deep, deep sleep, and they remain there. This is like a voice in a dream. Here in verse 14 is the hardest criticism against the Book of Mormon. They thought this just wiped it out because of this passage here: “Hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return.” You see, that’s taken right out of Hamlet, nothing else. That isn’t what Hamlet says at all. And, of course, the ordinary epithet for the world of the dead, both the Greek and Babylonian term, is IRSIT LA TARI, the land of no return. They always called it the land of no return. That was the regular title for it. We talk about that in the book, Lehi in the Desert, I think, or Since Cumorah.
246,247 2 Nephi 1:14 Here [in verse 14] it doesn’t say anything about a land. It says, “the cold and silent grave from whence no traveler can return. And this is the classic statement, as I said. The Babylonian name for it is the IRSIT LA TARI, the land of no return. He doesn’t even call it the land; he just says it’s “the grave from whence no traveler can return.” You’d expect him to say that, but you’d be surprised how that has been exploited. This absolutely proves the Book of Mormon is a fraud, that Joseph Smith got it out of Hamlet [people claim]. But it is not the quotation from Hamlet at all.
247 2 Nephi 1:15-17 And now we come to a very interesting thing. The point of these chapters in 2 Nephi is that he’s dealing with the Atonement, and this is a very important thing. I don’t know whether to talk about it now or a little later, because he’s going to get into it quite deeply here. But he says, “I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.” Now, this is an extremely common figure in Egyptian. If it sounds evangelic or something like that, don’t fool yourself. This is standard. He says “And I desire that ye should remember to observe the statutes and judgments of the Lord.” Note the formula of the Dead Sea Scrolls, always MISHPATIM and HUQQIM, the statutes and judgments. That’s a pair that always goes together, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls—”the statutes and judgments of the Lord.” You’ll find them elsewhere. “This hath been the anxiety of my soul from the beginning.” Nephi is worried, and he ends up in deep despair. And Jacob picks it up in even deeper despair, so things go down all the time. Notice what he says in verse 17: “I have feared ... that ye be cut off and destroyed forever.” Well, already we’re getting the idea of the Atonement. “Encircled eternally in the arms of love,” and the alternative is to be “cut off and destroyed forever.”
247 As you should all know by now, the Atonement is AT-ONE-MENT. It is one of the few English words, like FORGIVENESS and RIGHTEOUSNESS, that are theological, technical words— one of the very few that are used. It’s only used once in the New Testament, which is in Romans 5:11, and, in the new Revised Standard Version of the Bible, used by most churches, it doesn’t appear at all. They’ve changed it everywhere to reconciliation. So what is meant by atonement! It’s a very important thing. Now, as I said, this happened to be the lesson yesterday [in the Gospel Doctrine class]. W. J. Wolf, in the most recent writing on the Atonement, says, “There’s not a single New Testament document on the Atonement.” Well, I’m not going to give you the Hebrew background. You’ll find in the Hebrew background in the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews, where the whole thing as carried out in the temple by the Jews is regarded as a similitude of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That’s the way Paul interpreted it, but that’s not the way most people interpret it. There are other interpretations. As Wolf says here, “There is not a single New Testament document on the Atonement. There is simply a collection of images and metaphors from which subsequent tradition built. Tradition has tried to decide what parts of this picture should be taken literally and what parts metaphorically.”
247,248 We have all sorts of things here. There are various words that are used for it, translated with it in the Bible and theological writings. There are half a dozen of them here; I’ll refer to them presently. But he goes on and says, “Which parts are to be taken literally and which metaphorically?” What are we talking about, “the atoning blood of Christ”? To what degree does it atone and what do you mean by atoning! How can it at-one a thing? And this has developed extended rationale. It’s personalized in Isaiah 53. “Images include the ransom, the buying free of the slave with emphasis on the costliness. This is called the commercial interpretation [you hear that too; you’ve sinned, and Christ will pay the price]. There is emphasis on forgiveness of sin as in Mark 14 and Matthew, and the image of the lamb developed by John. The main issue is whether the Atonement is the completion of the Old Testament sacrifice or if it’s something independent and standing alone, which the Old Testament simply foreshadows,” which, of course, is what we believe.
248 “There are three main interpretations of atonement. One is the classical interpretation of the Greek fathers, which integrates incarnation, atonement, and resurrection. It uses the image of a military contest—onward Christian soldiers—the inevitable victory of Christ. We march behind and we are automatically saved.” We win because we’re the good guys, etc. And then there’s Anselm’s interpretation which is being renewed today in a famous work of his called Cur Deus Homo, Why God Became Man. This is satisfaction. This is medieval. The Lord’s honor has been damaged, so the gallant knight has to go out and avenge the honor to the person above him, to his lord, of course. Sin has damaged the honor to God, and it has to be avenged. And Christ pays the satisfaction. There must be satisfaction—I mean the casting down of the gauntlet. There is the jousting in the field of honor, the trial—well, they used various trials and tests—the trial by ordeal to see who’s guilty and who isn’t. All these things are medieval. Anselm refers to all of them. It’s Christ who pays the price, he fights the fight, he vindicates his Father’s honor, etc.
249 But, what are the other interpretations? There is Calvin’s interpretation, the Reformation theory, that Christ as a substitute endured God’s punishment so we wouldn’t have to endure it again. There’s something to be said for all of these, you’ll notice. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, remember there was a ram caught in the thicket, and the angel said, “Nay, lay not thy hand upon the lad—here is a substitute.” You don’t have to sacrifice Isaac; you have to sacrifice the ram. The rabbis tell us, the Talmud tells us, that the name of the ram was “Isaac.” So this was Isaac, because in the rites of the tabernacle, later the temple, Aaron and his sons would place their hands upon the head of the ram, or the bullock, and transfer not only their guilt but their personalities to it, so to speak. Then when it was killed, they were killed. It was the equivalent or substitute sacrifice. Rosenberg has recently written a very interesting book on that. It’s the idea of the substitute sacrifice, and Christ is substituted that way. This was the theory, and there is something to be said for it because the work of the temple is proxy all the way through—and we can’t pay the price, certainly. You can’t pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Well, the Reformation theory includes that and the Protestants’ “justification by faith.” It’s faith that will do it [according to them].
249,250 Then there are Hugo Grotius, the Dutchman, and Jonathan Edwards and the Puritans later on. That is the rectorial or governmental theory. It’s all done in the public interest. Christ’s death has a deterrent effect on sinners. So we have these various things. I think we have an interesting lesson in philology here. We may well refer to that—what the meaning of the word is. Strangely, the Book of Mormon gives us the most clear-cut connection between the ancient word KAPPORETAND our Old English AT-ONE-MENT (atonement). The first thing to notice is that the word atonement is unique in touching all bases. The other words will cover part of it. For example, reconciliation is the commonest rendering of the word, which is KATALLAGE. That means “changing back again to where you were.” It’s the same thing as TESHUVAH in Hebrew. It means “a return,”—you return to where you were. But you can never come back; you can’t go home again after you have sinned. That has to be washed away, so there is baptism. The idea is to return, but how can you return to a place if you never were there before? All throughout the doctrine of atonement, a pre-existence is assumed—returning to the presence of the Father, coming home again. The Pearl, the earliest Christian hymn, is beautiful on that particular subject. But the Greek word they used in Romans 5:11 is KATALLAGE. There it is called atonement, meaning “made one of the Father again.” This is “made one” in a very special sense. In reconciliation you have a settlement or an understanding, but that doesn’t make you one, you see. Then redemption is another common one. The price is paid (that’s right) and it’s got you off, but you don’t even have to know the person who paid the price, let alone be one with him. The idea of being one goes beyond having the price paid. Then salvation means “you are safe home again,” but you are not one with anybody in particular. There is no specification of what sense this is to be taken. Then TESHUVAH, the Hebrew “returning, repentance.” But where is the oneness again?
250 2 Nephi 1:15 Then there’s the KPR. KIPPUR is the Hebrew word. You all know about YOM KIPPUR. The root is KPR, and KIPPUR is the “act of atoning.” That’s HILASKESTHAI, and it refers literally to the “covering of the Ark, covering of the mercy seat.” The KAPPORET, the thing that covers, is the HILASTERION, where God appeared to forgive the sins of the people. It was the front curtain or the veil of the tabernacle. After the people had completed all the rites and ordinances of atonement, then the veil was parted and God (the Savior) was supposed to speak from the tabernacle and tell the people that their sins were forgiven and they were welcomed to his presence. That’s this idea of being taken back into his embrace again, “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” [2 Nephi 1 15].
251,252 2 Nephi 4:32 We’ll go ahead to chapter 4 of 2 Nephi in which we have a vivid desert episode. Talk about one of those dazzling little vignettes, it’s here. Nephi describes himself as running away from his enemies. He has been oppressed terribly. His big brothers have never stopped dogging him; they have been after him all the time. He has been given a rough time by everybody. The family sort of resents his being the leader anyway, being the youngest until his two brothers were born there [in the wilderness]. In verse 32 he says, “May the gates of hell be shut continually before me, because that my heart is broken and my spirit is contrite! O Lord, wilt thou not shut the gates of thy righteousness before me, that I may walk in the path of the low valley [now in a thing like the Sir at Bani Hildl, a person escaping from his enemy always wanted to take the low, quick, straight path as far as he can get away from him—the easiest path to take and the surest to escape, not having to run up and down any hills or anything like that], that I may be strict in the plain road!” That means “sticking right to the path.” That’s the DEREKH, you see. At the end of the first Psalm: “The way of the wicked shall be lost in the sand.” It goes that way. That my way may not be that way, “that I may be strict in the plain road [that I may stick to the proper path]! O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness!” This is an Arabic idyll. When a person is running away, he runs to the tent of any great sheikh he can find. He goes in and kneels down before the sheikh and says, “I am thy suppliant.” The sheikh is then obligated to put his caftan over his KATEF which is the same word as shoulder—to put the hem of his garment over his shoulder and say, “AHLAN WA-SAHLAN WA-MARHABAN. This is your tent, this is your family.” The Hebrew word OHEL for tent is the same as the Arabic word AHL for family. He says, “We’ll make a place for you.” Then the lord or the chief is under obligation to defend you against the enemies that are chasing you. You are now under his protection, and he will protect you. This is part of the medieval code.
252 2 Nephi 4:33 This is what we have here. “O lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness!” He’s running away and he wants the plain road so he can get away from his enemies and wants to be encircled with the robe of righteousness. “O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies! Wilt thou make my path straight before me! Wilt thou not place a stumbling block in my way.” A stumbling block is the Greek word SKANDALON; it’s anything you trip up on when you are running, what you bump your toe on. The Hebrew word is EBEN MIKSHOL [or SUR MIKSHOL] which means “the rock of stumbling, a stone of offense. Sometimes it’s called “a stumbling block” and sometimes “a rock of offense.” It’s anything that will trip you up when you are trying to go somewhere. You are making a nice thing of it, and all of sudden you fall flat on your face. That’s dangerous, you see. So he says, don’t let that happen to me. “But that thou wouldst clear my way before me, and hedge not up my way, but the ways of mine enemy [make his way hard].” I showed that picture from the time of Lehi of an Arab riding his camel, and it said he was escaping from his enemies. He was running for dear life. That’s what we have here. Notice how the image is: Make the way straight for me so I can get through. Then when I go to you, will you put the robe of your righteousness around me and I will be in your protection. My enemy, meanwhile, is blocked in the sand. He is wandering around and doesn’t know where he is going. He’s lost, he’s been blocked. But don’t put any stumbling block in my way so that I can escape. So we have these interesting situations here.
252,253 Alma 5:33,7,10,57 Now we will turn to Alma 5:33. This idea of being embraced is very strong in the Book of Mormon as an expression for the Atonement. Since that’s what the Sunday School lesson was yesterday, I happened to stumble on this. “Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.” This is the embrace; he is willing to take you. Notice, “Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink [come into my camp] of the bread and the waters of life freely.” He will take you in when you are running away and he says his invitation and his arms are extended. And in 2 Nephi 1:15 we have it where he says, “But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.” That’s what got us started here. It’s the embrace he is in. We have this ideogram. And the opposite of that you will find in Alma 5:7. We notice that the opposite is the very same thing: “Behold, he changed their hearts.. . . Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the bands of death [that’s the other encircling; Satan can encircle you too], and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them/* You get this same negative idea right here in verse 10: “And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved? Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation? What is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death, yea, and also the chains of hell?”
253 Alma 5:25,57 In the one you are bound tight to one person; in the other you are bound tight to another. And there is nothing ever mentioned about anything in between the two, which is a very interesting thing. The opposite of oneness is in Alma 5:25. This is the alternative to being embraced, to being taken into the family. “I say unto you, Nay; except ye make our Creator a liar from the beginning, or suppose that he is a liar from the beginning, ye cannot suppose that such can have place [remember, Nephi said to Zoram, ‘You come down to our father’s tent in the desert and you can have place with us; MARHABAN means ‘have a place with us,’ and here he uses that term again] in the kingdom of heaven; but they shall be cast out for they are the children of the kingdom of the devil.” The opposite is to be cast out or not included—thrown out of the house. Then notice verse 57 in the same chapter. (These are just at random.) “Come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things. The names of the wicked shall not be mingled with the names of my people.” The idea is being cast out and cut off completely, and that’s what we are talking about here. We have a section on this in the Egyptian writing on embracing at the veil, for example. Remember, the PAROKET is also the front veil of the tabernacle which the Lord parted to grant the people atonement after they had performed all the ordinances necessary on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month. That was when he greeted them and claimed that he was one with them. So there is the emphasis on at-one. It’s this oneness that makes all the difference in the world, that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s good that this word survived and came right through in English, never questioned, as against the alternatives which are used today.
255,256 The argument is definitely on President Smith’s side, for as he observes, “The Bible account, being the most rational and indeed [the] only historical one, ... we cannot but come to the conclusion that this is not the work of chance.” We are talking about atonement, and only the scriptures will explain why this is necessary. And the ancients don’t have atonement. See, there is no Egyptian word for sin. The whole idea is quite different there. And what do you do if you don’t have the Atonement? What is your view of life? The Greeks, etc. I sin, but all people do that. You can’t help that; everybody does that. Life is hard, so we all sin. What happens as a result of that? There is no atonement, no forgiveness, no hereafter. So the only alternative is the tragic view of life, and all the ancients have this terribly tragic view of life. You either have the Atonement, “come back home and be one,” or you are going to have this infinitely tragic view of life—we’re going nowhere. It’s absolutely basic in the Greek tragedies, for example. They do have redemption, forgiveness, and all those other things—but not the hereafter, the Atonement, the life eternal, etc. None of them have that. In the old Norse sagas, it is even more poignant. It’s terrible and tears you apart.
257 2 Nephi 1:16-20; 2 Nephi 9:41 Now Lehi goes on with more imagery that is very interesting in 2 Nephi 1:16: “And I desire that ye should remember to observe the statutes and the judgments of the Lord ... for I have feared, lest ... ye be cut off and destroyed forever.” See, there’s the alternative. You are either embraced in his arms or you are cut off and encircled by the chains of death—the other thing that encircles you. Verse 19: “But behold, his will be done; for his ways are righteousness forever. [In spite of his despair, he says], “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence.” That’s the cutting off. What can be closer to his presence than to be in his embrace and one with him. There’s that marvelous passage—the most beautiful in the Book of Mormon, I think. “The keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there” (2 Nephi 9:41). He will receive you personally, take your hand, and give you the signs and tokens himself when you come, as he did to the Nephites. Every one of them he received individually, even the children. One by one, he blessed them and received them. He called each person by name and identified himself to each one. This is what we do here in the rite of the Atonement in Israel. It’s very clear as a matter of fact. Exodus is where it is set forth in the Old Testament, and then in all the books of Moses you have the rite of the Atonement. It’s very important.
257,258 2 Nephi 1:23-31 “Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness.” The oldest manuscript of this comes from Spain. The Lorica means “the armor of righteousness.” It’s a famous poem, and philologically it’s a very strange thing. Norbert Wiener’s father, who was a professor of philology at Harvard for many years, wrote a book about this, The Lorica. It’s such a strange mixture of language and everything else. It describes the “armor of righteousness” as a whole thing. It seems to have been very ancient, both among the Hebrews and the Jews. He is talking about it here, and it is a natural defense, the Lorica— the armor of righteousness. “Shake off the chains with which ye are bound [there it is again] ... and arise from the dust. Rebel no more against your brother.... Were it not for him, we must have perished with hunger in the wilderness.” He saved us; he brought us through. But [in verse 25] he is still afraid; he doesn’t think he is making much progress. “And I exceedingly fear and tremble because of you [he is not optimistic].... He hath not sought for power nor authority over you, ... and that which ye call anger was the truth, ... but it was the Spirit of the Lord which was in him, which opened his mouth to utterance that he could not shut it.... And if ye will hearken unto him I leave unto you a blessing, yea, even my first blessing. But if ye will not hearken unto him I take away my first blessing.” This exhortation is to the whole family; he is going to give their separate blessings later. Notice, Zoram is a “fifth wheel;” he is another member. He has married the oldest daughter of Ishmael. Lehi says that Zoram is going to be a true friend to Nephi forever, like the Plataeans and the Athenians. Verse 31: ‘Thy seed shall be blessed with his seed, that they dwell in prosperity long upon the face of this land.”
258 2 Nephi 2:2,4 Now he starts speaking to Jacob, his firstborn in the wilderness. Notice verse 2: “Thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.” What does that mean? It means you will get credit for enduring. There is nothing you will go through that you won’t be thankful for and glad of later on. He will consecrate your afflictions for your gain. In verse 4 we see that the Book of Mormon is the handbook of the Atonement. This whole chapter is on the Atonement, and we are going to get a rather clear explanation of things. He starts out here, “For the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free. A