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Things As They Really Are
Musings about exegesis in the scriptures
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May 09, 2019
‘Polluting the Holy Church of God’
Mormon 8:23-41
An insight I had this morning while trying to make sense of the above scriptures:
It is prophecy from Moroni about what will be going on in the world when the record of the Nephites come forth. It doesn’t take a scholar to see that the events he is speaking of mirror other prophecies that speak of the last days. To me, the descriptions about what will be occurring when the records come forth causes me to think this has a duality in meaning; for not only when the original Book of Mormon came forth, but when the sealed portion and other records will come forth (the plural ‘they’ is used to describe the ‘voices’ that will come forth). As evidence, the wickedness being prophesied of here is truer in our day that what it was in the early 1800s.
If read carefully in other places, the coming forth of the sealed portion fits this timeline of wickedness (see Ether 4:6 and 2 Nephi 27:8). LDS Scholar Rodney Turner summarizes:
“Moroni wrote an account of the visions of the brother of Jared on the plates of Mormon (Ether 4:4-5). These revelations constitute part, if not all, of the sealed portion of the material left untranslated by Joseph Smith. Most commentators believe that these revelations will not be had again until the millennial reign of Christ. However, Moroni wrote that they would be had by the “Gentiles”—meaning the Latter-day Saints—when they “become clean before the Lord” (Ether 4:6). I believe that this will be before the second, or world, coming of Christ.” – Rodney Turner (The Three Nephite Churches, BYU RSC)
Therefore, the following commentary about apostate Churches becomes very curious if our timeline is correct and it paints a very bleak but interesting picture. When Moroni condemns people in our time for “polluting the Holy Church of God” (see verse 38) it appears he must be referring to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Further evidence of this interpretation is provided below:
Joseph Fielding Smith commenting on the popular verses of 2 Nephi 28:7-8, “Do not think that this was said of the world or even the “stranger within our gates”. It is said of members of the Church.” (“The Way To Perfection, p. 203)
This is how my untrained eye sees the events unfolding. It appears Moroni is seeing a day in which greater division occurs inside and outside of the Church. Those inside the Church seak to change it from the inside through their “envyings and strife” and they are incapable of living the covenants of the temple since they neglect the poor and the widow. There is an eventual gathering to the stakes of Zion and the establishment of the New Jerusalem which occurs BEFORE the Lord returns. This is where you will have a clean body of Gentiles in which the records in which Moroni is speaking of fully comes forth.
This makes Moroni’s words quite plain in my eyes and you have Nephi speaking of similar themes throughout 2 Nephi 27-29. The point of all of this is that it seems that a great division within the Church appears to be plainly prophesied of. Share
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