Mosiah 2

Mosiah 2:9

In this verse, as well as in other verses and parts of the book of Mormon, there are many indications of a belief that there is a distinction between the mind and the body, in other words there is a belief in duality, the dual nature of a human being.

           

            The following is a list of the verses in which this idea of duality are present:

Mosiah 2:9 – “Open your ears that you may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view.”

            In this verse, each property of the human being has a different function in the listening process. The ears hear, the heart understands, and the mind receives revelation.

Mosiah 2:11 – “But I am as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind”

Mosiah 2:26 – “for I am also of dust… and am about to yield up this mortal frame to its mother earth.”

            Verse 26 not only implies that the essence of the human being is separate from its body (this mortal frame), but also refers to the earth as a “mother”.

Mosiah 2:28 – “I am about to go down to my grave… and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above…”

            This verse finishes the description of the duality which begins in verse 26. Verse 26 describes the body as a mortal frame, and verse 28 describes the inhabitant of the mortal frame as the self as an immortal spirit that never ceases to exist regardless of the circumstance of the mortal frame.

Mosiah 2:41 – “They are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual”

            As there are strong indications of duality in the book of Mormon, the words more commonly used to describe this duality are “temporal vs. spiritual”; this pair of words is also frequent in first or second Nephi.

Mosiah 4:26 – “I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor… both spiritually and temporally…”

            This is one more of the many indications of a tradition of duality expressed with the word-pair “temporal vs. spiritual”.

Written 9-23-14

 
Mosiah 2:24

“And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?”

“And ye are still indebted to him.”

Do we have a right as human beings to demand something from God? Does the clay say to the potter, “You are doing it wrong”? Everything is God’s and we have no say in what he creates. As human beings, creatures, creation, we are part of the world not the owners of it. If we do what God commands it does not mean that we deserve or have right to a reward; we are just part of the world, part of the phenomena that is under his command. Yet, God has mercy towards us by “paying” us back for our efforts, by rewarding our work. God’s mercy is in that the laws of reality are somewhat consistent enough to recognize a pattern and work along that pattern for our good; or God’s mercy is in that as creatures we see workable patterns that seem consistent and are able to track these patterns and use them for our good.

            We can never pay God back because everything is his. Life is not fair. Thank God life is not fair, because every day we live a life better than we deserve. Our comfort is a result of reality’s mercy; we know this because even in our earth we can see how much worse our lives could have been if we were just born, even as human beings, in another part of the world. Life is not fair, and as followers of Christ we hope it never is.

Written 9-23-14

Mosiah 2:38

“Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like and unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.”

King Benjamin describes the “dynamics of sin.” This is one way to describe sin to explain why a sinful person “goes to hell.” It is not as simple as to say that God just does not like the person because of what he does and decides to have them burn forever, but this verse describes “hell” as the torment within one’s own self, as the manifestation of guilt, that is the result of their own decisions. God does not condemn them, their own actions condemn them, in fact they condemn themselves! I’d like to recall the concept in 1 Nephi 14:3. In infinite manifestation (when “divine justice do[es] awaken his immortal soul) the fruit of destruction will destroy itself, and hate will hate itself. Like this is all of sin. It is not that God does not like sin, it is that sin does not like God though God is everywhere such that there is no way to escape him. Sin does not like to be, sin does not like itself. This makes it a necessity for him who lives under the guidance of sin to ultimately be in conflict.

            To be an enemy of God means to be against one’s own self. Because to be without harmony of the truth means to be twisted into something incompatible with what there is.

Written 9-23-14