21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?
22 And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.
23 And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul.
A couple of things impress me about these verses. First, they give the interpretation of the tree. Second, they show how Christ personifies God’s love.
I find the sequence here to be interesting. Nephi asks the meaning of the tree (vs. 11), he sees a vision of Mary (vs. 13), when he confesses to the angel that he doesn’t know the meaning of God’s condescension, he is told who the virgin is, and her significance (vs. 16–18). Now he sees the birth of Christ (vs. 19–20), and is immediately asked if he knows the meaning of the tree.
So Nephi knows there is a connection between the tree (his original question) and the birth of Christ (his answer). Nephi’s answer had to have been inspired, or at least I don’t know that I would have come up with the same answer without some divine help. His correct answer is that the tree represents the love of God. So Christ personifies the love of God, which, coupled with the symbol of the tree is quite simple and profound. The Tree’s fruit is available to everyone, but we must make the effort to partake of it. Alma 5:62 tells us that the way we partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life (love of God) is to be baptized unto repentance. Moroni 8:25–26 gets more detailed. It gives the process like this: repentance, whose first fruit is baptism, which is a result of faith, the kind of faith it takes to keep the commandments. Keeping the commandments with faith brings a remission of sins. The remission of sins brings meekness and lowliness of heart, then comes the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which fills you with hope and perfect love, which is charity, defined as the pure love of Christ (Moroni 7:47), or the fruit of the Tree of Life.
This makes it sound like our Heavenly Father is playing favorites among His children. But if we consider love to be a verb instead of a feeling, it makes more sense. Of course God loves all His children, or in other words, has that feeling toward all His children. That’s why He makes the same opportunity available to all. The verb “love,” however, is reserved for those who make an effort toward Him, in other words, partake of the fruit. God would like all His children to partake, but He shows favor and blessing to those who actually do partake.
- 1 John 4:7–9
- Alma 5:62
- Moroni 8:26
No comments:
Post a Comment