I wish to talk about a very important principle of the Gospel, one that I feel is rarely covered, and (when it is) is often misunderstood.
This is the Doctrine of Mercy.
God is both perfectly just, and perfectly merciful. These two principles are often in opposition to each other: God must punish for sin in order to be just, but He must also forgive sin if He is to be merciful.
Thus, the need for an Atonement, and an Atoner, becomes apparent. Jesus Christ, of His own volition, stepped forward to be the Atoner. God could be perfectly just--the punishment for sin had been satisfied, as Christ as took upon Himself this punishment completely--and perfectly merciful--because Christ had suffered for sin, God could now forgive the repentant.
This is usually as deep as the average Sunday School lesson will take you. But allow me to delve deeper, and to share an insight that I learned on my mission while studying the incredible, inspired book Jesus the Christ by the Apostle, James E. Talmage.
I thought I knew who Christ was before my mission. I, of course, understood him as my Savior, as the Son of God, as the perfect Examplar, and so forth. But after reading Jesus the Christ, in conjunction with The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, for those not quite versed in scriptural lingo), I realized that although I had previously thought I knew who Christ was, I really had no idea. I had heard the main stories: ones of love and healing and compassion and teaching; but the fact of the matter is that in Sunday School we glaze over what I feel are the most important stories: ones of righteous indignation, crying repentance, condemning and fighting sin and evil. We glaze over these either because we don't understand them, or because we are afraid of them.
And because we often only cover half of what the Savior did and taught, we don't actually understand Him. And we should. If He is the perfect Examplar, then we should follow His example; but how can we follow His example if we don't know what He did? Furthermore, how can we follow His example if we don't understand what He did? (Stay tuned for my upcoming blog post: "Who is Christ Really?")
An example of one of these "glazed over" portions of the Bible is Christ casting the money-changers out of the temple. Now, maybe your experience is different, but growing up I was always under the impression that to become angry is un-Christlike and ungodly. Furthermore, whenever this story was part of the subject matter, we would read it, and the teacher would proceed with an explanation like this: "this is the only time that Christ ever became angry, and by this we see how special the temple is, and how we should respect it".
Now, I don't disagree with taking a temple-respect lesson from this account. However, my personal opinion is the most important part of this story is that Christ was angry. Christ, the Son of God, the only truly perfect individual to walk the earth, was angry. Now, this fact of often ignored, as I said, because either we don't understand it, or because we are afraid of it. We don't understand how a perfect man could become angry, or, if he was angry, we are afraid that somehow will diminish His glory in our eyes, or, perhaps (heaven forbid) it will ruin and destroy the inaccurate Christian teaching that anger is ungodly, and we most certainly couldn't have that! People would be getting angry right and left and that would be utter chaos!
The lesson to to learnt here is yes, Christ was angry. It is not wrong or ungodly to be angry. How many times does God say in the Old Testament "and mine anger is kindled against them"? (32 times that I could find!) So Christ didn't teach us not to be angry. He taught us the correct way to be angry: for a righteous cause, while maintaining control, and keeping one's tongue. This is just too complicated for some people to teach or understand, so instead Christian teachers take the easy way out: to be angry is wrong.
Anyway, to return to the Doctrine of Mercy. This is often misunderstood, because we skip over half of the Gospels when talking about Christ. Furthermore, we skip over most, if not all, of the Old Testament, which teaches us about Christ, because Christ is "Jehovah", the God of the Old Testament. And we read a few stories about healing a leper, forgiving a sinner, and testify about Him dying on the cross, and then we claim to know and understand Him.
Why did Jesus teach in parables? Because of the Doctrine of Mercy.
Why was the Law of Moses given before the Law of Christ? Because of the Doctrine of Mercy.
Why was the Gospel "to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile"? (Romans 1:16; PS, if your Bible says something different--such as "Greek", instead of "Gentile"--it's because I chose to go with a more accurate translation of this verse). Because of the Doctrine of Mercy.
Why did Christ not speak a single word before King Herod? Because of the Doctrine of Mercy.
Not following? Let me break it down for you.
Why did Jesus teach in parables? To be honest, I have never heard a clear, sensible answer to this question in Sunday School. I'll tell you why. Because of the Doctrine of Mercy. Because he only wanted those who were spiritually inclined enough to follow his teachings to understand his teachings. Those who weren't spiritually inclined enough to follow his teachings would not understand his teachings. This was mercifully, because if they understood Christ's teachings, they would be damned for not following them. Christ is so merciful he would rather that they didn't understand at all, then be condemned for understanding.
Why was the Law of Moses given before the Law of Christ? The Israelites were not ready for the Law of Christ (aka the Gospel of Christ; the Law of the Gospel). They barely could handle the Law of Moses. They killed and stoned the prophets (Matthew 23:30, 37) and were constantly turning to false Gods and idols (cite: the entire Old Testament). Yes, they would have received greater blessings, understanding, and happiness from the Gospel, but they also would have received greater condemnation for not following the Gospel, which I am positively convinced they would not have done. "For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation." (Doctrine & Covenants 82:3)
Why was the Gospel preached first to the Jew, and then to the gentile? Because the gentiles were not ready to receive it, yet would have been condemned for rejecting it. So God waited until they were ready to receive it before he had it taught to them. Mercy in it's finest.
Why did Christ not speak a single word before King Herod? He wasn't being rude. He wasn't afraid. Herod was a horrible, hard-hearted person (I assume I don't need to cite a source on that...it's kind of common knowledge). There wasn't a chance he would listen to Christ, or soften his heart in the slightest; so rather than add to the page of black marks already on Herod's record, he chose to remain silent--affording Him the last bit of mercy still available to such a wicked person as the King.
To continue:
Why are there standards that need to be met for baptism?
Why are there standards that need to be met in order to partake of the sacrament? perform priesthood ordinances? enter the temple?
Because of the Doctrine of Mercy!
These standards aren't meant to keep people out of heaven, but to keep people out of hell!
If we baptized someone who was unwilling to keep the standards of the Church, we would be condemning them to hell! Because they would be held accountable for not meeting the standards required of a baptized member of the Church.
So, this leads to to address a very controversial subject. That of the recent announcement, as so clearly described by KSL's news article title: "LDS Church: Underage children of same-sex couples not eligible for membership". This has outraged many. First of all, I would like to encourage people to read from the source, rather than trusting the news to objectively cover such a sensitive topic. As if they could objectively cover anything! (See my upcoming blog post: The Meddling Media). Second of all, this change in Church Handbook instructions can be understood better if the Doctrine of Mercy is understood.
Elder Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles states: "We don't want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different. And so with the other ordinances on through baptism and so on, there's time for that if, when a child reaches majority, he or she feels like that's what they want and they can make an informed and conscious decision about that. Nothing is lost to them in the end if that's the direction they want to go. In the meantime, they're not placed in a position where there will be difficulties, challenges, conflicts that can injure their development in very tender years" (Church Provides Context on Handbook Changes Affecting Same-Sex Marriages, www.mormonnewsroom.org).
People keep quoting the scripture Matthew 19:14: " But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Well, if one understand the Doctrine of Mercy, reconciling the decision of the LDS Church, and this scripture is easy. The Church is not forbidding children from coming unto Christ; in fact, they are helping them from being pulled further away from Him! The Church doesn't want a young child to have "family vs religion" conflicts, especially seeing as the two are meant to go hand-in-hand! Ultimately, if the child chooses to go with what they is seeing at home, rather than what they are being taught at church, if they are baptized, they are held, by God Himself, to the standards taught him at church. To put it bluntly, The Brethren of the Church are not ready to condemn children to hell for not keeping their baptismal covenants...can you blame them?
To continue to elaborate on how many people misunderstand the Doctrine of Mercy, I think of how many people believe in "faith without works". Christ "should not come to redeem then in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins" (Helaman 5:10). God is merciful, but that doesn't mean he will forgive us of our sins. It means He will forgive us of the sins that we repent of! Mercy doesn't mean that our slate is wiped clean through the Atonement just because. Mercy means that if we repent, we will be forgiven; but only if we repent! God is merciful. But because he is also just, he doesn't hand out out forgiveness for free. You get mercy (forgiveness), or you get to keep your sins. Choose one. You can't have both.
Ultimately, God is merciful. The Doctrine of Mercy goes a lot deeper than what I could explain here, but I encourage everyone to search the scriptures, ponder their meaning, and pray to understand the Doctrine of Mercy. I know that if you do, you will better understand God, the way He works in our lives, and the commandments that he sets for us.
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