Nephi concludes that there are two important paths the Nephites must walk. The first is belief in Christ, and the second is adherence to the “performances and ordinances of God” as defined in the law of Moses. Thus they are to behave in performances and ordinances as the Jews of the Old World were required to do, but were to add to their inherited understanding the newer revelation of the person of Jesus Christ.
Nephi does not emphasize it here, but there has also been at least one change in the catalog of performances and ordinances of the law of Moses. The people are also to be baptized symbolic of the remission of their sins through Christ (2 Nephi 9:24).
The modern world is so familiar with Jesus through the New Testament, that it is valuable to attempt to remove that knowledge and attempt to understand Jesus Christ from a purely Nephite point of view. With their admonition to continue the performances and ordinances of the law of Moses, in what aspects has the understanding of their religion been altered by the explicit revelation of Christ?
The baseline is to establish those things that have probably not changed at all. Certainly in performances and ordinances, they will hold to the law of Moses, according to this word of Nephi. It is also most probable that the moral laws, such as the ten commandments, are kept in full force. With respect to the moral laws, we may presume that the Nephites would have no different understanding than that Jesus attempted to give his followers:
Matt. 5:17-18
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
It is safe to presume that the Nephites would have had such an understanding of their relationship to the moral law, and Nephi vouches for the continuation of the performance laws.
Nevertheless, there is a difference in Nephite religion, and it hinges on Jesus Christ. To this point in the Book of Mormon there appear to be only three ways in which this expanded revelation has effected Nephite religion:
The third item is fairly straightforward. Items 1 and 2 bear further examination.
The net effect of the revelation of Jesus Christ is the alteration of the Nephite conception of God, let alone the godhead. Where the Nephites would have inherited a belief in Jehovah as the single God of Israel, they now must integrate another God. While Nephi would have clearly understood this relationship, he had not necessarily worked out a vocabulary appropriate to the existential reality. The tracks of this integration are perhaps obscured in modern polemics about the nature of the Nephite understanding of the Godhead. For instance, when Robert Millet discusses Nephi’s understanding of the Savior, he cannot avoid discussing the modern controversy over the text of the Book of Mormon:
“The condescension of God the Son consists in the coming to earth of the great Jehovah, the Lord God Omnipotent, the God of the ancients. The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon contains the following words from the angel to Nephi: ”Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh“ (1 Nephi 11:18; italics added). The angel later said unto Nephi regarding the vision of the Christ child: ”Behold the Lamb of God, yea, the Eternal Father!“ (1 Nephi 11:21; italics added; cf. 1 Nephi 13:40, 1830 edition). Later in the same vision of the ministry of Christ, the angel spoke, saying: ”Look! And I looked,“ Nephi added, ”and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the everlasting God was judged of the world; and I saw and bear record“ (1 Nephi 11:32; italics added). In the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith the Prophet changed these verses to read ”the mother of the Son of God,“ ”the Son of the Eternal Father,“ and ”the Son of the everlasting God," respectively. It would appear that the Prophet made these textual alterations to assist the Latter-day Saints in fully understanding the meaning of the expressions.
Critics of the Church or myopic historians are eager to point up these changes as illustrative of Joseph Smith’s changing views on the doctrine of the Godhead, an example of pre- and post-1835 theology; some would suppose that Joseph was tied to a type of “trinitarianism” before his theology “developed” over time, and would thus place (inappropriately) the Book of Mormon within that developmental process. Such a conclusion is both unwarranted and incorrect. For one thing, the Book of Mormon writers make scores of references to the distinct identities of Jesus Christ and his Father. fn One need only read Nephi’s words in 2 Nephi 25, regarding the necessity of the Jews believing in Christ and worshiping the Father in his name (verse 16) to appreciate the distinctness of the members of the Godhead in the minds of Nephite prophets. In addition, in 2 Nephi 31 we note the constant reference to the “words of the Father” as opposed to the “words of the Son.” In our chapter now under consideration (1 Nephi 11), we read in verse 24 (italics added) these words: “And I looked, and I beheld the Son of God going forth among the children of men; and I saw many fall down at his feet and worship him” (see also verse 7; Alma 5:50). The Prophet Joseph Smith’s alterations in previous verses—mother of the Son of God and the Son of the Eternal Father—are perfectly consistent with the description of Christ in verse 24.
Mary was indeed the “mother of God,” and Jesus Christ was the “Eternal Father,” the “everlasting God” (cf. Mosiah 15:4; 16:15; Alma 11:38-39). The condescension of God the Son thus consists in the fact that the Eternal One would “descend from his throne divine” (Hymns, 1985, no. 193), be born in the most humble of circumstances, become among the most helpless of all creation—a human infant—and submit to the refining influences of mortal life. An angel further explained the condescension of God the Son to King Benjamin: “The time cometh, and is not far distant,” he prophesied, “that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay.” Further, Jehovah, the God of creation, “shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death.” (Mosiah 3:5, 7.) The condescension of the Son—his ministry among the unenlightened, his suffering and death, followed by the persecution and death of his anointed servants—is described by Nephi in 1 Nephi 11:27-36. (Millet, Robert L. “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” In: First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation. Religious Studies Center, BYU. 1988, p. 168)
Brother Millet is tackling a potentially thorny issue in the Book of Mormon, but is explanations and reasons for the explanations are pertinent to a modern audience with modern concerns. For Nephi, we can be assured that his prophetic understanding of the role of the Savior was as accurate as his information about his name and his mother’s name. What is interesting from Nephi’s standpoint, however, is that Nephi faced a rather unique challenge. Nephi had to immediately expand his understanding from a single God into God the Father and God the Son. To complicate things for Nephi, he would have learned of Jehovah’s role as creator, but the ascription of God the Son to that particular creative role. For Nephi, the position of the Messiah pre-mortally would be to assume the position that had been reserved for God the Father - that is, as the creator and the particular God of Israel. In that context and understanding, Nephi is absolutely correct that God condescended to the earth - because Nephi has learned that the position of God that he has worshipped is occupied by the pre-mortal Savior.
Nephi has no vocabulary to deal with the role of the God the Father, and indeed does not develop a theology of God the Father. Nephi acknowledges that He is, but provides to defined role, and makes no attempt to provide a context for the Father. For Nephi, the revelation of Jesus Christ is the revelation of the figure he has known as God, but who must now be separated into Father and Son. Nephi’s theology goes no further than that.
The revelation of Jesus Christ to the Nephites was a remarkably different process than the post-resurrectional appearances and deification of Jesus. In the New Testament, the resurrection becomes the proof point of the divinity of Jesus, and his place with God the Father. For Nephi, however, the process was completely different. Nephi learns of Jesus not through a mortal made immortal, but as the direct revelation of the pre-mortal creator of worlds who was yet to become flesh. In that context it is perfectly understandable that Nephi would have seen Jesus in the position of the God whom he knew as creator and protector of Israel (as indeed is supported by modern LDS theology.)
The second issue for the Nephites is the emphasis on the expiatory nature of the mortal mission of the Messiah. Jewish law understood both sin and the necessity of the removal of sin, hence many of the particular rites of expiation - the most symbolically important being the sacrifice of the unblemished lamb. Thus the general concept of the sin/repentance/cleansing cycle embodied in the atonement would not have been foreign to the Jewish Nephites. However, the interesting point is that this is the only uniquely Christian aspect of teaching that appears in the writings of Nephi or Jacob as we have them to this point in the Book of Mormon. This begs an interesting contrast between the Christianity of Nephi and the Christianity of 12 Apostles in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Christian church was founded upon not only the person of Christ, but his teachings. The fundamental doctrines of Christianity flow from the instructions Jesus gave while he taught in his three year ministry. While he did teach of the import of his death and resurrection, his time was mostly spent in explaining the way in which he would fulfill the law of Moses, principally as a shift in emphasis from performance to transformation of will (the intent of much of the Sermon on the Mount, see Matthew 5).
These doctrinal teachings appear to be missing in Nephi and Jacob. They teach the things their people need to hear, but the doctrines are not demonstrably Christian. In the polemic between a world presupposing Jesus as something wholly new, and a Book of Mormon preaching Christ long before his birth, the point that is missed is that so little of Jesus appears to this point in the Book of Mormon. Were Joseph to have truly constructed a Christianity, one would expect more of a doctrinal explanation. We do not get that here (though doctrines of Christianity will gradually enter the Nephite record later). What we have is the remarkable addition of the person of Jesus. At this point, it appears sufficient.
In the end, it is this emphasis on the person and mission rather than the teachings that informs Nephi’s statement: “2 Nephi 25:29 And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out.” Nephi is emphasizing the person, and the proper worship of the person. He is not emphasizing anything about following precepts. This is because the revelation of the person is the great new revelation Nephi has taught. The person and his atonement are the paramount facts of the new vision. Precepts will come later.