This is Alma trying to explain, to his son, Corianton, the justice of God, a justice that sounds so fierce and miserable in Old Testament writings, starting with the casting out of the Garden of Eden (which increased sadness and difficulty for Adam and Eve) and continuing on throughout history, and which seems, to Corianton, to be out of character of a loving God.
Alma starts from the beginning. His explanation goes something like this:
1st: Adam and Eve. If they had remained in their original state in the Garden of Eden, where everything was provided, and where there was no death due to the tree of life, there would have been sobering natural consequences? What would have been some of those?
They would have lived forever, their children and grandchildren and every succeeding generation would have lived forever. That is unsustainable on earth...beyond its natural resources...shortages of food, overwhelming environmental pollution, etc. etc. Think about what happens in a society in that situation.
2nd: Powerful, wicked, men and women would never die. Their destructive, dishonest egregious efforts to maintain power would never end. They (and we) would never have the sense of mortality that offers us reminders and crucial opportunities to review our lives. Alma refers to this in verse 5: "having no space for repentance" means having no sense of parameters of lifespan or sense of an end, which parameters serve all of us well in moving us to review our lives and consider how we are using our time and to what ends, and therefore offering opportunities to recognized opportunities to engage in the blessed experience of repentance.
3rd: Furthermore, not only would powerful, wicked people never die, there would be never ending battles between them and those who wanted to dethrone them or to take their place. We have enough of those in a mortal life, they would be endless in an immortal wicked world.
Alma refers to such a situation being one in which the word of God becomes void. Void means "having no legal or binding force; nul; not effectual to bind parties, or to convey or support a right, not sufficient to produce its effect. Alma is saying that in such a situation, people who choose wickedness, would not be motivated to repent, but feel free to continually pursue wicked goals without fear of death or any sense of mortal danger. The prophet Isaiah wrote: "My word shall not return to me void, but shall accomplish that which I please". (Isaiah 55:11). A world that includes death, either your own, or of those who are important to you, includes a powerful, and fairly frequent nudge to consider your life, the word of God, and what is most important to you. A world without death does so far less.
4th: Alma also says that the "great plan of salvation would have been frustrated". God's whole plan is set up to give us experience that teaches us powerful, personal lessons, helps us see and choose what is most important to us, teaches us how to make changes in order to become all we desire to be, and then to be transformed by glorious resurrection.
Alma is trying to show Corianton that it is easy to see harshness in God's actions where there is actually a tremendous amount of mercy.
Note: Resurrection doesn't just mean "getting a body back". It means being "raised with glory", transformed in heavenly ways, empowered to do the good you seek to do in powerful ways. What kind of glory? One that reflects, specifically, who you, individually have become and the desires of your heart. (Doctrine and Covenants 88). (Those who do not wish to do anything good....no glory with your resurrection).
5th: Alma also speaks about what the inevitability of physical death does in a person's life: It prevents you from living here forever (which most would not prefer once they not only experience the tragedies and violence involved in mortal life) and helps you understand that this life is far from ideal and that post death existence offers far more to us than mortal life does.
Understanding that, we begin to see that being forever here on earth would cause us to become "lost" (Alma 42:6). Have you ever become physically lost? Unable to find your way home, or to the destination at which you set out to arrive? Becoming lost, in this verse is like that...unable to find your way home to life in the presence of God, which home is joyful to every person who loves goodness.
Corianton, with his father and brothers, has been through a lot (Alma chapter 38), both physically and emotionally, because of his work with his father, trying to teach the word God. He wonders whether it makes sense to teach about a coming of a Savior far into the future that he is not sure will happen. And he has made some bad decisions trying to find relief from that insecurity about what he has been asked to do and to teach.
Alma's words in chapter 42 are his attempt to help his son see that God's response to sin, whether it is Corianton's sin or the sin of Adam and Eve, or anyone else, is not a vindictive assignment to a state of punishment and misery, but rather a reflection of God offering a mortal life that is set up to help us understand and experience the natural, logical, actual consequences of sin (which consequence, is always, ultimately, and naturally, misery) and the consequences of discipleship.
Most of us, consciously, or unconsciously, experience that learning and experience during our lives. Death, and our awareness of our mortality, is part of the plan to move us out of living amidst what would otherwise be a never ending earthly cycle of power seeking and conflict and violence and struggle, and the misery that such creates if allowed to continue without end.
The post mortal life, Alma explains, is set up to free us from that awful possibility...putting us in a new, post-moral state; a state where redemption continues to be possible due our desire to repent and change without the encumbrance of a failing, mortal body, which redemption continues to be available to us due to the amazing justice of God and due to the amazing mercy and deliverance from the bondage of our sins, which deliverance the Father and the Son made possible through the latter's atonement for each of us.
Corianton has been struggling with a misapprehension of the nature of God...seeing Him as a decreer of laws, a promiser of far off personal interaction, and a vindictive dealer out of justice. When we see God that way we seek consolation elsewhere, which is exactly what Corianton did. That put Corianton in a reasonable state of mind: feeling antipathy towards God because he thinks that God's motives must be control and punishment for sin (which he, Corianton has engaged in) while, at the same time He claims to be full of love. Corianton's antipathy, coming from those assumptions, makes total sense.
Corianton has been laboring under the belief that God, by nature is vindictive and harsh, focused on obedience and penalty (justice), in spite of claiming to be a God of love. His father is trying to help disabuse him from that erroneous assumption by explaining the total incorporation of loving mercy and forgiveness in God's plan from the beginning, made possible by a huge and voluntarily and lovingly given price on the part of both the Father and the Son.
Verse 1 of Chapter 43 indicates that Coriantion may have found it helpful.
No comments:
Post a Comment