Mosiah
What does it mean to read the book of Mosiah with an eye to its message of comfort and redemption? It means to read theologically. To that end, this volume will be devoted to reflection on the theology of the book of Mosiah, fully aware that theology (reflection on what is taught) is not doctrine (what is taught with authority) and that my particular theological reflections are not the only ones possible. Theological reflection means thoughtful, imaginative response to scripture. But there is not one and only one possible result of that work, nor is any theological reflection doctrinally binding. James E. Faulconer, Mosiah.
Side note: I share this above quote because this theological reflection is what we do in Institute. It’s a thoughtful and imaginative response to scripture—not doctrinally binding—and wow, it does make us think.
King Benjamin
Benjamin delivered his long-awaited message in a series of three orations on different topics. The first is contained in Mosiah 2:9–41, the second in Mosiah 3:1–27, and the third in Mosiah 4:4–30. These three topics were separate and distinct from each other and echoed the three areas of service that King Benjamin had performed in his reign. In the first section, Benjamin spoke as a king reporting his royal stewardship, recalling how he had provided them temporal and spiritual peace. For his second topic he spoke as a prophet, once again teaching his people how to avoid spiritual chaos and unrest. In this phase of his speech he spoke the words of an angel, words that emphasized Christ’s service to others, including a portrayal of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. For his third and final topic, the prophet Benjamin spoke of how service can extend the knowledge of the glory, truth, and justice of God beyond a spiritual awakening. Thus Benjamin fulfilled his final act of service by bringing his people spiritual salvation. Susan Easton Black - “Benjamin’s Speech Combines Mysteries of God with Service to Humanity.” https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-treasury/king-benjamin
Mosiah 1:1-2
But one thing remains the same: whether a gospel looks forward or backward to Christ, the truth of his life is given in the language of those who will speak and hear it. This language isn’t merely the particular dialect of a people, but it also encompasses the images, ideas, and relationships that they understand. Adam S. Miller, Rosalynde F. Welch.
Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon.
Mosiah 2:3-4
Q: It has been more than four hundred years since Lehi left Jerusalem. That is like going to the temple to offer thanks now for something that happened in 1600. Why do the people come to the temple to offer thanks for something four hundred years ago?
Covenant Treaty Pattern
In Mosiah 1–6 and 25, Benjamin and Mosiah each direct a ceremony of spiritual renewal among the Nephite population. These ceremonies are similar to many other formal covenant-making ceremonies found in the Old Testament, beginning with the ceremony at Sinai (see Exodus 24) and including the ceremonies at Shechem (see Joshua 24) and Mizpeh (see 1 Samuel 10). In each of these, the king or religious leader of the people directs the ceremony, for ancient Hebrew kings were seen as mediators between God and the people. Other similar elements include gathering an assembly of the people by royal decree to make covenants, publicly reading the law or basis of the covenant, establishing or expounding upon a legal document, writing the speech down, and participating in cultic acts (ranging from building an altar to being baptized) to physically demonstrate acceptance of the covenant made. These similarities are further evidence of the Book of Mormon's Old Testament roots and strongly suggest that the Nephites conscientiously followed established laws and customs brought with them from Jerusalem. https://byustudies.byu.edu/further-study-chart/101-benjamins-and-mosiahs-covenant-ceremonies-compared-with-old-testament-rituals/
The phrases to rejoice and be filled with love and to be filled with joy seem to have a technical meaning in scripture. They appear to be alternative ways of describing being born again. Scripture abounds with references to being filled with this transforming joy and love under the influence of the Holy Ghost. M. Catherine Thomas.
Mysteries of God - Mosiah 2:9
The scriptures repeatedly invite the reader to inquire about and receive an understanding of the mysteries of God (see Alma 26:22; D&C 6:11; 42:61). Mysteries are spiritual realities that can be known and understood only by revelation because they exist outside man’s sensory perception; but our scriptures record them, our prophets teach them, and the Holy Ghost reveals them to the diligent seeker. In fact, the whole gospel is a collection of mysteries—truths pertaining to salvation that would not be known by men in the mortal probation if God did not reveal them. Benjamin’s address begins with an invitation to prepare to view the mysteries of God. M. Catherine Thomas.
Mosiah 2:30
I think this is also the fundamental message of the angel’s message to Benjamin: You will know you have found the true king when you discover him in the most unexpected place. Benjamin’s angel does not mention the swaddling clothes or the manger, but he points toward a place that, from some perspectives, is almost as unexpected. The Lord Omnipotent will dwell in a tabernacle of clay. He will be found in a human body that, fragile as clay, is subject to decay and damage. The manger and the swaddling clothes protect a body of flesh subject to the same fatigue and pain that Benjamin himself knows. One can imagine that Benjamin wants to ask: “How can a perishable body like mine be the place of divine omnipotence?” That tender body is both the disguise and the confirmation of Christ’s divine power. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the Lord wrapped in flesh, pulsing with blood and breath.
Christ’s power is an important theme in Benjamin’s gospel, in hand with the vulnerability of his body. I think this power, too, would have been displayed to the people in the condition of Benjamin’s aged body. After all, Benjamin once wielded the sword of Laban with the strength of his arm and established peace among his people with the force of his frame (Words of Mormon 1:13). Adam S. Miller, Rosalynde F. Welch. Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon.
They assumed that suffering is incompatible with divinity.
In fact, the message of Benjamin’s gospel seems to be just the opposite: the power of the Lord Omnipotent, the Father and Creator of heaven and earth, is linked with the extremity of his suffering.
The reality of his human suffering becomes a kind of disguise, the manger and swaddling clothes hiding the truth of his power and the wonder of his miraculous works. Where do we find Christ? And this shall be a sign unto you.
We see how Christ’s misery is wrongly used to deny his divinity, just as the beggar’s misery is wrongly used to deny his claim on us (Mosiah 3:7–9; compare Mosiah 4:17).
This is his sign to us: we find him wherever our fellow beings are cloaked in suffering, wherever they mourn and stand in need of comfort. He walks among us in a body of flesh. His heart beats and ceases beating at a terrible cost. And our salvation was, and is, and is to come, in the flux of that rushing blood.
Adam S. Miller, Rosalynde F. Welch.
Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon.
Mosiah 2:32-33
He warns that anyone who is inclined (“listeth”) to obey the spirit of contention risks damnation, for such a person has “transgressed the law of God” (Mosiah 2:32–33). Benjamin’s sermons are a response to his fear that contention will ultimately divide his people. Apparently, Benjamin sees contention—or, perhaps better, contention that leads to the fragmentation of God’s people—as the root of the Nephites’ problems. James E. Faulconer, Mosiah.
Mosiah: 2:36-38
Q: Does the spirit withdraw from us or do we withdraw from the spirit?
Mosiah 3:19 - What is the natural man?
But where it’s easy to imagine a young Nephi staying up all night, unable to sleep as he “sat pondering” on his father’s words, Benjamin himself tells us that he was woken from sleep by the angel’s repeated command, “Awake . . . . Awake, and hear the words which I shall tell thee” (1 Nephi 11:1; Mosiah 3:2, 3). And where Nephi is carried off “into an exceedingly high mountain” and granted a sweeping vision of global salvation history, Benjamin is only asked to sit on the edge of his bed and hear—not see—the angel’s much more local message about how a “natural man,” despite being an enemy to God, can still be saved.
What is a “natural” body? It’s a body sown in corruption. It’s the human body subject to a natural, inevitable corruption and dissolution. The natural body is the mortal body, the body that depends on blood, the body that’s naturally going to die and that will need to be resurrected.
Or, simply: the natural man is the dying man.
This is why “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam” (Mosiah 3:19). The natural man is an enemy to God because the Fall introduced death and the natural man doesn’t want to die. The natural body is afraid to die. The fundamental problem is fear.
This is what it means to be a sinner. Sinners live as if their life’s blood belonged to them. They live life on the run from God, terrified to yield to his will. Running from God, the natural body “doth . . . shrink from the presence of the Lord into a state of misery,” and in this way, they all “have drunk damnation to their own souls” (Mosiah 3:25).
We can yield our lives to God and be filled with his life. Or we can claim our lives as our own and be cut off from his life. But there’s no third path. Adam S. Miller, Rosalynde F. Welch.
Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon.
Conclusion
The atoning sacrifice had been symbolically declared by earlier prophets (see Isaiah 53:6; Moses 5:7). Yet only when the prophet Benjamin spoke of Mary and the Atonement, death, and the Resurrection of Christ did an entire nation hear the glorious good news in fulness and in power. Previous prophets alluded to the same message, but their people were “stiffnecked” (Mosiah 3:14; see also Exodus 32:9; Isaiah 48:4). Of necessity, types and shadows replaced clear revealed light, and the law of Moses replaced the fulness of the joyous news of the Redemption. But for the people gathered to hear Benjamin the prophet, there was no symbolic replacement, no delaying substitution, no alternative name. There was “no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation [could] come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:17).
King Benjamin delivered his message in plainness because those gathered had come prepared to learn of Christ. They had before them a benevolent prophet whose example had taught them preparatory to their receiving these angelic words. They had listened and had already begun to put off the natural man and become Saints. They had learned from his actions and words the need to demonstrate in their sacrificial offerings a spirit of rejoicing and thanksgiving to God. They were becoming like children, “submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord [saw] fit to inflict upon [them]” (Mosiah 3:19).
Susan Easton Black. “Benjamin’s Speech Combines Mysteries of God with Service to Humanity.” https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-treasury/king-benjamin
Mentioned in class: Book of Mormon app https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/feature/book-of-mormon-app?lang=eng
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