"Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world" (Alma 34:. 34).
This series is about whether or not we believe the words of God in the Book of Mormon, keeping in mind that there are ways to measure our belief in His words. We talk a lot about faith, but belief seems to carry a lot of weight in the Book of Mormon. But they are related in that belief is faith, and faith is believing His words. It is not about knowing His words, or even about teaching them, but about believing them. For if we believe His words we will believe in Him, we will repent and turn to Him.
It is, after all, a belief or non-belief of His words that will separate us. Alma describes a desire to believe as exercising faith. It follows that believing Him is the best way to begin to exercise our faith in Him. It is the reason ministering angels declare the word of God to those they minister to (Moroni 7:25). If we just talk of faith but don't believe Him, we are just--talking.
What does Amulek mean by the term "same spirit?" He makes it clear by telling us that it is the spirit that possesses our bodies at the time we die, and the spirit that will possess our bodies in the eternal world. A question arises as to whether he is referring to the spirit world as the eternal world, or the world we enter after our bodies and spirits have become inseparable.
Regardless, the state of this 'same spirit' is THE factor in whether or not we will repent in this life. And the state of this 'same spirit' is THE factor in whether or not we will believe Him (2 Nephi 33:10). Notice the link between believing and repenting.
As I was preparing to write this post several ideas came into my mind. Because of this I can now say that I am understanding what the Lord meant when He said that His words are one Eternal Round. It is because all His words bring us back to Him and how important it is to believe His words. By believing His words we will turn to Him because His words are Him. It doesn't matter where we start on the Eternal Round, we will end up at the same starting point. If we start on the Eternal Round at belief, we end up at belief. If we start on the Eternal Round at repentance, we end up at repentance. All His words are One Eternal Round.
So with that in mind, that 'same spirit' spoken of by Amulek has everything to do with His words and whether we believe them, or at least initially, desire to believe them. Light and truth increases our intelligence, and because His words are light and truth, even His spirit, as we receive them our spirit is nourished with more light and truth, and we grow in intelligence. Our spirit is nourished and enlarged.
Joseph ties the intellect, the spirit, and the mind together when he said:
"The mind or the intelligence which man possesses," says Joseph Smith, "is co-equal with God himself."
What greater crime than the minimizing of such capacity? The Prophet continues,
"All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement. . . . God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge."
As I thought about what Amulek said, many ideas on how our spirits are enlarged, it came to my mind that if our spirits can be enlarged they can also be contracted. We have been taught that it is the flesh that is tempted and weak and that Satan has power over the flesh. Could it be that Satan has power over the spirit as well? Yes, and the Book of Mormon makes it clear that without the Atonement, our spirits are subject to Satan, while our bodies are subject to death (2 Nephi 9:9-12).
It is another "either or" that we discover. Our spirits are either being enlarged or they are being contracted. Like with His words, we are either receiving more or losing what we have.
"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if it so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Roman 8:9). It is either or. Connect His Spirit dwelling in you with His words being found in you.
I first thought of 3 Nephi 11:1-7 where people gathered after the destruction in the land, and struggled to hear the voice speaking to them because they were conversing among themselves, and not looking toward the source of the voice, and therefore did not open their ears to hear the voice.
Hearing Him enlarges our spirit. Conversing among ourselves and not looking towards the source of the voice contracts our spirit. Even when we 'hear' according to Nephi, we will not be brought to the light if we do not ask to understand (2 Nephi 32:4).
It is our spirit that is nourished (Moroni 6:4). It is His words that keep us in the right way (2 Nephi 31:19-20).
"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit" (Romans 8:5). When Paul says that our spirits are willing, but the flesh is weak, he teaches that a willing spirit is one that is ready to be nourished. And because the scriptures link our hearts and minds with our spirits, we can begin to understand that the 'same spirit' is the one we have either nourished or have not nourished with His light and truth.
Spirits have different intelligence and spirits grow in intelligence as they receive more light and truth. Those whose spirits have not received light and truth are subject to the flesh, and the more they are assimilated into the world, the more removed from light and truth they become. And because it is generational, it becomes more difficult to break the chain spoken of by the Lord in D&C 123, because the creeds of the fathers are riveted upon the hearts of the children, the later generations groan under the weight of its iniquity.
Another thought that came to my mind is the scripture that says "...if ye could be healed by merely casting your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief... (Alma 33:21)? If you had the opportunity to look and live, would your spirit be responsive to this test of your belief?
Joseph said: "We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; . . . but . . . no man ever arrived in a moment: he must have been instructed . . . by proper degrees. The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens."
Contracted minds/spirits will not stretch any higher than what is most important to them, i.e., their god.
Another indicator of a contracted spirit is the lack of thirst for the word of God. There is no hunger. We settle for spiritual twinkies instead of light and truth. I am reminded of all the fruit that we bear, none of which is good. There is no desire to search, no desire to believe. Is that 'same spirit' one who believes that she is already good enough, that there will be some things to forgive, but because of the Lord's love, she will be ushered into the blessings of the great beyond?
"Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come" (D&C 130:18-19).
Is there no Spirit of Inquiry? Avraham Gileadi wrote:
"Paul and Silas’ missionary experience with the Jews in the synagogue at Berea reveals a telling contrast between the early saints who searched the scriptures daily to determine what God was saying in his Word and those who remained content to listen to the brethren’s preaching:
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honorable women who were Greeks, and of men, not a few” (Acts 17:11–12).
If searching the scriptures daily to see what they said—not only what Paul and Silas preached—defined saints as “more noble” before God, then wouldn’t it profit saints today to emulate their example, especially in a day when those scriptures are beginning to be fulfilled?
Certainly, the early saints had fulltime professions like the saints do today that perhaps required the bulk of their daytime hours to sustain life. Yet, the scriptures they had and searched—most likely the words of Isaiah that predict the first and second comings of Jesus Christ—set their faith on fire.
Religious Jewish traditions to this day focus on searching the Torah to elicit the truths of God that sustain them through life’s challenges. Jews have traditionally eschewed the practices of the Gentiles such as the games and circuses these loved to attend. Even though Jews were scattered around the world, and were judged and persecuted by non-Jews for being different, God was still the center of their lives.
But isn’t being different also what characterizes church members today, and within the body of the church what characterizes persons who search the words of God? Isn’t the spirit in inquiry shared by saints and Jews ancient and modern what sets them apart from secular Jews and saints-in-name only?
Wasn’t that what distinguished Nephi, who inquired of the Lord, from his brothers, who didn’t? Do we realize that the gap between searchers and listeners-only has so widened that in just one generation almost the entire church has moved into a non-searching mode? When prophecy fails—as Isaiah says—where will the saints turn who have never exercised these spiritual skills but relied instead on what non-searchers told them?" (emphasis added)
I have raised more questions than answers in this post, and because our spirits differ in the amount of intelligence obtained, we can see that there are no two spirits that are the same. Being called upon to repent, however, does require that our spirits be in such a condition as to be receptive to the light and truth communicated to our spirits. It is not the light that is missing, but a 'willing' spirit that has not been given an opportunity to respond to the light and truth. This is just another way to see how the Book of Mormon convicts us. It contains the light and truth and whether we search it out, receive it in our hearts and desire to receive more light and truth, it will remain a contracted spirit. We have the book!
Next: But We Have the Book! - And It Was Written For Us.