Episode 23: 3rd Nephi 27 – 4th Nephi 1
Shiloh and Ben finish their discussion of Jesus Christ’s visit to the Americas. Christ quotes from both Isaiah and Malachi, and they explore themes from these scriptures using a Beatitude / Sermon on the Mount hermeneutic to more deeply understand both Isaiah and Malachi in seeing God in a new way. Jesus Christ teaches that the Father’s purpose of sending Him to earth was “that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me” (3rd Ne 27:14), and we see that Christ’s doctrine — reflective of Jacob’s prior desire that “we would to God that we could persuade all men… [to] suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world” (Jacob 1:8) — calls us all to follow Him to Gethsemane and to Calvary. We suffer for each other in temporal and finite matters what Jesus Christ exampled in spiritual and infinite matters, as we learn more intimately His descriptive call: “What manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am” (3rd Ne 27:27). Ben and Shiloh, once again, lament that only 3 pages are dedicated in 4th Nephi to addressing the time of the Zion-type society that occurs after Jesus Christ’s appearance. Shiloh imagines sitting down with Mormon one day to ask him why he included so little about this glorious time of righteousness, to which Shiloh imagines Mormon responding: “If you think too little is written in 4th Nephi, perhaps you don’t really yet understand all that is in 3rd Nephi.”
