Debates about the nature of God have echoed in Jewish and Christian circles over many centuries but without seeming resolution. When prophets and apostles who knew God were persecuted to the point of extinction, their successors, who didn’t know God—among them not a few of the persecutors—decided by committees what they thought God was like […]
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Just as we are saved by grace “after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23), so we are exalted by grace after all we can do through a process of purification and sanctification until we become “holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:33–33). Indeed, “we know also that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior
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Question: Does Isaiah mention anything about the changing of sacred ordinances? Answer: Isaiah describes both the blessings that come with observing pure ordinances and the curses that come from changing them. The purpose of temple ordinances or sacred rites of passage, for example, is to enter into God’s presence—as “when you come to see me”
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Question: Does Isaiah mention anything about the existence of a heavenly Mother? Answer: Isaiah uses a beautiful a–b–a mini-chiasm to identify humanity’s “Maker” as our “Father” (‘av) and his “Wife/Woman” (‘ishah) as she who gives birth to his “sons/children” (banai). Isaiah 45:9–11 Woe to those in conflict with their Maker, mere shards of earthenware pottery!
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Have we taken to heart the invitation to “rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind” (Ether 4:15)? Says Isaiah: “None calls upon your name, or rouses himself to take hold of you. For you have hidden your
Question: How do the two witnesses of Revelations 11:3 fit with the end-time servant prophecy? Do they follow the end-time servant? Are they some of the servants he calls as mentioned in Jacob 5:70? Where does their ministry fit in the timeline of the last seven years before Christ comes? Answer: Because a majority of
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When defining what constitutes “an acceptable sacrifice” in God’s eyes, we should be careful to avoid assumptions as there are far more variations of what is not an acceptable sacrifice than of what is. Nevertheless, we are given this goal: “The sons of Moses and also the sons of Aaron [the priesthood] shall offer an
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Question: An author recently made a convincing case that the newly crowned king of England is the Antichrist. Is that possible? Answer: The king of England does not fit the scriptural pattern of the end-time Antichrist. Isaiah depicts the Antichrist as the tyrannical ruler of a militaristic world power from the North—from an end-time “Assyria”—who
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The imagery of an iron rod representing the word of God contains nuances we may have missed, considering God’s word is truth and iron is unbending. And as we believe in God’s word in the scriptures insofar as they are translated correctly, that includes their interpretation, as their misuse or distortion is cause for damnation.
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According to the scriptures, Enoch’s people, who succeeded in becoming a city of Zion, most nearly parallel and resemble the prophesied latter-day Zion. The book of Moses, for instance, links these two Zions rhetorically and typologically and shows that they will become one people of God. But just how did the Lord’s people in Enoch’s
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Reading the Book of Isaiah for the first time in my early twenties in New Zealand, I somehow sensed that its historical scenario had a much bigger application than only to Isaiah’s day or soon thereafter. Less than a decade later, in a yeshiva or rabbinic school in Jerusalem, Israel, the head rabbi declared as
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The Davidic Covenant—God’s individual covenant with King David and his heirs—came into being in response to Israel’s need for protection against enemies. Although God had promised his protection under the collective Sinai Covenant, it required his entire people’s obedience to his commandments that are the terms of the covenant. That obedience had been achieved during
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