Question: Do Isaiah and other scriptures say what causes the “great division” at the time the Jews and Lamanites believe in Christ and the words of Isaiah are fulfilled as predicted by Nephi in 2 Nephi 30:4–18?
Answer: A part of what causes the division Nephi predicts appears in his prophecy itself, namely that “The things of all nations shall be made known; yea, all things shall be made known unto the children of men. There is nothing which is secret save it shall be revealed; there is no work of darkness save it shall be made manifest in the light; and there is nothing which is sealed upon the earth save it shall be loosed” (2 Nephi 30:16–17). That will present an enormous test for people.
That is also the time when the Lord raises up his end-time servant who is named “righteousness,” who has been “hidden” from the world as a test of God’s people and of the world (Isaiah 41:1–2). While Nephi cannot mention God’s servant directly—being “forbidden” to say more of what he saw in his vision of the end from the beginning (1 Nephi 14:28), he can quote Isaiah to say it. This, he does in the very context of “a great division among the people,” linking the two ideas:
“And with righteousness shall the Lord God judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. For the time speedily cometh that the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people, and the wicked will he destroy; and he will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire” (2 Nephi 30:9–10; cf. Isaiah 11:4).
In the same prophecy, Nephi further predicts that “the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be declared among them”—that is, among their descendants—which, together with the believing Jews, brings about “the restoration of his people upon the earth” (2 Nephi 30:5–8). From Jesus’ words, however, we know that the fulness of the gospel turns to Israel’s natural lineages only after the Ephraimite Gentiles largely reject it after having received it (3 Nephi 16:10–11; 20:28–31).
The “great division” Nephi predicts thus occurs first among the Ephraimite Gentiles—between those who reject the fulness of the gospel at the time the Lord raises up his end-time servant, when “the things of all nations are made known”—and those Ephraimite Gentiles who assist in declaring the gospel to Israel’s natural lineages. Secondly, it occurs among the wicked, those who are destroyed by fire and those who become his millennial covenant people (2 Nephi 30:10).
